I had a conversation a few days ago with some dear friends, friends I met while working at a summer camp.  My one friend is nearing completion of her Masters degree, and at the ripe old age of 23 is wondering what to do with her life.  She mentioned the possibility of getting a doctorate, but I recommended making some hard, messy, delicious mistakes with her life.  You know, get a job making rugs in a commune in New Mexico, meet and date a painter named Raul, and get a tattoo espousing her love for figs.  All the sorts of things that make for great stories after you get over your embarrassment.

No, I have not done any of those things, though I do love figs.

Some years ago, when I was living in Cincinnati, my roommate George was finishing his Masters and we had a similar conversation.  But he wasn’t interested in a doctorate, only in where he should go next to further his education.  George made a very astute observation: he said, “You do a doctorate when you have something to say.”  A doctorate is about having something to share with the world, and needing the support a university can provide.  Because he knew he didn’t want that, he chose an alternate route, and has had great success.

I meet plenty of folks in the classical/academic music world who look at a doctorate as the next logical step after earning a masters.  I’m not one of those folks.  It’s not because I don’t believe in the degrees, but because I believe more in the power of experience.  The university experience is often so guided that it stops resembling the groping-around-in-the-dark that frequently is life in the real world.  The degrees provide a great experience, great learning opportunities, but I think George hit the nail on the head.  That’s not what the terminal degree really is; it’s shelter so you can craft your ideas, hone them into a message, and get that message out there.

I have had the good fortune of taking several years in between my degrees; as a programmer, then as a college teacher.  Those years were every bit as instructional as my time in college.  But in a way, they were more important because it’s as a programmer that I learned time management.  It was as a teacher that I questioned the materials and techniques I had been taught and developed my own.  It is through my extracurricular experience that my curricular experience has gotten its flavor.

And as I sit hacking away on my doctoral document I am glad I have something to say in its pages.  I don’t know where my next step will take me; maybe out of academia altogether.  But truly having something to say, and being given the time and guidance to say it has been priceless to me.