Why Graduate School?

I get a lot of interesting reactions when I tell people that I am going to get a PhD in psychology.  The most common are, "good, then you can fix all my problems/ diagnose me/ fix my kids."  Well, developmental psychology is not that kind of psychology.  The other common reaction goes something like,

Other Person: How long till you get your degree?

Me: Well it kind of depends on how long I take...probably around 6 years.

OP: What?  Six years!  That's a long time!  Why would you do six more years of school?
(Which is sometimes spoken as if what they really mean is, "why aren't you getting  real job?")

Well, allow me to explain.

Yes, it is more time in school.  But grad school is different than undergrad in several ways.  First of all, I am getting paid to go to school this time.  (Actually, I'm getting paid to be a TA, but hopefully I will be on a grant soon and then I will get paid to go to school.)  There are a few classes I have to take, but they are all applicable to my field.  No generals!  Besides, most of my time will be spent on research.  Some of it will be other people's projects, especially at first.  Eventually though it will be my own projects.

That leads us to the next step of the typical conversation.

OP: So what will you do when you're done?

Me: I'll probably end up at a university doing research and teaching.

OP: Oh, that's interesting!
(Roughly translated: "I don't know what that means, or what the point of it is.")

That is actually a really good point, and I'm not sure I have totally figured it out yet, either.  But I do know that I like it a lot.  It means asking questions and figuring out a way to answer them, then figuring out what the answers mean.  You make and argument for why your question is important and what you think the answer will be, you justify your methods, you show what you found is statistically significant, and finally explain what you think it means and make a case for why what you found has added to the pool of human knowledge.

And that gets to the fundamental reason I want to go to grad school: to keep learning.  My education has never been about getting a good job or getting through school...it has been about getting an education.  At the end of my four years at the U, I knew I had learned a lot.  But I had more questions than when I started, too.  My goal is to answer some of those questions and ask new ones.  That's the beauty of the whole thing.  Answers lead to more questions, which leads to more answers, which leads to more questions!  I love it!  I am going to get to read and think and write and ask questions for a living!