S2E6
· 30:18
Hello everyone and welcome back to Work It, a UVic career exploration podcast. This is the show where we answer all your work and career related questions by chatting with some really knowledgeable experts in the field, our incredible UVic career educators, as well as hearing the stories of some really interesting UVic alumni who have very unique career trajectories that they are excited to share with you. I'm your host, Emma.
Emma Ulveland:And I definitely have not had enough caffeine today, but we are just rolling. And it's gonna be a great day. I'm here with my co host, Katy.
Katy DeCoste:Hi, everyone. I'm Katy. I'm glad to be back. I work in communications here at UVic. And unlike some people in this recording studio, I've had far too much caffeine today.
Katy DeCoste:So if I'm speaking too quickly, sorry. Hit that 0.5x speed on the podcast distributor and best of luck. Before we jump into today's discussion, I want to acknowledge that as always, we're recording at the University of Victoria, which is located on the traditional territory of the Lekwungen peoples. We want to extend our gratitude for being here as uninvited guests on this land. And we also want to acknowledge the Songhees, Esquimalt, and WSANEC peoples whose historical relationships with this land continue to this day.
Katy DeCoste:If you're listening to this podcast from some place that isn't this territory and you don't know whose land you're on and the history, I really encourage you to find out. You can go to a website called On Native Land that can help you learn about the history of the territory that you're occupying right now.
Emma Ulveland:Thanks, Katie. I think that's really important. And today, I'm really excited to welcome to the show Allison Benner, doctor Allison Benner, I should say, who is the associate director of career services here at UVic. And Allison is here to help us tackle a big question. And that is, is it worth it to do a graduate degree?
Katy DeCoste:So Emma mentioned in the show intro that here on Work It, we talk to UVic alumni, and we also talk to career educators. This is a fun little moment when the career educator we're speaking to is in fact a UVic alum. Allison holds a PhD in linguistics from UVic and a BA in philosophy and French from Mount Allison University. Her diverse career has included teaching, curriculum development, policy and program development, and the coordination and supervision of various forms of work integrated learning. That includes coop, work experience, practicums, applied research, and field placements.
Katy DeCoste:Throughout her career, she has integrated a passion for learning and ideas with a commitment to student and employee success. We are super excited to chat to Allison all about grad school. And should you decide to go to grad school, is it worth it for you, and how to make that choice? Welcome, Allison. We're really, really jazzed about this.
Allison Benner:Thanks! I'm so happy to be here.
Emma Ulveland:Okay, Allison. You are a proponent of graduate school. You've been to graduate school a few times, and I'd really love if you could walk us through what your experience was and kind of the trajectory that you had between your undergraduate degree and just where you are now just to give us some context.
Allison Benner:Oh, boy. Okay. Well, like Katy, we were sort of, like, riffing off each other and having been in recovery. It's like we I was a grad school addict. I loved grad school.
Allison Benner:But like you said, I had a few different cuts at it. And so I was that person at the end of my undergrad many, many years ago who I was really good at school. I was encouraged to go to graduate school, pursue an academic career. And so I basically went straight to grad school. While I did have to do, like, a statement of intent and so forth like you always do with grad school, I actually didn't really know what I wanted to do in grad school.
Allison Benner:I just wanted to get into grad school, and I did. I pursued a master's in comparative literature because I thought, well, okay, I've done a lot of literature courses. I was a philosophy major, so I have that theoretical brain. Comp Lit gives you an opportunity to do literature in different languages. That's a thing for me.
Allison Benner:But I actually didn't enjoy the program, So I ended up not finishing that program, so I dropped out of it and felt like a huge failure at the time. You know, I remember going back to my barista job and thinking, well, now this is my life. I made a fine cappuccino. I can tell you.
Katy DeCoste:That's an important life skill, I think.
Allison Benner:Absolutely. Yes. It was. Yeah. So, you know, many years later, I decided to take another crack at grad school.
Allison Benner:And I actually worried at the time. I thought, well, will I be admitted? Right? Because I dropped out of the first program. When you drop out of these things, depending when you did it, you know, you're gonna have a a transcript with a lot of N's on it.
Allison Benner:That translates to a really low GPA if you're just going by it technically. That's not what mattered in the end. I had a lot of work experience. I also had gone back to school and, you know, pursued some undergraduate courses in a new discipline. I had a new network of people within academia who knew what I had to offer and my skills with good marks in that area.
Allison Benner:And I don't actually think that the previous graduate school experience counted against me at all. And I brought a different kind of focus to that second graduate experience than I had during the first one. I really, really did know how, like we were talking earlier about, you know, the benefits of experience. I did know how to manage my time. I did know how not to be a perfectionist.
Allison Benner:All of these kinds of things, I I knew how to get along with all kinds of different people from different areas. So I had a much more successful experience at grad school the second time around.
Emma Ulveland:That's fantastic. I'm really glad to hear that in the end, you were able to have the experience that you hoped for even if it wasn't right off the bat.
Katy DeCoste:So sort of going in a different direction, say that now you're in a place you think that the next step for you is attending a graduate program. How can students decide what is the right program for them? What kind of research should they be doing? And what kind of questions should they be asking when they're making that sort of a decision about graduate school?
Allison Benner:Okay. That's a great question, Katy. I'm just gonna first very quickly refer to the career services website in the section on graduate school because it has a whole bunch of different questions that you might ask yourself when you're making that decision. So I just don't wanna forget to mention that. But, you know, you wanna do your research.
Allison Benner:You wanna look into different grad programs. You may have an idea of some subjects that you're pursuing, and you can look into the different options that are available at different universities. If you have an idea of what research interests that you might have, you'll wanna look at departments and on the department websites for different profs. They will usually say what their areas of interest are in their profile. So get an idea of whether the department that you're looking into, you know, are they gonna be able to support you?
Katy DeCoste:A big part of the reason I decided to come to UVic for my graduate degree was because there were many faculty members in the department I wanted to work in that studied my interest area. That was the primary decision making factor for me.
Allison Benner:And don't be afraid to reach out to people. Like, if you've determined that from the website, for example, oh, you know, I think this has some potential. You could reach out to some of the profs that have the interest that you have and say you're considering doing a graduate degree with them and you're considering doing this kind of research. You can explore whether they would be able to take you on as a student, like, to be a supervisor if you applied. You can get into their research in greater depth.
Allison Benner:You could talk to the graduate adviser within a given department to get a more general picture of the opportunities that are available to grad students in that department. There's a different culture everywhere, but some departments might offer more opportunities than others in terms of perhaps the way they involve their grad students in learning to write grant applications. Maybe it's participating in their research and gaining publication experience. Are there opportunities to present at conferences? Do they encourage that?
Allison Benner:I mean, I think all grad students will do to a degree, but some might have more resources than others. So just finding that out. And then, of course, you might think, for example, that if you finished a degree in English or biology, whatever it is, you might think that grad school research should be in that subject. But it might be in thinking about what you're really interested in, there may be other graduate programs that aren't as obvious to you that might also open up directions for you. So just talking to a lot of different people, talking to people who've graduated from that program, talk to grad students who are currently attending the program.
Allison Benner:There's usually a section on most websites that introduces you to some grad students. You might have an opportunity to reach out and find out what their experience is.
Katy DeCoste:Totally. What you said about disciplines really resonated with me. I have a really good friend and her undergrad degree was in philosophy, but she just finished her master's in environmental studies. Like, we might not see those as directly connected, but I think it really shows how graduate school can be an opportunity to explore another discipline that you're passionate about.
Emma Ulveland:A little bit of an embarrassing story, but I did apply to grad school right after I finished my undergrad, and I did not get chosen for a program. And that's okay because I definitely wasn't sure when I did the application. I kind of just was, like, well, I don't know what to do next but maybe it's this. And I submitted that application. I did not talk to anyone.
Emma Ulveland:I did not talk to the adviser. I didn't talk to anyone. I just submitted the application to see what would happen and it made a lot of sense that I did not end up getting chosen for that program at the time. And I'm actually grateful for it because it wasn't the right time for me to to do a program like that. But for people who decided this is the program, this is the person I want to work with, I'm ready to do this application.
Emma Ulveland:Can you just tell us a little bit about what could make them stand out and how competitive maybe it is to get into some of these programs? What can people expect?
Allison Benner:In most graduate applications, I mean, you're gonna have to do things like submit your transcripts, but you're also supposed to submit usually a statement of intent, statement of interest, that kind of thing. So that can really make you stand out. If you submit a statement of intent that's very vague, Right?
Emma Ulveland:Guilty as charged.
Allison Benner:We've all been there. But, yeah, be really being able to show that you have some idea of where you wanna go with your research direction and that you've done some research. Maybe you have some experience from undergrad or maybe since your undergrad or you've gotten some experience that actually is gonna help you pursue that research area. Really highlighting those things in your statement of intent is something to really make you stand out. And I do think also some of the things that we mentioned earlier, these things are not handled like your undergrad admissions, where it's just going to a general undergrad admissions.
Allison Benner:It's going to a department that's gonna have an admissions committee. And so if you already have shown an interest in that department by talking to some members of it, they might remember who you are. And that might make you stand out if, you know, over and above what you actually put in your application.
Katy DeCoste:Totally. It is so similar in some ways to applying for a job. And that something that took a lot of time when I was applying to grad school, but that I do think was really worth it, was tailoring my statements of intent to the school I was applying for. So even though, you know, I wanted to do the I applied to, I think, 4 schools. And I I wanted to do the same research project no matter where I ended up.
Katy DeCoste:But each school had different resources available to make that happen. And making note of those in your statement of intent, Maybe there's a specific conference that happens on the campus or a publication that's published on the campus that's really aligned with your research or maybe there's a working group or a research project that you're interested in. Including things like that in your statement of intent, the same way how in a cover letter, you would be like, I'm so inspired by this project that you're doing at x company. It can really make a big difference and I think it's a really similar skill.
Allison Benner:It totally is. It's the same thing with jobs. We often think that the applications are all about us. If all we seem to be showing is what we think of ourselves, as important as that is, and there's not that evidence that we've seen who's on the other side, think of who we are as humans. How do we respond to that?
Allison Benner:But showing that you see what the department specializes in, you see what the department's trying to do and being able to speak to that can up your chances as well. Totally.
Katy DeCoste:A lot of folks might be in the workforce for some amount of time before they choose to apply to graduate school whether that's a single gap year or many years of work experience. How would you kind of change your approach to getting into graduate school? I think some people might have a fear that it might impact their chances or make it more difficult for them to be accepted. Does life experience help? Would that change the way you approach your applications at all?
Allison Benner:Yeah. It does. And I think it's a really good point. First of all, I just wanna dispel the myth. I know this is changing, but I think a lot of people still have heard the idea because it used to be true years years ago that, oh, you needed to get all your graduate work done, you know, by the time you're 25 or 30.
Allison Benner:Right? And do them all in a row. Otherwise, you're not serious about it, especially if you want to be an academic. It was regarded this way. And so people will think, oh, I can't do this.
Allison Benner:But in fact, all the experience that you get from doing a job has taught you how to do things efficiently, how to organize your time. Don't discount your life experience. I think we've all seen people who come in with real focus, and I think that's recognized now. Don't try to pretend that you are something you're not. If what you've got to offer is that you do have 20 years of work experience and knowledge of a field and a network and all of those kind of things that you can bring to a graduate degree and that can drive your research, that's an advantage you have.
Allison Benner:Use that.
Emma Ulveland:I like that there's room for authenticity so that you can study what it is that matters to you. There's one thing that I think we've been avoiding a little bit, but we should bring up because I think this is a big consideration for a lot of people, and that's the cost. Graduate school is not free. It is not even cheap, and I think that's a big fear and a barrier that people have to accessing these programs that they might have interest in. So I wonder if there's any advice you would give to someone who's worried about trying to pursue a graduate degree because of the price.
Allison Benner:Yeah. That's a really, really good point. It might be a factor in considering where to go to grad school too. Like, thinking about where you're going, look into what the cost of living is, what are the tuition costs, like, create that budget. Like, what would it cost for you to do a program at here?
Allison Benner:And then what kinds of opportunities are available to fund your graduate program? Most universities who have graduate programs will have scholarships. You can also look into provincial and national scholarships like SSHRC and NSERC and things like that that you can sometimes apply for, you know, before you go to grad school or you can apply while you're in grad school if you didn't get it immediately. Right? So really knowing what those options of support are and knowing what other forms of income might be available to you while you're a grad student.
Allison Benner:So are they offering research assistantships and TA ships to all their students? That's where co op can come in too. You know, we've been talking here and there about when to do grad school and why to do it. Well, I can tell you one potential advantage of going out there and working first in a profession is that you could have somebody pay for your graduate degree. Nice.
Allison Benner:So sometimes your employer will pay for that. And so after you've done all this research on scholarships, bursaries, TAships, and so forth, and if you've determined that you can't afford it, don't assume that's the end of the game. You can go back to work and save money for that. The knowledge can always help you know how much you have to save, but you may have an employer who may give you the time to do a relevant graduate degree and pay for it. Don't discount that possibility.
Katy DeCoste:I know there are more and more part time and asynchronous options for graduate school as well these days, And that can be useful for folks who might not feel able to leave their 9 to 5 or stop working for the time that it takes to pursue, say, a master's degree, and that can be another great option.
Allison Benner:That absolutely is a great option for many people.
Katy DeCoste:So much like you, Allison, I am a recovering / recovered graduate student. I did my master's in English here at UVic actually before I opted not to become an academic and to go into the world of work. I think that for some students, especially as they're just finishing up their undergrad and they're deciding what's next, there can be this, almost dichotomy feeling of which is better, getting work experience or continuing my studies and going to grad school? This might be an oversimplification of the question, but is it necessary to go to graduate school to get a good job in this economy?
Allison Benner:My blunt answer to that, Katy, is no. It's not necessary to get a graduate degree in most fields to get a good job. And gaining experience is inherently valuable and in in many cases, more valuable than just going on to a grad degree just for the sake of getting a grad degree. If there's one thing I would not recommend is just getting a grad degree just for the sake of it and thinking that's gonna get you a job. But But I think the more important thing is what you pointed to, that it's a false dichotomy.
Allison Benner:It's not like a graduate degree or experience. I think it's important to see a grad degree as experience. When you're in a grad degree, you're not only getting in-depth knowledge and experience in a particular discipline, you're gaining a whole bunch of transferable skills. Like if you're doing research, you're thinking about the content of that research. If you're teaching, you're thinking about the material that you're trying to teach.
Allison Benner:But at the same time, you're getting all kinds of other experience. You are getting leadership experience. You are getting project management experience. You're getting communications experience. You're getting teamwork experience.
Allison Benner:You're getting all these kinds of things that are vital in pretty much every single job that you can get. But also, even when you think more conventionally about experience, as in work and so forth, you're getting that at the same time potentially as well. You're getting jobs that you can put on your resume. UVic has like this the largest graduate co op program in Canada. That's an opportunity while you are in your graduate program to get work experience.
Allison Benner:So I guess we can talk further about that but it's not an either or.
Katy DeCoste:Absolutely. And that is like as someone that has kind of been through that process something I would really hammer home for anyone who's thinking about grad school or is in grad school right now is that it really is what you make it and you have to take advantage of the opportunities that come your way whether that's a research opportunity, a teaching opportunity, even the opportunity to present at a conference is a way to practice your speaking skills, your presentation skills. It is shocking how many jobs require you to do presentations. All of these things can make grad school a really, really valuable experience that can make you more attractive to an employer, but also boost your confidence when you're applying for jobs too.
Emma Ulveland:I love that you mentioned, the co op program that we have here at UVic. It's something really special that we offer. And if you're interested in co op and graduate school, you should really check out the website. You can find some very interesting information there. But in the meantime, I'd love to ask you a little bit more about the co op program.
Emma Ulveland:Why should a graduate student bother with co-op?
Allison Benner:Where do I start? Okay. I'm gonna speak from my experience as a former co op coordinator cause I used to be the co op coordinator for humanities and fine arts and so I had grad students from 23 different programs who did so amazingly at co op. Because we operate at UVic in our co op program within a competency model, where there's, like, 10 competencies, for example, teamwork, communication, project management, managing information, things like that, those are all transferable skills.
Allison Benner:We operate within this broad framework, so you are not restricted when you do your graduate co op to something that relates directly to your discipline. Of course, if there's something like that exists and you wanna do it, great. That could be wonderful. But you might be surprised at what you can do. I had a student in linguistics, for example, a graduate student, who got a co op in government, in a health agency, doing policy analysis.
Allison Benner:She totally aced that job and ended up going into that field. Now it's not that her program, in terms of the content of it, prepared her for anything in that job, but linguistics being a highly analytical discipline, she brought that skill set to the work that she was doing and excelled at it. I don't think she would have known that was something that she was good at without going into the coop program.
Katy DeCoste:Absolutely. And even for graduate students who know for certain that they want to go into academia, coop can still be really valuable for a lot of reasons. It's possible to get co ops that flex your research skills that involve supporting a larger research project. But, also, it can be really valuable as an academic to have work experience outside of academia, and maybe you can speak a little bit to that.
Allison Benner:Yeah. You could be gaining skills that give you a competitive edge in academia. The example that comes to mind is somebody doing a co op. They're using their writing skills and they got a job in marketing. Well, they can take that back to academia because academics need to market themselves in a whole bunch of different ways.
Allison Benner:So they need to market themselves when they apply for research grants. And so they get experience in describing their highly specialized research in plain language, in ways that are accessible to people from other disciplines. That's hard experience to get if you've only been in your own field all your life. There's also the fact that by working outside of academia, you might be exposed to new research questions. There might be a problem that you never actually witnessed before because you weren't in that context, and you realize there actually is a connection between that and something that can be researched through your field.
Allison Benner:It could actually strengthen your academic path or provide an alternative one either way.
Katy DeCoste:So you've been through this process of trying to decide, first of all, if grad school is the right choice and then also deciding which program, which university, what city do I wanna be in. What advice do you have for students who are in that position? What kind of research should they be doing and what kind of questions should they ask when they're making those choices?
Allison Benner:Yeah. So I think one of the advantages today is there's a wealth of information out there to help you make that decision. Whether it's actually going to websites of different universities, you know, you might have an area of research or a subject that you're interested in. So I would probably start with that website. There's always faculty profiles on the websites, and those profiles will almost always include what the person's area of research is.
Allison Benner:So get an idea of whether there are faculty at the place that you're looking into that have research interests that align with your own. Get a sense, like, departments often as a whole specialize in certain areas. For example, linguistics at UVic, there's a lot of emphasis on indigenous language revitalization. So that might be an area. If you were looking at that department, you might see that.
Allison Benner:So similarly with other subjects, the department might have a specialization on particular faculty. Often at particular websites, there will be a section about grad students in the department featuring their research, featuring possibly their contact information. So, you know, contact some of the graduate students who are in the program and ask what's their experience in the department, what kinds of opportunities they've had as graduate students in that department to develop their research, how well it is supported, both morally and financially, by the faculty in the department, What kinds of opportunities are there to get some of those transferable skills through RA ships, through TA ships, that kind of thing? Yeah. What kind of financial support is available at a place?
Allison Benner:These days, do a lot of that research on chat GPT or or Copilot too. You could, you know, you could do that kind of thing. Tell me about researchers in Canada who have a background in x y zed that corresponds to your research interest. So, I mean, there's research that you can do that specifically about academia, but you might also wanna take it a little bit broader. Maybe it's going on to LinkedIn, to the alumni page, right, of a particular university and seeing who graduated as a graduate student from this department.
Allison Benner:What are they doing now? So that can give you information on 2 fronts if you connect with those people. It can be, did you enjoy your graduate experience? And how did this lead you to where you are now? You could also talk to somebody new, like, talk to somebody like a career educator.
Allison Benner:A career educator can give you a really good perspective. You know, they can help coach you through the questions that you are asking yourself. They might also help you to look into the labor market conditions that relate to a field that you're interested in. But just getting a variety of perspectives is is also a key thing when you're thinking about this.
Katy DeCoste:Totally. And my sense is that a career educator could also be a good person to speak to as you're crafting your application materials as well in addition to, you know, faculty members you have a relationship with and other people in your life, a career educator can be a support in putting together a CV if the application requires 1.
Allison Benner:Absolutely. They can help with that, and they're particularly helpful with that aspect of it because, well, we all love doing our resume and CV, don't
Katy DeCoste:we? This is my favorite hobby personally. I love it. I actually do that every Friday night.
Allison Benner:Oh, yeah. I'm with you. But just as the issue when you're applying for a job, really tailoring that CV, that resume to the department that you're applying for, to the discipline you're applying for. Somebody having an outsider perspective from a career educator on that is great. Highlighting accomplishments in your different jobs that might actually relate more directly to the work that you'd be doing as a grad school student.
Katy DeCoste:Totally. And we've got a ton of resources on the career services website. So we will link to that page in the description of the episode. If you're wanting to explore some of those questions further and get support around, like, what should I be asking?
Emma Ulveland:Allison, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom with us today. I think this is so useful. This information can really help a lot of folks. And I just wanna give you the last chance here to add anything else that we may not have had the direct question to ask you about today.
Allison Benner:Well, I mean, one thing that we didn't talk about, but I just don't wanna leave that out in the discussion about grad school. I don't wanna lose the piece about, you know, the passion project thing. So in my career, I didn't actually end up doing exactly what I was doing in my graduate degrees. I did not need a PhD in linguistics to be the associate director of career services.
Katy DeCoste:That wasn't in the job posting?
Allison Benner:But having said that, you know, there might be a person out there who will go, what was the point of those degrees then? Wasn't that a waste of time? Well, no, it wasn't. There are some things you can get from grad school that you might not find in any other walk of life. It is that unique opportunity to go into depth in a subject that's not necessarily something that you're gonna get a job doing, but that's really vital to you as a person, and that you carry forward all your life.
Allison Benner:You carry it into the other jobs. You might carry it into projects that you do on your own, in your volunteer time, in your own writing, things that you might carry on when you're old and retired. So I don't wanna lose that. I, myself, am somebody, you know, as a linguist. I am that person who you might see.
Allison Benner:I don't drive, so I walk a lot. And I am that person on the side of the road that you're driving by that you might be concerned for. I'm usually talking to myself. I'm testing out different sounds, trying out different singing voice things. These are all things that led me to my grad program.
Allison Benner:I am that person who wants to know what those little minute variations about voice are, and I don't regret doing that. So there's a unique value to following some of those unique interests that you have that you will never find a job sometimes that's exactly tuned to those. But you're not you without that experience sometimes. So I loved grad school.
Katy DeCoste:Totally. And I really agree. The time in my life when I was doing my master's degree was so special. I met all of my best friends in that program. And while grad school might not be the right choice for everyone, it might not be the right time for you right now.
Katy DeCoste:I think that in the conversation about careers and work experience, we really can lose that education for the sake of personal development and personal growth. So I'm really, really glad that you brought that.
Emma Ulveland:Me too. We will leave some resources for you if you're interested in learning more about graduate school and specifically co op at UVic and graduate school. So do check those out. They're linked in the episode description. Thank you so much, Allison, for coming on the show today.
Emma Ulveland:It's been a blast having you here.
Allison Benner:Thanks so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you both.
Katy DeCoste:Work It is developed and distributed by Co-op and Career Services at the University of Victoria, and hosted by Emma Ulveland and Katy DeCoste. Today's guest was Allison Benner, associate director of UVic's career services team. Our theme music and art were created by Emma Ulveland with audio editing by Emma Ulveland. If you enjoyed listening to today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to Work It anywhere you get your podcasts, and you'll never miss an update. To learn more about career possibilities and resources from UVic, visit uvic.ca/career-services.
Listen to Work It: A UVic career exploration podcast using one of many popular podcasting apps or directories.
