If you are approaching the end of your college career, you are likely doing your best to dodge the dreaded question, “So what are you going to do after graduation?”
Many students consider graduate or professional school to be the safe route. I remember feeling that way when I was a fourth-year student majoring in communication studies. Now as a second-year law student, I have realized there is no true safe route.
While putting off graduate school to work bears a certain risk of post-college malaise and potential unemployment, it can also help sharpen your interests and narrow down the field you would like to pursue as a career.
Some students come into college knowing exactly what they want to do. But a lot of students come to realize that they are not as passionate or interested in what they initially believed would be their major and career field.
A survey conducted by the Daily Bruin and the UCLA Department of Statistics last school year found that nearly 40 percent of students reported switching their major at some point during college.
Unsurprisingly, the same type of shift can happen in the first few years out of college. I came into college wanting to pursue journalism, but after completing a graduate fellowship at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, law school seemed to be my best option.
Even as a law student, I still believe that a couple more years of work experience would have helped me narrow down exactly what kind of legal career I ultimately want to pursue.
Professional schools allow you some time to experiment with your career goals. But if you come in already knowing what you want to focus on, you may be better positioned to tailor your graduate school experience to the career you hope to have.
The best-case scenario to gaining some work experience first is that you discover you truly love the field you are working in and that graduate school is the natural next step. In some instances, you may actually be promoted without a graduate degree.
The worst-case scenario is that you realize that you are not as passionate about the area as you once were, but you luckily still have the opportunity to try a different area without the burden of paying off graduate school loans.
In fact, work experience will often help make you an even stronger candidate for graduate school. Some programs only admit a small fraction of undergraduates each year, and explicitly prefer students with work experience.
And without work experience, you might be at a disadvantage in the application process as you compete for limited spots against others who have already established themselves professionally in the field you are pursuing.
For example, the average age of students who entered the UCLA Anderson School of Management class this fall was 31. For the UCLA School of Law, the average age for the incoming class was 25.
Leo Trujillo-Cox, the associate director of admissions and recruitment for the School of Law, said he advises students not to worry about getting “behind the curve” by taking time off to work before applying.
“In fact, that sort of trajectory puts them solidly in the majority of folks that ultimately apply and matriculate to law school,” he said. “At UCLA Law and many schools like ours, only about a third of the incoming, first-year class is coming directly from undergrad, with a solid majority having been out of school for some time.”
Of course, there are some individuals who have known from a young age exactly what they want to be when they “grow up” and therefore have no reason to wait till their late 20s to enroll.
But even if you are absolutely positive about your dream career, working in that field after graduating can help you establish connections early on and have something interesting to add to your resume and grad school application.
Graduate schools are not going anywhere.
While the real world may seem like a frightening place, it may be in your best interest to spend some time outside of the classroom.
If you give yourself time to clarify your career aspirations and save some cash while simultaneously becoming a more competitive candidate for admission to the graduate program of your choice, you are setting yourself up for success.
Email Franco at efranco@media.ucla.com or tweet her @elizabethfranco. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.