Can You Use ChatGPT Instead of Going to Grad School? I’m About to Find Out.

Amanda Claypool
14 min readMay 15, 2024
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

I love to learn. As you can imagine, I did well in school.

Most people thought I’d probably go on to get my master’s. One professor even encouraged me to get my PhD.

The truth is I wanted to but I never did.

In 2017 I took the GRE and submitted my grad school applications. I ended up getting into a top program for political science at an Ivy League school.

With less than a week to fork over a $700 deposit, I decided not to go. I couldn’t stomach the idea of more than doubling my student loan balance only to reenter the job market a couple of years later with a negligible return on my investment.

A degree doesn’t guarantee a salary after all.

To be fair, there are a number of career paths that do require you to get an advanced degree. Dentists, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and engineers are a few that come to mind.

Political science? Not so much.

In my old career in Washington, DC, I observed that an advanced degree was nothing more than a credential. It wasn’t used to increase your earnings potential but it was used to gatekeep candidates.

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Amanda Claypool
Amanda Claypool

Written by Amanda Claypool

I write about the future of the world as it’s unfolding. Download my reading list: https://bit.ly/3xvJZf6

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