Ph.D, another Master's Degree, or start working? Advice needed

Graduate School
1

Hello all,
I’m new to this site and I hope to get some valuable insight from other college grads. I am currently a graduate student with a major in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati. My undergrad is in psychology. I have 4 more classes to go as of right now. My dilemma is this - I am struggling to figure out where I should go after I graduate. When I was an undergrad, I thought I was going to be a psychologist…but nobody told me until my junior year of college that if you have anything short of a 3.8 GPA, it’s virtually impossible to get into a decent clinical psychology program. I was devastated because my GPA is a 3.33 undergrad. What could I do with that? So I turned to my second interest - criminology\criminal justice. I was accepted into the third best CJ school in the nation and I felt confident about my decision to pursue this subject.

I’m nervous about my job prospects with this degree, so I’ve been considering applying for a Ph.D program or maybe another master’s degree. I would like to find some type of federal investigative work, but the job hunting has been pretty horrendous. I’m either lacking the experience, overqualified because I have a Master’s instead of just a bachelor’s, or I lack some certificate that they’d prefer you have (such as for paralegal work). I thought about pursuing law, but based on my conversations with an attorney friend of mine, it really isn’t a good option. There are a few jobs I come across that I could potentially qualify for based solely on the fact that I have a Master’s degree, but the questions that the application asks you i’m rather clueless about (for example, the ATF’s intelligence analyst position i’m technically qualified for, but the questions on the application are things i’m clueless about). So it all boils down to this…what is really in my best interest? Is pursuing a Ph.D in criminology worth it? I’ve read multiple opinions, some say it’s a waste of time\money, others say it qualifies you for a lot (which I would think is true because I see CJ jobs everywhere that require a Ph.D). Also some people say it takes around 4-5 years, while other websites I’ve seen suggest it can take as long as 10!! 10 years, really?! I can’t see how that would be true. Or…should I get another master’s degree to make myself a bit more marketable? Such as administration, policy making, or even looking again at the psychology grad degrees. I could just say screw it and keep on job hunting until I find something decent, but who knows how long that will take or if i’ll get the job. I’m not trying to talk down on myself. I’m a good student. I have a much higher GPA currently than I did as an undergrad. But finding a job i’m actually qualified to do has been really hard.

Any advice from those with Ph.D’s or Master’s in CJ (or another related field) is highly appreciated. I just really need some type of direction because i’m feeling a little lost these days.

Thank you so much for reading my huge post!

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Do you really like the research aspects of graduate study? If you continued in a PhD program, would you be a quantitative or qualitative researcher? If the answer is the former, then you probably have a strong stats/ number crunching background already and there are employers looking for masters’ level analysts with those skills. Have you had relevant internships? What kinds of openings are there for masters’ level analysts in your state’s department of corrections?

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Well, when I took research methods and stats I found that I enjoyed research methods but really didn’t care for stats. So I would say that I’d be more interested in qualitative methods in research. I took both of these classes as an undergrad as well. I mean, i’m familiar with the concepts but stats just hasn’t been something I retain well. Perhaps that is because both of the times I took the course they were online. I feel that if I were in a PhD program, the hands on learning experience would help me learn the subject better and retain the information longer. I felt like I was just sort of learning it on my own online, and that wasn’t very helpful. I still ended up with A’s and B’s though. I have not done an internship from any university, but I have basically created one by volunteering with the Family and Juvenile Court in my county as a CASA (court appointed special advocate). It is basically my job to be the voice of children and inform the court what I believe is in their best interest. I get to work with social workers, attorneys, and I’ve met a judge. It was a pretty long training period for that position as well, so I feel like i’m getting valuable experience from it. I’m just not sure how to carry that over into the “real world” because CASA does not have a lot of job openings, as it is heavily dependent on the state’s budget for those programs.

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Don’t let fear drive you into doing another degree - presumably one that you don’t really want. How long have you been looking for a job? It’s not uncommon for a job search to take several months.

In the things you say that you are missing that job ads look for, you don’t mention a PhD. If many of the jobs you want ask for more experience, why not try that? Most people (especially with CJ backgrounds) don’t go straight into federal investigation. They start at the local level, working for city law enforcement. Then they gain the experience they need and work their way up. If a lot of the jobs want you to have a paralegal certificate, why not work on that? It’s a lot shorter than a PhD, and probably more useful for your field.

If you don’t know what you want to do next, a PhD is rarely the right choice. Try visiting the career center and getting feedback on your resume, or expanding or revising your expectations wrt the kind of position you want right away.

PhDs certainly can take 10 years, but they are designed to take around 5-7. How long kind of depends on your research, your personal circumstances and your program’s demands. I finished my own program in 6, but the average TTD there was 7.5 years, and there were definitely people who spent 10 (although typically they had family responsibilities or took some time off, but sometimes it was partially due to complicated research plans or requirements).

A PhD is NOT about hands-on learning experiences. It’s far more abstract and theoretical than a master’s program. If you feel like you aren’t getting hands-on learning now, you will get even less in a PhD program. What DOES give you hands on learning experience is working.

Think more broadly. Think about your transferable skills. My PhD is in public health and psychology and all of my research experience was on HIV and drug use and how it affects social health behaviors. I currently work as a UX researcher doing research on how people experience interactive media. The exact content is not always important - it’s the transferable skills. What did you learn as a CASA volunteer that you can take with you into another criminal justice job? into any job?

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You could get into a PsyD program with a lower average if you can pay for one. Psych degrees are worth less and less each year tho. An APA accredited PhD program will look for publications from someone who is in a MA program. Publications can overcome a lower GPA but having a MA does not really buy you that much and a Straight A average from a Master program won’t really help get you into a PhD program. By that point it is about publications and lines of research not grades. Psych majors are a penny a dozen these days and the strongest students are not choosing psychology as the major any more. You can buy a PsyD and spend less than 4 years with an additional year for internship but you will be going to school with peers who are pretty mediocre. Students who go for their PhD may be stronger but it is a lot harder to get into a PhD program in psychology and unless you want to conduct research, it does not make a lot of sense to take that route.

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I think you need to start working. Build a resume that caters to posted jobs.
I agree with @lostaccount.

I work for a facility that has multiple clinical needs. So we have MSWs, LCSW’s MFCCs, Psych Ph.D’s and rehab personnel. I can’t tell you how many applications we receive daily from people who hope we have unadvertised positions. Our facility has a large number of student interns, who do a lot of leg work and really want to be hired by our facility, but it is a social service organization which relies on government grants and doesn’t have the funding to hire new grads.

So, you need to tailor your resume to fit the posted jobs. You will need the experience and, I’m assuming, you need a paycheck?

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Um, I work on a team of 40-50 well-paid people (the 20-30 PhDs and MA-level scientists all make six figures; the BAs definitely above average). We’re all psychology majors. There are entire lucrative fields built off the work that psychologists do (marketing, advertising, UX/usability, human-computer interaction, market research, behavioral economics, industrial/organizational psych/personnel research, cognitive science…)

It’s not so much the major in and of itself as it is what you want to do with it.

That said, a PsyD costs almost as much as an MD and you get no financial support for it, but psychologists don’t make close to what physicians make, so repaying those loans will be difficult.

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@juillet I definitely agree with you. PsyD programs are absolutely ridiculous in the cost. I’m really not interested in those programs for that reason. I’ve encountered plenty of people that have landed successful positions with psychology or social work degrees. I don’t believe they’re worthless. However! I will say that there are a lot of psych majors these days, which can make things outrageously competitive (like how I mentioned earlier for the psych PhD programs). I have discovered that psych actually is a pretty versatile degree because you can take it into social work, law, medicine, business, research, criminal justice, human resources, etc. It branches out into a lot of fields, which is one of the reasons I decided to keep it as my undergrad. Thank you for your input regarding what PhD programs are really like. That’s helpful! I figured they weren’t very hands on, as most of it is research. To be honest, I haven’t been looking all that long. I’ve been looking on and off for maybe 2 months. I’ve been trying to find more websites and find the state websites for states i’d like to live in. They usually are a good source for CJ degree holders.

I actually would not mind getting another degree. I enjoy academics, but I think i’m more suited for another Master’s degree than a PhD. It seems to me that unless I have my heart set on research or teaching, PhD might not be the greatest idea. A big reason I’ve been considering another MS or MA is because there are a lot of jobs in the criminal justice system (CJS) that would like you to be a licensed social worker, an LPC, or have a certificate that I don’t have the first clue how to get (except for paralegal, I can find that one easily). I also thought that maybe a public administration MA would look good for the more supervisory positions. But then again, that may be something only experience can get me. I know i’m probably coming off like my interests are all over the place, but honestly I just want something interesting within the CJS. Whether that’s on the law side of it, mental health, investigative, ect. it all seems interesting to me. So i’m just trying to figure out the best way to land my first job that would still allow me to be promoted in a decent timeframe. I did spot a job today near DC that’s an entry level background investigator. So maybe i just jumped the gun in thinking i can’t land a job easily with my MS in CJ. I’ve been thinking a lot about being a local cop, but i’m uncertain about that route. In today’s culture, police seem to not be getting a lot of respect anymore (or so that’s what the news indicates). The feds don’t seem to have that problem, or at least I haven’t heard about it.

CASA is useful for quite a bit of skills in my opinion. It teaches me how to write legal reports, work with children who have been in neglectful situations, experience being in court, read many cases and determine what is best for the child (whether that’s being state dependent, reunification with parents, etc). Honestly, i feel like it’s even the first steps of investigation since i’m looking so much into the case and asking questions to determine what’s best for the kids. But i don’t know if employers will see it that way. I feel like it’s been an enlightening experience for sure. @juillet do you believe that getting another MS\MA would make employers look at me weird (like I couldn’t make up my mind in school), even if it’s something related to CJ like administration or social work? Would it make me more marketable? Or should I just keep it simple and keep looking? I’m not against getting that certificate in paralegal work either, but I fear that because I have a MS in CJ I would be “overqualified” since most paralegals would just have an associates degree. Maybe I should just leave off the Master’s degree portion of my resume.

Sorry for that being so huge, but you got me thinking quite a bit, so again thanks for your response @juillet :slight_smile:

@“aunt bea” thank you for your input. I’ve definitely noticed how a lot of places are lower paying or don’t want Master’s degree holders because they can’t pay for them. Government funding is important for a lot of the places I’ve looked for jobs. That being said, i’m willing to settle for a lower pay starting out, even though I have a Master’s degree, because it’s the experience that I really need so that in the future I can apply for all those higher paying jobs. And yes, paychecks are for sure needed lol

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@gradgirl90, you should pm @juillet and ask her about job opportunities in her town. If the outlook is good in @juillet’s area, then start crafting your resume to fit the description. Can’t hurt.