Amanda Green is a guest blogger that has written extensively on the subject of education and business.

Many young professionals live in a fluid phase between the worlds of work and school. By definition they are employed and hold jobs, but they also are only years removed from college or grad school – and, for many of them, there’s a definite chance that they’ll go back. Some young professionals begin their careers with this mindset, planning to work a couple years after college and then returning for a masters or advanced degree. For others, this decision comes after they have experienced career dissatisfaction and a desire to seek out new opportunities.

The decision to go back to school is not one that should be taken lightly. After all, it often involves quitting your job, suspending your earning potential, and generally putting your career on hold for a degree that may or may not pass off. It also may involve packing up your apartment, filling up uHaul trucks and self storage facilities, and moving halfway across the country to attend school. For young professionals with spouses, significant others, or strong geographic ties, such a move carries with it considerable ramifications.

So what should you do? Return to school or stay in the workforce? How can a young professional decide? While the factors that inform this decision are often highly individualized, here are a few Dos and Donts of going back to school:

DO go back to school if:

-Your current employer is subsidizing the cost or has promised a job upon return
-The degree could either (a) help you concretely in your current career or (b) help you jump start another career
-You have the flexibility to pick up, move for a few years, and then move again
-Workers in your current or intended field are stronger applicants and better employees with a graduate degree
-You know you can commit the time and the effort to succeed
-You can afford making minimal money for a period of time

DON’T go back to school if:

-You are simply dissatisfied with your current job or career and see school as the best option
-You can’t expect improved job prospects upon receiving the degree
-Money is tight and you would have to take out loans (unless you can be highly confident of getting a quick salary boost after finishing your degree)
-You’d have to uproot a young family and potentially suspend two careers
-You aren’t fully committed to the specialty of the degree or the time commitment required to finish it successfully

Ultimately, going back to school will determine a new path that informs the next era of your employment career. If you are unhappy with your current path, see a graduate degree as offering a more promising one, and have the money and flexibility to make it happen, by all means go ahead and get that second degree. But make sure that you are doing so for the right reasons and with the right considerations in mind.

Many young professionals begin considering an MBA a few years after they start working (for those considering, see our posts When is it time to go back for an MBA? and Managers Not MBAs : Critical For Managers, MBAs and Those Seeking Either). One of the first steps towards applying is getting your GMAT completed. I recently went through the process of preparing for the GMAT and received some great advice from my brother-in-law, Noah Bieber, who has graciously allowed me to post it for your perusal below. As a caveat, he went through law school so he was less worried about the verbal section of the test and focuses more on the math section but, it is a great general guide.

High Level Study Timeline

1) ASAP - take a diagnostic test so you know what to work on. The Kaplan software (see below) has a diagnostic that told me to focus on math.

2) 1-2 months out: Focus on general topic lessons. Princeton Review Math Workout for the GMAT. I read all of the math topics and worked some of the practice problems. Good book and I highly recommend it, it identifies all the types of problems and explains them really well.

3) 2-3 weeks out: start taking full-length practice tests.

Testing Software and Practice Tests

-I bought Kaplan’s 2005 GMAT software for $20. The lessons were terrible, but it had several computerized practice tests. I recommend doing computerized practice tests so you can get used to the computer-adaptive difficulty settings. This will help you practice timing to get to the optimal difficulty.

-The math tests always got to the point where I could not do the most difficult questions, so I tried to practice deciding when I hit the “too-difficult” level, eliminating obvious wrong answers, and quickly guessing. Then, I would get one wrong and the questions would get easier, but you get fewer points for them.

-After you do the computerized tests, they will tell you what topics you need to work on. Since the Kaplan lessons were crappy, I looked up these topics in the Princeton Review book and read through them again.

- I usually skipped the writing practice tests because it was largely irrelevant to my admission and scholarship decisions. I had an easy writing topic and a really hard one, and without practicing, my writing score was 4 / 6.

-Toward the end, I ran out of Kaplan Practice tests, so I borrowed Peterson’s Mastering the GMAT from the library. This book’s lessons were more advanced than the Princeton Review. Honestly, it was too difficult and too late for me, so I just used the practice tests

General Observations and Tips:

-If you can find software with more practice tests than Kaplan, I would get that – I would look for about 12-14 computerized practice tests if possible.

-The practice tests were graded much harder than my actual GMAT. I was consistently getting 600-650 on the practice tests, but I got above much better than that on the actual GMAT. A buddy had a similar experience with the Kaplan practice tests.

Do you have similar or conflicting experiences? Share your tips in the comments.

Photo Credit: Online MBA Degree Program

I have a paper weight that sits on my desk in my office. It was a gift from a mentor at my last job. When I first left the job, I didn’t think more of the message on the paper weight than it being an inspirational message. It says, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Maybe it took me so long – 7 months – because its a great sentiment but I didn’t think of it in terms of the workplace. In the past few weeks, I’ve done some thinking about the impact I can have on my piece of the puzzle at work and those that I interact with. It all started with a book I read given to me by a co-worker called Fish – the book not the co-worker. The book is all about attitude and how each day we choose what our attitude is going to be regardless of what happens during the day. It seems like a simple concept choosing to be rather than , but in practice it’s not. In times of economic, workplace and personal stress we often resort to complaining instead of reaching deep into our guts and pulling ourselves out of a funk.

In Fish – A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results, the main character goes through a life altering loss of her husband and in the process loses her ability to take chances. After meeting a group of enthused and inspired fish mongers at the market she is able to turn her attitude and the attitude of her team of zombie-like workers into the envy of the office. The book inspired me to change my attitude at work and the way I approach each day and project and the past few weeks my general happiness level with life, my job, my co-workers, and my projects has increased. So the question is, tomorrow when you arrive at work, how will you choose to approach the day 1) like a toxic dump of lack-luster attitude and motivation or 2) the employee that can make tossing fish across an open air market every day an exciting and fun experience for your customers and co-workers?

So back to my paperweight, what a great message – you choose to be the change or not be the change you want to see in your work and your life.

Unlike most of the articles written on NewlyCorporate, this article is less inclined towards giving advice and more focused on asking questions, mainly, why, when and where should someone get an MBA.  I use the word ‘someone’ loosely as I am mostly writing about my personal feelings… call me selfish!

Why?

An MBA can do many things for a young professional.  Enhance personal networks, give valuable educational experience, allow for a chance of career paths and for some people, provide a break from the corporate world.  Personally, I’d like to enhance my IT background with more commercial experiences.  Marketing and advertising has always appealed to me, especially how you can break a population down to mere numbers and either try to lazer beam your message to a select few or chuck info out like hand grenades hoping for some lucky hits.  Basically, I’ve always been fascinated by marketing campaigns, some are brilliant and other are such pathetic attempts that I wonder what idiot came up with it and got PAID for it!  I guess I’d like to be that idiot some day, but I’ll need more training to get to that level.. call it a stretch goal!

When?

I’ve struggled internally with when the best time to do this is.  I have almost four years of work experience with my present company which isn’t very long if you think about it.  The last dot bombs were fading away when I was graduating from high school (along with my college fund.. thanks Dad!)  I’m way too young to be jaded by my short experience, but I do feel that an MBA will offer me a chance to sample some other fields outside of IT.  Most MBA profiles I’ve seen put their spread of their student body at around 27 to late 30s.  As a 25 year old I’d be a slight outlier.  At the same time, some of my friends are have left for B-schools with roughly the same experience as me and have been accepted at Harvard and Northwestern.  I think age can be eliminated as a real obstacle, but other issues remain:  Can I step out of the marketplace for a year or more and come back with the hope of a good job?  With the possibility of a recession in the near future, leaving a good job is like playing Deal or No Deal when you’ve got some fat stacks in the bag.

At the other end of the spectrum, leaving an MBA until too late might cut down on some of the benefits of getting one, especially if I decide to change my career focus while in school.  I’m in a serious relationship now, what if the ‘P word’ somehow comes out and I end up playing ‘daddy’ earlier than expected?

I guess the answer I’m left with is: Soon, but not now.  I’ll bide my time for a while, with an eye on the door for a smooth departure.  I heard GMAT scores are good for 7 years, I guess it’s time for Princeton Review again…

Where?

This should be easy for me.. any school that will accept my sorry ass!  More seriously, it’s important to reach as high as you can for an MBA.  If you went to University of Crapsville, this is the chance to redeem yourself and finally go to a school with a name that people outside of your state actually know!  Money is no object here, especially if you go to a kick-butt school.  You’re not going to be crying about your $100k in loans when you’re making bank the first year out (provided you went to a decent program).  At least you’re getting a graduate degree with some meaning.  All you readers with $120k in debt and nothing but a Communications B.S. from NoName Tiny College, my heart goes out to you.. now go get an MBA to redeem yourself.

So, the short answer according to Grant is:  Go to the best school you can get into, finance the rest of it. Cha-ching.  This isn’t undergrad, put down your juice box and go play with the big boys.  Getting an MBA from a no-name school is like winning the state thumbwrestling championships.  People will congratulate you for your achievement but they’re laughing on the inside.. oh yes, they will.

As you can see, I have asked three simple questions about an MBA, and despite writing several paragraphs, I have answered none of them.  An MBA is really a personal decision.  Despite all of the pre-planning I’m trying to do, in the end I’ll probably go back to school when my job starts to suck, I get fired or I get married and decide I’m tired of talking to my wife all day.  In fact, thinking about this whole thing, don’t try for an MBA, you’re just more competition for me!