Postgraduate

When choosing to embark on postgraduate studies, you must not consider your reasons for doing so lightly, and it is important to bear in mind that the consequences of your choices may be serious.

The fact that you may thoroughly enjoy your subject of choice is naturally an encouraging and highly motivating reason to pursue a higher degree. However, it is important to ensure that your chosen course is in line with your long-term career aspirations.  However, this is not to say that you need only consider postgraduate courses which are directly related to your area of work interest. All further study will enable you to develop skills that you can subsequently market to an employer.

It may be that your reason for undertaking further study is to follow a specific career path.  Various careers require a professional qualification, for instance medicine, law, teaching, librarianship, clinical psychology and social work.  In other employment areas, a postgraduate qualification, although not essential, will prove to be a distinct advantage to applicants, especially when competition for positions is fierce. It is certainly worthwhile to research the area of work that you are interested in to identify whether a postgraduate course would be necessary or advantageous to you.

The most common reason that students give for choosing postgraduate study as an option is that they feel it would give them an advantage over other candidates. It may be advantageous to research the area of work in which you wish to enter in order to identify how potential employers view applicants with postgraduate qualifications. It is certainly true to say that in many cases a postgraduate qualification will enhance job prospects. However, other employers may well be more interested in the provable skills and work experience offered by applicants rather than additional paper qualifications.

Many postgraduate courses offer a route to converting to specific career areas. These could be taught Masters or diploma/certificate qualifications. The MSc in Information Technology is one of the most popular conversion courses. It is aimed at non-IT graduates who wish to work within the field of computing. For non-law students wishing to convert to law, there is the Common Professional Examination (CPE)/Diploma in Law, which is a one-year course that includes all the core elements of a law degree.  Courses are also available in a wide variety of other career areas.

Employment is another opportunity for converting to a new career.  Many recruiters offer employment opportunities for graduates of all disciplines and the relevant professional training is provided in a wide range of career areas which include IT, accountancy, personnel and marketing.

It is important to be aware that if you are choosing postgraduate study because you are unsure of which career path you wish to take, that you do not lose sight of making this decision.  It would be wise to use the duration of the course to research what options are available to you, to determine what skills you have to offer and find out what you want from a job.

If you are offered a place on a course by your tutor, even with the guarantee of funding attached, it can be seen as a very tempting offer.  However, it does not guarantee that it is the right option for you. It is important to think carefully about whether or not the course is one you will genuinely find interesting, and whether it fits in with your long-term career goals.  Postgraduate study may well be a very suitable option, but you may not wish to stay at the same university.  Indeed there could well be other institutions that are more appropriate for the subject you wish to study.

In order to successfully complete a postgraduate course, it is important to remember that a great deal of commitment and motivation is required.  Choosing a course because it seems an easy option may lead to serious problems if it has not been researched thoroughly.