quitting grad school?

<p>i posted earlier about deciding between graduate school and working.</p>

<p>how bad would it be if i started grad school and then quit if i don't like it or find a good job?</p>

<p>does it happen often? do professors understand? would i be blacklisted from the school as profs talk to each other? </p>

<p>I have good stats but i doubt any prof wants to hire someone who previously quit grad school.</p>

<p>Don’t worry about it; grad schools, esp. PhD programs, are notorious for having high attrition rates. You might look at this:</p>

<p>[News:</a> Hope on Ph.D. Attrition Rates – Except in Humanities - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/12/07/doctoral]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/12/07/doctoral)</p>

<p>There are plenty of other articles on it too.</p>

<p>The bigger question is, why do you want to go to grad school? It’s well-acknowledged that the high drop-out rate among grad schools is largely attributable to the students’ reasons for going to grad school in the first place: far too many of them go into them thinking they have to if they want to make money, etc. or if they think they love what they do, when they don’t. Grad school is not to be taken lightly. You must do some real soul-searching to decide whether grad school is for you, or else you’ll join that drop-out statistic.</p>

<p>That said, if you were to go to grad school and then to leave, it would be fine; I don’t think it’d hurt you, but if you did apply to grad school again, you’d need to explain why you left in the first place.</p>

<p>bring up more posts (bump)</p>

<p>I assume you are taking the PhD route. From what I hear, professors would really hate you if you leave during your first or second year. The professor probably has spent so much time writing the proposals to get money for the project, and now you leave with the work probably half done?</p>

<p>I don’t think you will be blacklisted, but the professor would certainly not be pleased. It will depend on professor to professor too. Most of my friends had advisors who accepted it, but did not end up very happy from the decision.</p>

<p>As it stands i’m doing the masters route but i might upgrade to the PhD route in a year. In canada people generally do a masters before a PhD.</p>

<p>I have external scholarships so the Prof is actually paying me nothing and i guess proposals for money won’t be involved because I have some coming in. Would this make much of a difference in how angry the prof will be at me?</p>