Although it’s not usually a requirement, earning a master’s degree before applying to a Ph.D. or other doctoral program can be a good way to get accustomed to graduate-level coursework while gaining valuable research experience and connections in your field.
But it can also be an expensive and time-consuming detour on the route to a doctorate, so it’s important to consider whether the benefits of earning a master’s before a Ph.D. outweigh the cost.
Here are some factors experts say you should weigh.
Reasons to Get a Master’s Degree First
A master’s eases the transition to graduate work and may make you more competitive when applying to doctoral programs.
Karin Ash, a graduate consultant at Accepted, a college admissions consulting firm, says the research experience students can gain through a master’s tends to give them an edge in doctoral admissions.
[Read: 3 Ways Graduate School Pays Off]
Master’s studies can also expand opportunities for students who already have significant research work behind them. Ash notes that some students she works with have research experience but choose to explore other research areas through a master’s before deciding on a focus for their doctoral studies.
If your undergraduate major was fairly different from what you plan to study at a graduate level, getting a master’s degree first can help bridge the gap, says Julie Posselt, a professor of education and associate dean of the University of Southern California Graduate School. Posselt, who earned her master’s before pursuing doctoral studies, says master’s studies can also help you decide whether what you’re studying is right for your academic interests and career goals.
“I learned through my master’s program that the field that I had started to pursue was much more narrow than what I wanted for the long term,” Posselt says. “So instead of investing five years in a field, I was able to invest a shorter amount of time — two years — and then make the decision that if someday I wanted a Ph.D., it was going to need to be in a broader field than the one that I had during my master’s.”
Ash and Posselt say a master’s can be a good way to network with experts in your field of interest and make connections that will be valuable in a future career.
“A lot of STEM students tell me they don’t have professors who know them as their classes are large,” Ash wrote in an email. “Obtaining a master’s degree will allow them to develop relationships with professors who can then write substantive recommendation letters.”
[How Long Does It Take to Get a Ph.D. Degree — and Should You Get One?]
Reasons to Go Straight to a Doctoral Program
Master’s degrees can be expensive, and students often don’t receive significant funding to complete their studies.
“My concern is the increasing debt that American students have from their undergraduate education,” Posselt says, “and the fact that most master’s programs don’t fund them, and as a result, students have to take out significant loans” to complete a master’s.
“I always encourage students, if they’re going to get a master’s degree, to try to find a place where they can get funding along the way,” she says.
On the other hand, Ash says it’s common for Ph.D. programs to be fully funded, so it may be unnecessarily costly to earn a master’s degree first — especially if it means taking out student loans.
[Ph.D. Programs That Prepare You for Work Beyond Academia]
In addition to considering the tuition cost, Posselt says it’s important to consider the earnings you could lose by delaying the start of your career by a year or two to pursue a master’s degree.
It’s also worth investigating whether the doctoral program you’re considering will accept some of the credits you earn in a master’s program, as that could shorten your doctoral studies. But Posselt says the transferability of master’s-level coursework is relatively weak and varies by institution.
Even if you do apply master’s coursework to your Ph.D., it may not be worthwhile.
“Many Ph.D. programs will accept credits from courses taken at the master’s level if the coursework is relevant to the program,” Ash says. “However, often the applicant is veering to a more specialized education and will need to take the appropriate coursework to become proficient in that subject area. This could mean they end up with many more credits than needed to graduate.”
If you’re still unsure whether you should pursue a master’s first, Posselt says it’s important to consider the leverage the degree could have when it comes to doctoral admissions. A master’s is more valuable in some fields than others, she notes, so consulting with advisers and mentors from your undergraduate studies is a good way to determine how useful it will be when pursuing doctoral work.
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Should I Get a Master’s Before a Doctoral Degree? originally appeared on usnews.com
