Why to go to graduate school
"...but maybe, yeah, and maybe even later." Here's why:
For all this gloom, maybe you're curious why anyone should consider going to grad school after Grinnell College?
I loved graduate school, and I love the career(s) that it has allowed me to pursue. So, if you are interested in getting more training in research, I'd be a hypocrite to stop you.
You should know that Grinnell College has a great track record getting students ready for graduate degrees
Some details about that: According to the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium, Grinnell College has, for twenty years, ranked seventh (per capita) among schools from which science and engineering Ph.D.s received their bachelor’s degrees. According to the same survey, within specific fields of graduate study, this per-capita ranking of Grinnell College graduates earning Ph.D.s is marginally higher at sixth in Psychology. That field-specific ranking is highest for Psychology among all the other sciences: comparably field-specific per capita rankings for Grinnell College graduates earning Ph.D.s in Agricultural Sciences, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, and Physics ranking at 8th, 11th, 12th, and 16th, respectively.
So, again, why NOT psychology?!
And the best thing is, you don't have to go immediately. Lots of those Grinnell College Ph.D.s did not go straight to grad school but spent a few years working a job elsewhere, learning more about themselves and becoming better person (like my favorite faculty member did).
I went straight through from undergraduate to graduate school, but I was a weird case of having very little else to my credit except an irrational thirst for research experience. It was, in retrospect, so irrational that I was really a jerk and had few other strengths to keep me floating at the time. (Don't believe me? Ask my favorite faculty member who went to the same program but started three years after I did and more years after she graduated).
You will probably do much better because, as the statistics go, you are probably much less of a jerk now than I was then.
If you're still reading, then that means you may want to know about how to apply to grad school. For that, you need to come visit my office, for which the door is usually open.
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