Stronger Faster Higher Education

The Krafty Librarian raises a good question: is it a good idea for librarians to go back for further advanced education, whether another graduate degree or a doctorate? 

I've wondered about this myself, and have so far concluded only that I'm not going to do it right now. I only finished the first graduate degree five months ago, and I'm enjoying not having homework to do and am still settling into my new job, so it seems fair to take a break for the time being.

On the other hand, I'm certainly not ruling it out for the future. I liked being in school for the most part, and enjoyed taking classes, learning about new things, and being able to be part of discussions. Education is good.

My current employer also has nice benefits in terms of support for continuing education, so I will probably be looking into that in the future (although unfortunately online courses, with which I've grown very comfortable and which have so many convenient features, are not included...you mean I'd have to actually go to a specific place and sit in a room with a bunch of other people to take a course? What's that about?) 

There are some good, thoughtful comments in response to the Krafty post, several suggesting that a good choice for another degree would be an MBA rather than a Ph.D in library science, at least if the goal is library directorship or management.

I've never been very drawn to the MBA idea, but on the other hand, almost every subject I've ever taken a class in has been even more interesting than I thought it would be, so I would probably find it fascinating if I got into it. (When it comes right down to it, learning new stuff is just cool, almost no matter what it is. I'm sure there's some subject that wouldn't hold my interest, but I'm not going to make a guess as to what it is without having tried it.)

I'll definitely be interested in continuing education in general, by means of short courses and so forth even if not working towards a formal degree (those informal degrees that are just scrawled on scrap paper, that's what I want), so I fully plan for there to be learning...whether it eventually means I wind up with more degrees, I'm not prepared to say yet.

It's a very good question, though. Maybe I'll just observe Michelle from a distance and see what she decides and how it works out. :)