Shouldn’t I Be Doing a Master’s Degree?
A Social Comparison Analysis
I graduated with my Bachelors in 2019, after already taking a gap year between high school and attending university, I was certain I would be starting my Master come September 2019. But as deadlines for applications came and went, I realized that I wasn’t ready for a Master’s.
So I decided to take a gap year where I worked for a feminist driven company with the goal of selling sustainable tampons and pads. Whilst there, I found a Master that somewhat suited me. It was in Organizational Psychology and if you’ve read my other articles, you will know that I always try to approach an issue from an (Organizational) Psychological perspective. But I’ll be honest, this isn’t my passion.
Fast forward to now, and I’m happily living in Portugal working as an online English teacher during the day and a bartender at night. I enjoy both jobs and feel accomplished when I tell people about my life. But when I listen to my friends who did do a Master, I can’t help but feel guilty and inferior to them. They did it! They completed their education. And me? Well, I still have hopes to maybe complete a Master one day, I’m just not ready… yet.
I know I’m not the only one who feels like this. And if you’re going through something similar, then I hope this article can bring you some sense of peace with your decision to not complete a Master’s right now, or ever.
These feelings of guilt and inferiority got me thinking, why do I feel pressured to complete a Master’s degree? Why do I care that my friends at the age of 22 to 24 have finished their Master and yet I’m now going to be behind them? Why do I compare my situation to theirs?
Social Comparison Theory
Human beings are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating themselves against certain criteria: other people. We compare our success, wealth, intelligence, attractiveness, and more with the people around us, and in doing so, we determine their social and personal worth as well as our own.
Some people can find this motivational, to think that they could be just as good as their colleagues if they worked harder. And this may lead them to improve their work life. But it can come at a cost; like feeling worthless, deep dissatisfaction, and guilt.
Social comparisons are likely to make us feel bad when it revolves around something we feel guilty about. For me, it’s my Master — or lack thereof. Some articles suggested that we feel bad for not doing a Master’s because that is the only difference we’re focusing on. What if we focused on the fact that you may have a better social life than your friend doing a full-time Master’s, or that you’re able to start your career early, or you realized you want to travel and put education on hold.
These “other differences” are all well and good but there’s still the underlying issue of comparisons. I don’t want to make myself feel better by putting the people around me down. I don’t want to think of the flaws and issues they might be facing just so I feel better about not doing a Master’s degree. So how do I stop?
Note to Self: Stop Comparing My Position in Life with Others
Some self-help websites suggested being less vulnerable to painful comparisons. Funnily enough, they didn’t mention how to fulfill this impossible task. Just that I should do it. So here’s my take on the matter.
Notice the exact people or events that prompt your comparisons. Acknowledge your feelings and take a moment to think why am I comparing? Don’t let the framework of your answer be “why am I comparing when I have a much better social life than her” — this won’t help you. Reflect on your own insecurities, take a deep breath, and end the thought. Picture a full stop, and just place it in the middle of the comparison and let the thought end.
By doing this, you’re training yourself to not thinking lowly of your position in life. Your friend’s success shouldn’t make you feel worse about yourself. Instead of feeling envious of people completing their Master’s and feeling uneducated in comparison, I’m choosing to focus on the fact that I don’t know what my passion is and I’m not ready to spend a year of heavy study on something I don’t love.
I’m also choosing to focus on how it was my choice not to do a Master’s. Sure I could have started one in September 2020, but with everything going on in the world, it didn’t make sense, and, again, I wasn’t that committed to it.
The cliché truth is that people in our close circles will have traits we might envy, positions in life that we want, or partners that we lust after. We may compare our situation to theirs but it isn’t fair to do so.
We will never truly know what someone is experiencing in their own life, they may only share the positive, and we may try to only see the negative to make ourselves feel better — but both of these are wrong. Be kind to yourself and the people around you, we move at different paces in this life and we shouldn’t feel pressured to follow any certain path or direction.
How do you manage postgraduate student guilt? Let me know!
Thanks for reading x
References
Gruder, C. L. (1971). Determinants of Social Comparison Choices. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7(5), 473–489.
Marias, D. (2015, September 9). Grad Student Guilt. Retrieved from Inside Higher ED: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/grad-student-guilt
Psychology Today. (2020). Social Comparison Theory. Retrieved from Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/social-comparison-theory
