(If you would like background music for this graduation-themed blog post, please click this link.)

As a professor at Rutgers University, I have the annual springtime privilege of participating in the graduation ceremony with my faculty colleagues and our graduating students. The cap defies every hairstyle, the gown is heavy (and is particularly warm in an over-crowded gym), and the hood chokes, regardless of how carefully I anchor it in the front. The ceremony is long. Parking is maddening.

Despite the practical challenges of this annual ritual, Pomp and Circumstance is still inexplicably exhilarating for me and I can count on the fact that each graduation will deliver at least one incredibly powerful moment (strong enough to fully erase any memory of mild annoyances for another year).

At last Sunday’s graduation, the powerful moment happened after the ceremony in the mayhem of family and friends trying to find their identically-clad beloved graduates.

Following the crowd, I was walking behind two of our newly-minted Master of Human Resource Management graduates, close friends sharing the excitement of the moment. Their animated conversation, however, wasn’t about the degree program or graduation; it was about their futures. Both women had landed highly-coveted jobs with major organizations. Understandably proud of this accomplishment, each enthusiastic exchange of dialogue produced higher decibel of excited support for the other. One was moving to Seattle and the other to upstate New York. One had found an apartment -- and the other had movers coming that week. One saw her office and the other couldn’t wait to get started…

That moment of unintentional eavesdropping was a nice reminder of the role professional degree programs can have in launching people’s career dreams.

For these two friends, the decision made two years earlier brought them to the confidence and happiness they shared on the evening of their graduation. This is what they both knew: Rutgers University’s Master of Human Resource Management (MHRM) program is a recruiting feeder for the world-class employers because it is known for being the best in the USA for training human resource professionals. Even in an economically difficult year, 93% of our US-based MHRM graduates had a 75K job offer, on average.

Reflecting on this statistic, I did not need to eavesdrop on any other conversation that evening of graduation to appreciate how many career dreams we helped launch.

Professional degrees and occupation-based training or certificate programs can be an excellent springboard for moving closer to your career dreams. There is one (not small) caveat to this: know the likely return on your investment, especially if you hope for a direct relationship between the successful completion of the program and an accelerated start to a dream career.

When calculating the likely return on your educational investment at the professional level, consider both quality of education and the rate of placement. Highly-ranked programs in your chosen field have the best relationships with prospective employers. Outstanding programs will not be shy about boasting their excellent placement rates.

Wishing you tremendous success in your chosen career acts,

Paula