Shouldn’t you be taking your master’s degree by now?
Every week, PhilSTAR L!fe explores issues and topics from the perspectives of different age groups, encouraging healthy but meaningful conversations on why they matter. This is Generations by our Gen Z columnist Angel Martinez.
Happy graduation to the class of 2025! Now that the demands of academic life are behind you, I suggest that you revel in your well-deserved accomplishments and replenish your energies. You’ll need it. It won’t be long before you have to grapple with the quintessential existential question of those fresh out of college: What next?
This isn’t meant to be fearmongering, but a fair warning. You might think that the only option available is to begin scaling the illustrious corporate ladder. I thought the same after I secured my diploma three years ago (the horror!). But I’ve observed that some members of Gen Z are flocking to faraway countries… just to end up back in the classroom.
Taking a master’s degree abroad is not rare: IDP Education Philippines found that out of 53,000 Filipinos studying in top countries like Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, about 60% of them were in post-grad. But it’s just that the norm here in the Philippines has always been to accummulate substantial job experience first before even considering further studies.
As they are hard-wired to do, some Gen Z are once again subverting this societal expectation in the face of a hyper-competitive job market: 69% of Filipinos find it difficult to secure employment these days, with optimism regarding employment availability dropping to all-time lows at the height of the lockdown. “Some Zers think that their bachelor’s degree is really just insufficient and they don’t feel confident that they can enter the workforce with it,” professional career coach Pat Mallari tells PhilSTAR L!fe.
Other factors that could affect their outcomes include academic performance, internal connections, and—some say—educational background. “This could be the cause for an existential crisis, which occurs when they feel like their reason for existence at the moment isn’t aligned with what others prescribed you to achieve or attain.”
Even if there are several capable institutions in our country, it’s also far more common to hear of younger people pursuing further studies overseas. Our education system sadly leaves much to be desired: Getting a master’s degree in other countries is said to take one to two years and only requires submitting and not defending their thesis. While doing so in the Philippines could take at least two years, it could also last for even seven to 10 years, requiring far more mental and financial capacity.
Our roster of programs also seems to be limited and less specialized: Bea, for instance, wanted to go into sports media but found that there was no master’s in journalism with that specialization. Much searching led to a scholarship to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where she secured the knowledge and exposure she needed to progress in her career. “[The experience] gave me opportunities to interview professional athletes as well as sports agents and executives, and even intern for a WNBA team in PR and communications,” she tells L!fe.
The allure that comes with going abroad, of course, factors greatly in the decision-making process. Coming out of a pandemic that robbed us of leisurely travel and crucial classroom learning, post-grad seems like the perfect mix of the two. Competitive programs are usually in dazzling first world-countries situated in Europe or North America, where the standard of living is higher and the sun seems to shine brighter. No wonder it’s framed as an aspirational endeavor these days. “There’s the idea of establishing independence and maturity: no longer relying on your parents and building a life for yourself someplace else,” Mallari says.
When Steffi decided to pivot from pre-med to pursuing an MBA at the National University of Singapore, she found herself in charge of securing housing and setting up a phone number, bank account, and Singpass, all while navigating a new city and culture. But while she tells L!fe it was “one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life,” she refuses to sugarcoat what she went through.
“There were days I felt completely overwhelmed. There’s this unspoken expectation to always be doing something—if not studying, then recruiting; if not recruiting, then optimizing your profile. It gets exhausting very quickly,” Steffi shares. A big challenge was the cohort dynamic: Her batch was around 80% Chinese nationals, who would often conduct discussions in their native tongue and schedule meetings without her.
It’s hard to say that the pros outweigh the cons or vice versa: What Mallari prescribes instead is to assess the trade-offs, or what will be sacrificed in pursuit of this grand goal. “Are you ready, for instance, to lose some of your personal time? If you’re single, are you ready to give up dating around for a while? What about the money that you would have made if you continued working at your day job?” she suggests.
Bea also adds that the quality of one’s post-grad experience heavily depends on “how bad you want something and how hard you’re willing to work for it.” In choosing a university, she recalls not taking proximity to family or friends into consideration—she was ready to move anywhere if it meant following her dream. “One time, I had to reach out to over 150 potential sources to shape the narrative of a feature I was working on. So the willingness to go the extra mile goes a long way here,” she shares.
Another centering exercise would be to assess your goals alongside your intentions: “Is it because you want to increase your salary, or enter a new field? I personally think it’s fine to [go into post-grad] out of boredom or a lack of other prospects–it’s a productive way to go about a crisis, actually. But, at the end of the day, you have to return to what you need at this moment.” After all, not everyone is fortunate enough to consider higher education in the first place amid our country’s looming illiteracy crisis.
So unfortunately, no. I can’t respond to the very question I posed in the title—and honestly, that’s okay. Life after graduation is a scary limbo to be stuck in. Free from the rigid structures of the classroom setting, it finally sinks in that your future really is of your own making. It sounds tempting to beg the powers that be for a cheat sheet to success. But who we are is the sum of the choices we make for ourselves, free from external influence. If you find yourself drawing blanks right now, it’s alright to take your time, as long as the answer you come up with is truly yours.
Generations by Angel Martinez appears weekly at PhilSTAR L!fe.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to change "dissertation" to "thesis" to reflect the commonly used term for master's-level research in the Philippines.
