
When to leave grad school off your resume (2012) - jimsojim
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2012/04/10/when-to-leave-grad-school-off-your-resume/
======
noelwelsh
There are some people who feel strongly that graduate school is a waste of
time, a moral failing, or worse. The author is clearly one of them. Fuck 'em.

More reasonably, nobody has the right to dictate to you how to spend your
time, once you are an adult. If you want to study a subject in depth (and
contrary to the author's assertion, there are some things that are virtually
impossible to learn on your own) you have every right to do so. If an employer
doesn't respect your education you almost certainly don't want to work with
them.

~~~
smt88
If you're able to make decisions without considering how they'll affect your
income, you're enjoying a luxury that the vast majority of humans ever born
cannot enjoy.

The liberal arts have always been a privilege of those who don't have to worry
about where their food comes from or how they'll pay off a huge debt. I'm one
of those privileged few, and it's endlessly enriching to have studied and
understand various humanities and "impractical" fields of study, but I'm fully
aware how lucky I am.

> nobody has the right to dictate to you how to spend your time

That's true, but they have the right to decide how they perceive you and
whether they want to pay you.

> If an employer doesn't respect your education you almost certainly don't
> want to work with them.

That may be true, but (as I said above) most people can't make decisions this
way. They're lucky to be covering their expenses with each paycheck, and they
can't afford to be choosy about employers.

In some cases, their field is small enough or their resume is weak enough that
they're desperate for _any_ job at all. The employer has the power in most
industries.

------
relkor
I came away from the article feeling that the author missed the point of a PhD
completely, at least for the hard sciences. When you complete a PhD, you have
by definition extended the scope of human knowledge. You must conduct original
research to get a PhD, its not just another couple of years of showing up to
class. A PhD student will typically have 5-7 journal papers, a couple of
conference presentations, perhaps a best paper, and an entire thesis by the
time they get out.

That is a lot of proven work, ability, and expertise that very few other
people on the planet have in your specific area.

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chasing
What the hell? If I'm hiring, I'd much rather see time in grad school listed
rather than a gap. Getting a Master's or PhD takes time, focus, dedication,
and intelligence. Those are all good things to show, even if the specific
subject matter is different.

Also: I'm wholly of the opinion that people who have strong backgrounds in
multiple subjects are deeper and more creative thinkers. (And just generally
more interesting to have around.)

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gtf21
This article can't be serious...

> Grad school on your resume is a formal announcement of a mistake.

Studying something is a mistake if you don't dedicate the rest of your life to
it, really?

> She lives on a farm in Wisconsin and __homeschools __her sons

This tells you everything you need to know about the author.

~~~
glxc
> She lives on a farm in Wisconsin and homeschools her sons

More power to her, her professional success has allowed her to pursue her
passion. I think the lesson then is that to pursue your passion you first need
to earn it.

> Grad school on your resume is a formal announcement of a mistake [if not
> working in the field]

Success is working forward, and not worrying about or admitting to mistakes

~~~
gtf21
I was talking about the homeschooling ;)

------
munin
> 4\. A Ph.D on your resume often makes you look like a poor self-learner.

This doesn't make any sense because after writing a dissertation, you have by
definition learned something that no one else knew, therefore, no one could
have taught it to you. How does that make you a poor self learner?

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blackguardx
I disagree with this blog post. I can't imagine any employer would look
negatively at a graduate degree. Even if in an unrelated field, an argument
can be made that a grad degree adds breadth of experience.

------
chriswarbo
So the author considers the opportunity to learn and conduct research full-
time as a bad thing, because it's not "working" in the "adult world", yet
considers travelling, sports training and dancing to be fine?

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michael_h
Ah, good old Penelope Trunk - a virtual emporium of poorly thought out
notions, backed up by nothing, but presented with _conviction_. It has been a
long while...

Need career advice? By all means, ask a person with no experience in your
field!

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ghaff
The author of this post seems to be laboring under the impression that
everyone has a nice neat career trajectory in which everything fits neatly
into place. And he doesn't like MBAs so he thinks people who have them ought
to hide the fact even at the cost of having a gap on a resume.

Sure, don't emphasize irrelevant stuff but, in general, this seems like pretty
silly advice.

~~~
cmrx64
(The author uses "her" in her biography section)

------
cmrx64
This seems to be aimed more at humanities degrees than mathematics or computer
science or other such technical degrees. I do still think applies in some
cases to some jobs.

Edit: looking at another post,
[http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/08/29/voices-of-the-
defen...](http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/08/29/voices-of-the-defenders-of-
grad-school-and-me-crushing-them/), it's obvious that she is only considering
humanities degrees and ignoring STEM fields.

~~~
relkor
Fair enough. I am not sure myself what exactly people with a PhD in Literature
or Social Justice go through to be anointed Dr.

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6d0debc071
The piece given here is how she would look at a CV of that pattern - and as
far as it goes that's fair enough. Personally if I see you with a four to
eight year gap on your CV my first question, assuming I'm hiring for a
significant role and your CV is strong in other respects, is going to be 'So,
what did you do during those years?' I'm not just going to assume you were
working small jobs to support yourself, I'm going to be thinking 'Were they
working small jobs? If so why didn't anyone there hire them full time? Were
they in prison? Were they a trouble employee?'

Certain parts of the recruitment and interviewing process are effectively
black boxes. You can guess at things that HR/hiring managers want - experience
and achievements related to the role they're looking to fill, relevant
qualifications - and there are some cultural things, (you wouldn't put a
picture of yourself on a CV in this country for instance,) but beyond that
it's a very muddy game. There's limited advice on that front - though my
personal take is that it would be a great shame not to be hired because you've
not given the best account of yourself. Or, perhaps worse, to be hired because
you've given someone the _wrong_ impression of yourself (assuming you're not
desperate for the money of course) and end up in a role that's going to make
you miserable.

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deutronium
What a terrible article, how would leaving a gap look remotely better.

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realusername
> "Penelope Trunk [...] She lives on a farm in Wisconsin."

Culture plays a huge part on the perceived value of degrees. On my case I did
not do a degree to learn things but mainly to have the right stamp at the
right place. You can be sure people will have a look at this part of the CV
even with 10 years of experience in the field. This article looks a bit too
american-centric.

