by Adedayo Ademuwagun

Getting a master’s degree is an important career and personal decision. One gets the opportunity to sharpen their skills, advance their knowledge, gain some speciality and improve on one’s job prospects. If one is doing the studies abroad, it’s also a chance to experience another part of the world and expand their horizons.

People choose to do a master’s for diverse reasons. For some people, it’s just for personal fulfilment and not necessarily for its practical value. But for other people, their objective is to boost their credentials and get ahead professionally.

Khadija is a postgraduate student doing a master’s in public health. She says, ‘I’m doing this as a personal goal but also to increase my career opportunities. Like MBA, MPH is a professional degree and there are positions in the public health sector that you can’t get to without an MPH. So I believe that getting this degree will help me move up the rungs faster.’

Some recent graduates also choose to go back to school for a master’s in the belief that it would make them more employable and increase their chance of landing a lucrative job.

Kehinde studied maths at undergraduate level and is now doing systems engineering in postgraduate school. He says, ‘I tried to get a job after school but could only get a teaching job, which wasn’t what I wanted. So I decided to do a master’s in systems engineering. A degree in maths somehow confines one to a certain type of jobs. But systems engineering is more versatile. This is why I chose it to improve my career prospects.’

According to research by the British Council, Nigeria will soon overtake India to become Britain’s second biggest source of international postgraduate students. A lot of Nigerian youths go abroad to study in US, UK, Ghana and other countries with the view that those countries offer better postgraduate programmes and opportunities.

For instance, Khadija is doing her MPH at the University of Ghana. But why did she choose Ghana?

‘Ghana offers a fixed calendar and there’s no threat of protracted strikes,’ she explains. ‘There are also better infrastructure and student-oriented programmes. The staff actually care about your welfare. Moreover, the course I’m doing has a shorter duration here in Ghana than in Nigeria.’

If you’re thinking of taking a postgraduate degree, here are important things to consider:

1. How will a postgraduate degree help you achieve your goals in life?

Some people enrol for a postgraduate course without having a clear idea of what they want to do in life and how this course will help them achieve this. This sort of decision making could be very costly, because the person may become disoriented halfway or at the end of the course.

So before choosing to enrol, it’s helpful to figure these things out first and be sure that taking this course would really help you reach your goals in life.

2. Will it create the desired job opportunities for you?

Some people go fresh from university to PG school without some work experience and others who’re having job hunting issues return to school with the hope that they’ll get the right offers when they’re armed with a postgraduate degree. How does this often pan out?

Sheila is a HR executive. She says about this, ‘Right now the job market is saturated with first degree graduates. So if you’re coming in for a job that requires no experience, obviously having a master’s will give you an advantage. I’ll prefer to hire the person with a master’s than one with a bachelor’s degree for a job that requires no experience.

‘But if it’s for a job requiring experience, then experience trumps qualification. If two people come for a job and one has more relevant experience than the other who has a superior educational qualification, I’ll go for the more experienced person.’

Experts advise to take a course if one has done their finding and is sure that the time and money spent in PG school will translate to better employment opportunities and career advancement. A good idea is to speak with some experienced professionals in your field to find out which courses they recommend.

If you’re a fresh graduate, it’s also a good idea to work for some time before a postgraduate degree. That way you can save money for PG studies. Some companies even subsidise or help staff pay for their part time PG studies.

Moreover, work experience can be valuable to postgraduate studies and research. As Khadija says, ‘My work experience has given me some edge in PG school so far. I have some practical experience that informs my understanding of my coursework. So I think for certain courses it’s better to have worked for some time first.’

3. Will it be best to quit your job?

Khadija read microbiology and worked as a quality assurance analyst at a foods company before she quit to do her MPH. She says she really wanted to leave that area of work.

Like her, some people quit their job for postgraduate school because they’re unsatisfied with the job and hope a master’s will open new doors for them. However, candidates should consider the opportunity cost, that is how much they’ll lose in income during their time in PG school, before they hand in that resignation letter. If one earns N150,000 a month and quits the job to do a course for two years, the course would cost N3.6 million in lost income alone.

If you don’t like your current job, an option might be to try find a new job or if possible try address the difficulties on the current job in order to make it more satisfying.

‘If you have a good job, you don’t need to quit for a master’s,’ says Sheila. ‘There are convenient postgraduate courses around especially online that you can do part time while you continue to work. But if you have a crappy job, then it’s sensible to go to PG school full time and come back with better job prospects.’

4. How will it affect your marital plans?

Another thing that ladies often consider is how they’ll carry on their career and academic pursuits without hurting their marital plans and duties. Some ladies finish university/polytechnic and then marry. So when that’s out of the way, they go back to PG school and then the kids can come along the line. Some ladies choose to finish all their studies before getting married while some choose to marry, have all the kids they want to, and then go to postgraduate. So it’s important for women, and men, to plan for this and decide how they’ll balance things.

Twiggy is a mum and also an executive. She says, ‘I did all my studying before I got married, and I advise ladies to do the same if they have the chance because it’s going to be a bit difficult combining schooling and parenting. But it’s doable. I have friends who’re also raising kids and are back in school. So it depends on the lady and how important a postgraduate degree is for her, assuming her fiancé is cooperative.’