Hey all,
Let me introduce myself, my name’s Adam Graham. You won’t find me on the picture of our fabulous cast (I’ll try to put up one later), but I’m well entrenched in the SIS admissions world. I’ve been working as an Admissions Counselor for SIS Graduate Admissions for the past two years and have come to call our now famous office home (I’ve even slept on our couch – we work hard!). I’ve also been attending a Master’s program at AU part-time since 2005.
When I first decided to apply to grad school I planned on attending full-time and scrounging for scraps as I relived a little bit of my undergraduate years - going to school during the day and working a couple of hours at night to make ends meet. I was confident I had a great GPA and pretty decent GRE scores and thought Grad schools would be lining up to throw a little bit of money my way.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that I didn’t receive any merit aid from any of the schools I was accepted into. I knew my parents couldn’t help me out at all if I decided to go and I saw no other way to pay for Grad school. I was pretty depressed.
Then someone suggested I go part-time (this sounds a lot like a drug commercial right about now). I hadn’t really thought about going part-time because I was very much into the idea of getting back into college life and I wanted to be able to finish my program in 2 years. But as I thought more about it, it seemed to make a lot of sense.
I’m now working at American full-time and doing my master’s part time. I’ve managed to live comfortably while completing my degree, am coming out of my program with little debt and I’m finishing in 2 years!
So I wanted to give you all some of the positives and negatives to enrolling part-time and full-time.
Positives for Full-time:
-If you receive merit aid I really think it’s a no-brainer – there’s nothing better than receiving free education.
-A much lower level of stress. Full-time is 3 classes, part-time is 2 – you do the math. Working full-time and taking 2 classes is harder than taking 3 classes and working occasionally.
-A social life. Part of grad school is hanging out with the other brilliant minds that have decided to come to AU - sometimes this is talking about books and your research, sometimes this is having a beer together. If you’re a part time student working full-time there’s less chance to engage in frolicking with your cohort.
-Research. If you’re a part time student working full-time you severely limit the number of academic conferences and lectures you can go to and have little time to work on getting published. If you are committed to doing this get ready to burn the midnight oil almost every night
Positives for Part-time:
-Better Living Conditions – If you have a job to support yourself while going to grad school you won’t need to eat Ramen noodles for 24 months and you’ll be able to afford to take a girl on a date. Ripping flowers out of someone’s garden followed by a dinner from the dollar menu at Micky Dee’s does little for your suave.
-Less Debt – If you’re planning on taking out some loans to finance living expenses while taking out loans to pay for education you can find yourself in a lot of debt at the end of two years. It’s definitely worth it if this is what you want to do (banks often consider education loans as Positive credit on your credit score because it makes you more marketable) and many students at SIS do this (you can ask Gabe or Jeremy), but it’s pretty nice to know that I’ll be able to pay off my debt in one or two years after I finish my degree.
-Working at the University? – If you end up getting a job at American, the university offers tuition remission for full-time employees. Not only do I love my job, I get a nearly free degree out of it too.
-Career Experience – If you are working while going to school you’re earning both work experience and academic credentials. Your resume is that much more marketable.
Anyway, that’s the end of the blog. If you guys end up having any questions after reading this and want to chat you can always send me an email at agraham@american.edu. Hope this has helped.
Peace,
Adam
Let me introduce myself, my name’s Adam Graham. You won’t find me on the picture of our fabulous cast (I’ll try to put up one later), but I’m well entrenched in the SIS admissions world. I’ve been working as an Admissions Counselor for SIS Graduate Admissions for the past two years and have come to call our now famous office home (I’ve even slept on our couch – we work hard!). I’ve also been attending a Master’s program at AU part-time since 2005.
When I first decided to apply to grad school I planned on attending full-time and scrounging for scraps as I relived a little bit of my undergraduate years - going to school during the day and working a couple of hours at night to make ends meet. I was confident I had a great GPA and pretty decent GRE scores and thought Grad schools would be lining up to throw a little bit of money my way.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that I didn’t receive any merit aid from any of the schools I was accepted into. I knew my parents couldn’t help me out at all if I decided to go and I saw no other way to pay for Grad school. I was pretty depressed.
Then someone suggested I go part-time (this sounds a lot like a drug commercial right about now). I hadn’t really thought about going part-time because I was very much into the idea of getting back into college life and I wanted to be able to finish my program in 2 years. But as I thought more about it, it seemed to make a lot of sense.
I’m now working at American full-time and doing my master’s part time. I’ve managed to live comfortably while completing my degree, am coming out of my program with little debt and I’m finishing in 2 years!
So I wanted to give you all some of the positives and negatives to enrolling part-time and full-time.
Positives for Full-time:
-If you receive merit aid I really think it’s a no-brainer – there’s nothing better than receiving free education.
-A much lower level of stress. Full-time is 3 classes, part-time is 2 – you do the math. Working full-time and taking 2 classes is harder than taking 3 classes and working occasionally.
-A social life. Part of grad school is hanging out with the other brilliant minds that have decided to come to AU - sometimes this is talking about books and your research, sometimes this is having a beer together. If you’re a part time student working full-time there’s less chance to engage in frolicking with your cohort.
-Research. If you’re a part time student working full-time you severely limit the number of academic conferences and lectures you can go to and have little time to work on getting published. If you are committed to doing this get ready to burn the midnight oil almost every night
Positives for Part-time:
-Better Living Conditions – If you have a job to support yourself while going to grad school you won’t need to eat Ramen noodles for 24 months and you’ll be able to afford to take a girl on a date. Ripping flowers out of someone’s garden followed by a dinner from the dollar menu at Micky Dee’s does little for your suave.
-Less Debt – If you’re planning on taking out some loans to finance living expenses while taking out loans to pay for education you can find yourself in a lot of debt at the end of two years. It’s definitely worth it if this is what you want to do (banks often consider education loans as Positive credit on your credit score because it makes you more marketable) and many students at SIS do this (you can ask Gabe or Jeremy), but it’s pretty nice to know that I’ll be able to pay off my debt in one or two years after I finish my degree.
-Working at the University? – If you end up getting a job at American, the university offers tuition remission for full-time employees. Not only do I love my job, I get a nearly free degree out of it too.
-Career Experience – If you are working while going to school you’re earning both work experience and academic credentials. Your resume is that much more marketable.
Anyway, that’s the end of the blog. If you guys end up having any questions after reading this and want to chat you can always send me an email at agraham@american.edu. Hope this has helped.
Peace,
Adam
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