Any advice on what to study?

[DarlingHans34]

I am currently just a few months removed from undergrad (graduated May 2019) and I have a B.S. in Professional Writing with Honors Distinction (basically, that just means I did a bunch of extra research and wrote a mini thesis). I work in state government as an executive assistant to a state official who is a former representative and has done great work at the public service level his whole life. I quite like the government life, but I know I don't ever want to be a politician.

Why am I here? I want a graduate degree. I was the first in my family to get a college degree, and now I want to be the first to get a Master's degree or PhD as well. I love learning and school, and I was a top student in my program, though I went to a not-well-known state school. My major GPA was 3.95, my cumulative just 3.67 thanks to my economics minor which was a major struggle. ? I would like to go to the best possible school I can get into (like UChicago, UPenn, WUSTL, Northwestern, Emory, Harvard, anything that is considered excellent). Aside from academics, I got lots of good work and volunteer experience in college.

But, I have no idea what I should study. I was considering MPA or MBA, but those involve too much math and statistics. Political science or public policy could be options, unless those involve lots of statistics as well... Obviously, I could go for something related to English. Right now, that is where I'm leaning towards. Though I studied tech writing, I want to someday be published in The New York Times and I need a program that is going to get me there. Sometimes I wish I had studied journalism or communications, but I can't change that now. I love the written language and I have always been a strong writer, but I want to be an amazing writer. I believe I can get there, but I need to work on my skills and network with the best of the best. Plus, I need to study a completely different writing style since tech writing is very structured and not as open to creativity. 

Any thoughts on what program might be a good fit for me?

[CozyD]

You should pick grad school based on your career goals., and it's pretty unclear from your post what your career goals are.

The one specific goal you mention is wanting to be published in the NY Times. I'd think you may want to focus on gaining journalism experience/education then.

You might consider Northwestern's program: https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/journalism/graduate-journalism/index.html

[Modulus]

I would encourage you to think about what you value.  It sounds to me like you are interested in the degree purely for the prestige. Graduate study is a long and expensive undertaking that many who have real passion for their field don't complete.

If your goals are to write, you may want to consider MFA programs.  

Law school also sounds like something that might be a good fit for you.

But I strongly suggest you reframe how you are approaching this decision.  Graduate school isn't just the next academic rung to climb.

[Gatech_ST]

Your profile looks excellent to me!

 

But I would like you to consider a good reason to get your Masters and especially PhD apart from being first in your family. For example, how does getting a degree help you in achieving your goals? In terms of what you want to study, think about what you are passionate about, what wakes you up in the morning? any specific theme/topic (even if it was too general). Then I would consider looking at the labs/prof in some schools and what they are doing, looking at the recent literature in that topic.

 

Consider for example going to google scholar and typing keywords, and read the titles/abstracts of some published papers, anything sparks interest? any particular names that keeps occurring ? consider applying to their schools.

 

Good luck!

[TrissMerigold]

PhD isn't about studying and being at school, it involves mostly independent work and it's an introduction to being a researcher (like a supervised first job in that area). Master's is more school-like. 

MBA isn't really math loaded. Compared to engineering or economics, it's barely a class or two and much more descriptive. Other ideas that come to my mind are creative writing, marketing, managemanet. (Sorry if they are bad, I'm not all that knowledgeable about the humanities)

You can also always try to get a second undergraduate degree as well (you can try to transfer some classes if possible), if pursuing your dreams about journallism requires it. 

Edited February 9, 2020 by TrissMerigold