Grad School is scary stuff. I just finished my first week of it, and it can be pretty intimidating, especially if you’re staying for your PhD like me.

I’ve actually found myself questioning that a lot lately. If I work hard, I could finish my Masters in Ocean Engineering in 1 year. It’d be rough, but quite doable. The job market is interesting these days. We’re right around the time where all the baby-boomers are retiring. Lots of open jobs. So I could get my foot in the door and start off slightly higher than someone with just their B.S. Or I could go another 2-3 years and get my PhD… be a Dr of Aerospace Engineering (they don’t have an Ocean PhD). One of my former bosses advised me that a Masters is good to get, you’re smarter for it and everything is still wide open for you… but when you get your PhD you are now a specialist in whatever you did it in (for me it would (hopefully) be propulsion). Now if I become a propulsion expert… that’d be great… because whoever used to be the propulsion expert probably retired along with the baby boomers, and no one filled the gap (again, hopefully). It just seems like a big risk. I’ve got a decent amount of job experience… I’ve had 6 internships… 3 with the DoD, 2 with Lockheed Martin, and 1 with Northrop Grumman. I even have a patent pending…

Either way… it’s still a risk… and it’s not like getting a PhD is easy. There is a lot of intimidating stuff involved. You REALLY have to know your stuff. I’ve been meaning to send out an email to all of my old bosses to see what they think. Maybe I’ll get around to that this weekend.

This semester I’m taking Advanced Aero/Hydro, Vehicle Structures, and Vehicle Dynamics and Control… and 3 research credits. My current project may end up being my Master’s thesis topic (has to do with drag of a towed sonar array).

Other than school/work type stuff everything is going surprisingly well. My social life is pretty decent as a grad student… probably even better then my undergrad social life. I think the whole grad student angle has given me a nice helping of confidence… or it could be that I have a degree already.

about grad school