If you are considering a Master's degree in some professional area to further your career, try to get your employer to pay for it. If they won't pay for it or contribute any money toward it, don't apply just yet.
When considering a professional MA, look at how long this program has existed. In recent years many schools have created near-worthless Master's programs because they are a source of cash for the university. For example, if the school is calling a business degree a "MA in Organizational Business Leadership," it may be worth less than their MBA.
If they won't pay for it or contribute any money toward it, don't apply just yet.
And then what? Wait for them to change their minds? Switch employers?
There was some support for the idea of starting an advice repository for grad students much in the same tradition as the Boring Advice Repository and the Solved Problems Repository started earlier by Qiaochu_Yuan. So here goes.
Please share any advice, boring or otherwise, for succeeding at grad school. I realize that succeeding might mean different things to different people, but I believe most people largely agree with what it means in this context. Feel free to elaborate on what you believe it should mean, if you have views on the subject.
I am a theoretical physics grad student, so I'm personally more interested in advice for mathy disciplines (i.e. physics, math, CS), and I also suspect that there are many grad students from these disciplines on LessWrong; but advice for any discipline is welcome as well.
Advice is welcome from anyone, but please do mention your background for providing the advice so that people can weight the advice accordingly. For example, I would be more be open to listening to advice from someone who has completed a very successful PhD, than from someone who has simply interacted with a lot of grad students but has never been to grad school.
Also, feel free to link to advice from other sources, and maybe quote the most useful parts in what you read. Remember, this is meant to be a repository, so that people can come and find the advice, so don't worry if it seems to be something most people would've already read or known.
Thanks!