How Graduate School Can Elevate Your Career in Today’s Changing World

What does it take to grow your career in today’s evolving job market?

In this episode of UMBC Mic’d Up, host Dennise Cardona, M.A. '23, sits down with Rex Jarrett, Director of Professional Programs at UMBC, to explore how graduate education continues to open doors for working professionals.

From building practical, real-world skills to learning how to work alongside AI, this conversation highlights how the right program can help you move forward with confidence and purpose.

You’ll hear insights on:

• How graduate programs are adapting to today’s workforce
• The skills that help professionals stand out and lead
• The value of applied learning and industry-connected faculty
• Ways to balance school with work and family life
• Why taking the first step matters more than perfect timing

If you’re thinking about what’s next in your career, this is a great place to start.

🎓 Learn more about UMBC Professional Programs: https://professionalprograms.umbc.edu

Transcript

Dennise Cardona  00:00:00  

Hey, thanks for tuning in to this episode of UMBC Mic'd Up Podcast. I'm Dennise Cardona, your host, and I am here with Rex Jarrett, the director of UMBC Professional Programs. And we're going to talk about all sorts of things when it comes to graduate school, working professionals, AI, the job market and things of that sort. So, Rex, thanks so much for being here with me today on UMBC Mic'd Up. 

Rex Jarrett  00:00:25  

Yeah, it's my pleasure. Dennise, thanks for having me. All right, so let's just get right into it. 

Dennise Cardona  00:00:30  

Rex, you've spent years working in and around higher education. What first drew you to professional graduate education, specifically.

Rex Jarrett  00:00:42  

I'll say, for as long as I've known myself, just my whole life, I've always kind of been motivated by any place where I can help people. And I think that first manifested in really wanting to go to medical school, because, you know, how else does a young person kind of envision themselves helping people? You know, you're, you're healing the sick, or you're, you're, you're giving food to those in need. And I think as I got older, I found out that my particular skill set might have been a little bit more adept at helping people figure out what it is they want to do, and helping people by giving them opportunities or aligning them with opportunities. So I think that little part inside of me that really just wants to help found its niche in higher ed, and I've just been here for over a decade plus. Now I'm doing some work that I love, that's awesome. Higher Ed is a is a great place to be. I've been in it for almost 20 years now, myself, it's fabulous. The energy is right there. You know, helping people. A lot of working professionals still ask whether graduate school is worth the investment. How has the value of graduate education changed in today's workforce? Yeah, I will say this is a very fair question that I hear, not only from graduate students, but undergraduate students, high schoolers coming up with my own family who are questioning the value of college in an education, and I'm like, That's my life's work. What do you mean? You're not sure what it's worth, but I will say the ROI for graduate school and college at this point is not just what you learn in your particular degree or your particular niche of education. It's the ability to learn and for our programs, the ability to lead. So you're gaining skills on networks, on how to build a network, on how to move through a career, on how to solve problems and just be flexible in your learning and your thinking. And I think, most importantly, for the job market today, you're being trained on the skills, on how to utilize AI so that you're not being replaced by the machines, which are the person who's put in charge of the machines, because as powerful as AI is, it is not capable of fully replacing true independent thought and problem solving that you would see at the level of a graduate so I would say for the most part, the intrinsic value of graduate school.

Dennise Cardona  00:00:42  

Right now is learning how to read, assess and lead, powerful the job market. It's changing really quickly. How is UMBC adapting its programs to prepare students for what employers need now? 

Rex Jarrett  00:03:16  

Yeah, one of the beautiful parts of having Master's in professional studies is that our adjunct faculty are people who work in their industries, log out of their log out of or clock out of their nine to fives and show up on campus to teach their classes, which means we get real time labor market data and real time employer feedback, because a lot of these faculty members are working at the places that our students will hope to land jobs. So they go to work, figure out what's going on in the particular state of the art, and able to come in and say, Okay, I'm going to not only craft my classroom to address the needs that I know we need. I'm going to make sure that my program is reflecting what the labor market needs. So I would say we're getting continuous program programming updates from the people who create and teach our classes, and then we're also sending out employer feedback surveys to make sure that our graduates are meeting their needs, and now, so far, they're loving what they get. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say names on podcasts 3m is an awesome partner who's just like we love our UMBC graduates. How can we get more? Get me in contact with your career services. I want to send job opportunities directly to you guys so we can get more of your graduates. So I would say having that really close to being on the ground with the employer feedbacks, being able to know exactly what it is they need, is a great place for our programs to be and helps us. Then I would say there's an emphasis on interdisciplinary skills. So not just being a cyber security specialist, not just being a Health Information Technology Specialist, but being someone who can leverage many different parts of what it what is needed to lead in today's world, and then real world problem solving is just an emphasis that we make sure we cater to in all of our degree plans and in the same way that we're integrating AI and how to leverage AI and the pedagogy of all of our offerings. 

Dennise Cardona  00:05:05  

UMBC professional programs emphasize applied learning, as you just stated, what does that look like in practice for students?

Rex Jarrett  00:05:16  

Yeah. So we've got a myriad of programs, I would say for some programs like entrepreneurship, there's no testing for that particular degree plan. Everything you learn is, how do you speak to people? How do you convey a dream or an idea? How do you get people to buy into it? And then, how do we get you material experience to be able to go out and do that in the real world on your own? For other degrees like engineering management, cyber security, projects are simply just tied to real world workplace challenges. As I said, our faculty are actually employed in their industries, so they get out of work and come to teach, so they're able to curate projects for our students that parallel exactly what's going on in the workplace. And in addition to this, we curate our capstones to mimic the same kind of experiences, and then you have internships and client based work the students also have opportunities to explore.

Dennise Cardona  00:06:12  

What professional and interpersonal skills do you believe matter most today, and how does UMBC help students to build them? 

Rex Jarrett  00:06:21  

I would say the core skills that matter today are technical, professional, professional programs, interpersonal and material experience. So by material experience, I would say, for undergraduate students, one of the problems they often run into is they hypothetically talked about what they were going to do with the rest of their lives for four years with our master's programs, you want the hands on experience, so that when you get into your roles, or you're in a leadership position, you've done what they're asking you to do before, so you feel comfortable and confident in being able to do it in that real time space when it comes to technical understanding and competencies, data literacy, data fluency, understanding, AI, tools, ai, ai, ai is everywhere. You know, I've got a joke with my colleagues. It's AAA. But in actual application, you've got to be the person in the room who doesn't just know the buzzwords, but is confident in their competency in leveraging the tools. So that means understanding what data that your organization has, being able to, as my professor used to say, speak nerd, be able to speak about the data with the people who are procuring it or curating it and then translating it for the other stakeholders who may not be as deep into the weeds in that understanding, be able to integrate AI or leverage AI in your productivity in whatever way makes the most sense, and then be able to provide that or guide that information or data literacy for however it best impacts your organization. So I think that's like the core technical skill professionally, again, AI can do a lot, but I don't know about you, some of some of you might often get those Robo voicemails or calls from an AI agent, and as soon as I say hello and I don't hear that human inflection, I hang up the phone. So there's going to be a lot of parts of the job market or the workforce or

Unknown Speaker  00:08:22  

supply and demand, or whatever it is that you are providing to, you know, the industry or the market that will rely on wanting a human touch. And as more AI agents appear, or people are integrating with or interacting with, the more that desire to speak to a person who knows what they're talking about is gonna become ever more valuable. So being able to communicate, being able to lead people and AI agents, and being able to adapt to whatever's coming around the corner, because the evolution of whatever you're doing is gonna move faster than it's ever done in the course of human history. So I think that's professionally, one of those angles that we have to focus on, and then just the interpersonal skills, knowing how to talk to people, in my opinion, knowing how to talk to your AI agent, asking in the right way, so that your answers aren't necessarily just what you want to hear, but maybe the kind of outputs that help guide your decisions and guide what you're doing in your industry. So I know that was a bit long winded, but technical professional and a personal I think those are the skills that probably matter most today, blending technical and human skills. 

Dennise Cardona  00:09:27  

Yeah, well, there's so much to unpack with what you just said. On so many levels. I just did a podcast with one of our cyber security graduates, and he calls himself a non traditional student. He's, you know, he's in his 50s, and he went back for his master's in cyber security, not because he's a cyber security he's into the technical part of cyber security, but because he's a sales person in cyber security, and he wanted to be able to talk the talk. And so you kind of brushed on that a little bit, being able to speak and pull people out of the weeds and be able to help them understand what it is the complexity of the technology and all that, to be able to communicate that in a way that human to humans we can understand. And it's that whole human to human humans with AI, another podcast I did with Dr Samarah Mohammed.  We talked all about that like, hey, we need to be humans with AI. It's a new world that we're venturing into, and being able to prepare for our human interaction with that world is going to be so paramount. 

Rex Jarrett  00:10:38  

Absolutely. 

Dennise Cardona  00:10:40  

Now AI and automation are reshaping so many industries as we've just talked about. How are UMBC programs responding to that shift? 

Rex Jarrett  00:10:51  

My in my role as director, one of the first things that I did joining in joining UMBC was let our graduate program director say, you know, everyone is going to try and put out a degree in AI and that's okay, because you kind of need to wave that flag that says, Hey, we are with the times. We're not fighting change. We're not the people in the corner, you know, gripping onto our abacus and saying calculators will be the downfall of man. That's not what we want. But as great as those AI degrees may be, I like

Rex Jarrett  00:11:21  

to liken it to saying, How would you feel if someone walked into a job interview and said, Hey, here's my master's degree in the internet. I earned it in 1999 you like, okay, that's that's cool. The internet was a very different place in 1999 so I think the emphasis that UMBC and particular professional programs is emphasizing on moving the future. Is not the focusing on AI as it exists today, but how does AI? How do you leverage AI into the pedagogy of your coursework, into your industry's needs and requirements, and into addressing the market's needs and requirements of you? So we're teaching people how to use the AI tools to do the work, how to think critically about integrating it into the work. Where does it make sense to leverage AI? Does it genuinely make sense to say, hey, write me a script, write me a PowerPoint, make the slides for my PowerPoint, and then present it as is, is that the best leveraging of AI? Is that the best quantifying of all of that power and presenting what you know, or what your organization is trying to present to your market, maybe, maybe not. So I'm trying our degrees are focusing on the best way to leverage those tools so that you're getting the best outputs. Because, as you said, humans paired with AI, in our opinion, is the best outputs of AI when you have a competent person leveraging AI as a tool, using it as a partner to get you more productivity, more powerful results. I think that's where we're heading towards, as opposed to saying, let's leave this agent in a room by itself and let it run our our company, and with that pairing of AI and people, I will say there's, there has to be an emphasis on the ethics, on what human and AI collaboration has to look like, and preparing students for what that might look like now, what it might look like in the future.

Rex Jarrett  00:13:17  

You know, there's people coming up now who are talking to chat bots for therapy or an opportunity to express themselves emotionally. How much more advanced are those chat bots going to be 10 years from now? And how will that look in regards to the way that we work with them? So

Rex Jarrett  00:13:37  

preparing people for world that doesn't exist yet is what I'll say. You know, it's just about feels comfortable and safe right now. But you've got to remember, there's an entire generation coming up where these bots are

Rex Jarrett  00:13:52  

people are things that they have confided in for years. And what will that look like? What kind of jobs will exist in a world like that, as preparing for constant change. You know, just don't, don't be the person hugging your abacus, shaking your fist at the sky, just calculators are coming.

Dennise Cardona  00:14:08  

I love that analogy. That is very cool, very cool analogy. Now, you've said before that students here are not just numbers. How does the size and structure of UMBC programs shape the student experience? 

Rex Jarrett  00:14:23  

One of the great parts of grad school is that you've decided what your focus is going to be on. In undergrad, there's a lot of electives, there's a lot of self discovery. In grad school, I think a lot of people know this is what I want to do, or this is what I want to do next, because there are career changers. But with that focus, having smaller program sizes allows for more interaction, allows easier access to your faculty. You're no longer sitting in a bio one on one class with 500 other people. You're in a classroom of 30 people who all have different experiences. Of questions about what happened today at work, how.

Rex Jarrett  00:15:00  

I do that better, and how can I align that with I'm learning this program and then discussing that in real time with your faculty and your classmates. I think that personalized experience, or that more intimate experience and more focused experience with everyone, kind of knowing what it is they want to do, really defines the graduate school experience. And then we have an amazing student success team that's there for our students, able to support them, you know, provide them with some Advising, Career Guidance. We have a career service department that's able to help them in the same way. So I think there's a really strong sense of belonging and community and knowing that you're just not just you're not just a number, but those numbers are also smaller, and you're able to benefit from having access to resources because of that. So, you know, we have a I guess that's free at us. We have a fast food place on campus. And went in there, and this place takes your name. And I said, it's Rex. And

Rex Jarrett  00:15:57  

student was working. He said, Yeah, Mr. Jarrett. And I was like, How does he know my last name? And then looked a little closer in his face and realized he's one of the students who came to one of our career climb your career ladder events. So I love that. I want to know who the students are. Want them to know who I am, and I think that's beautiful for them, and it's beautiful for us to know that you're known. You're not just enrolled. 

Dennise Cardona  00:16:18  

Yeah, and as a person who graduated from one of our graduate programs and the professional programs, I can certainly attest to that the small classroom sizes were amazing. And what I also liked about the smaller class sizes was the the interaction with the faculty members as well the instructors that felt so much more like a working relationship with them. They had a vested interest. That's how I felt, anyway, and it just it made a real big difference. And to this day, I'm still connected with so many of the people that I went through my cohort with, really, really, it was just a great experience. 

Rex Jarrett  00:16:55  

Yeah, and to echo that sentiment, I came from an Ivy League institution prior to being at UMBC, and that place was great. Those people were great. But there's such thing as the UMBC culture. The people here really care about the mission. They really care about our students. Very often, you can find your way. You find yourself at a university where there are people who just have an office and a title and they're completely content and sitting in that room with that title until it's time to retire. You don't run into those kinds of people here at UMBC. The folks who wind up staying here are the kinds of people who want to see outcomes for our learners. They think of our learners as people. They're vested in their outcomes and in their lives. And I'm just happy to be here, and I'm so happy whenever we can bring someone into that environment.

Dennise Cardona  00:17:40  

Oh yeah, I can, I can feel your enthusiasm and your energy from that. So it's powerful. Now we're seeing more certificates, micro credentials and short programs alongside our traditional degrees. How do you see those fitting into the larger picture of a graduate education?

Rex Jarrett  00:18:00  

Yeah, absolutely. You know, we talked about it when it came to AI, don't fight change. Figure out how that change is going to impact you. And when it comes to certificates, my credentials, and how they interact with degrees, there's going to be a rise in short term credentials and skill specific learning. Just being in the state of Maryland, right? We have the highest concentration of federal workers in the entire country, and then obviously, with, you know, how things went at the level of the federal government last year, and, you know, still continuing now, there are a lot of people who are put out of jobs, so they've got years of specialized experience in whatever they were doing to contribute to our our federal government and our economy, and they still got those skills, but they feel like they need A little bit more to maybe figure out what's next for them, what adventure they're going to go on next, and that might materialize as a short term credential. Maybe they don't have time to go ahead and do a full degree, but they've got years of experience. They want to leverage, and they want to upskill, make themselves a little bit more attractive. Because again, the way that you know all that took place, there's a lot of people looking for their next adventure, next opportunity. So I think skill specific training where you have really high competent, highly competent people who are looking for what's next, or saying, hey, I want to add this A La Carte Lee to my skill set, and hopefully put myself a nudge above everyone else's might be in the same situation. But you know, by and large, I will say, certificates, micro, credentials and degrees. They're serving different needs. You know, there's the quick upskilling, there's a sudden life change I need to, you know, pay for the roof over my head. And then there's folks who are saying, you know, I've done this for a long time, and I'm ready for a career pivot, but I'm comfortable. I can take care of myself, but I do know that five years from now, 10 years from now, where I'm sitting is not where I want to be, and for those people, a degree might make a lot more sense, as they are solely working towards whatever is next. So I think there's value in being able to say, hey, something's changed, or I need to change something quickly. How can I do that with short term credential, and then saying, hey.

Rex Jarrett  00:20:00  

Say I want to invest in skill specific learning that's going to make me an expert in the direction I'm going in or the level I'm going to next.

Dennise Cardona  00:20:09  

I love the way you put it. You put it as an adventure. What a great way to look at education. So cost time and family responsibilities, then they can all feel like barriers. How is UMBC helping make graduate education more accessible? And what would you say to someone who is trying to balance it all? 

Rex Jarrett  00:20:29  

Yeah, I will say that for professional programs and master's degrees in general, many of the students who are coming to us are working or they're working professionals, so flexibility for them is cost, is time, it is access to their family, it's all of those things. So we try to make an emphasis on our modality, making sure that students know that they can take their classes online or take them in a hybrid option. Our classes have evening classes so you can go to work just like your adjunct faculty be at your nine to five and then say, from six to nine or six to eight, I'm spending time investing in myself. I'm spending my time in this learning environment. So I think that flexibility allows people to say, I don't need to uproot my life. You know, I'm not going to pack my bag, hop in my mom's car, get dropped off at a dorm and go to school for the next four years, but say I'm still in my daily process. I'm still in my daily schedule, but for the next couple of months, I'm going to make the sacrifice. I'm going to get a little bit less sleep. I'm going to be a little bit more stressed out as I invest in myself and develop those skills. And then, you know, while we've got working professionals, adults, people who've kind of they're comfortable with learning, they learn how to be a student during their undergraduate experiences, we still have those support systems there for them. Advisement, how do you be a student and an adult? How to be a student and a parent or in a manager or director? So I think having those things there lets them know like you don't have to bear the brunt of it all on your own. Simply because you got your bachelor's degree, you're still allowed to say, I need help, or I would love some guidance here. So again, shouting out our amazing student success team, they're there to help with things like that. And then we have an employer partnerships, so the students can say, I'm learning all of these things, but is there a job waiting for me? Or what does the job market really need? And then going to these events where employers are showing up, whether they be in our alumni panels, with alumni coming back, talking about how they made it through their early career to where they are now. But it's

Rex Jarrett  00:22:26  

materializing for our students, what the pathway is going to look like. So being able to learn folks in the industry, being able to talk to people in the industry, and being able to attend events and collaborations with our industry partners, I think, provides a support system and a path that our students feel comfortable knowing that their investment in of their cost, investment of their time in themselves and their time with their family is worthwhile. So I think the main thing is at the graduate level,

Rex Jarrett  00:22:55  

we acknowledge our students are balancing careers and their lives outside of school in a way that didn't really exist in undergrad, and then letting them know that, as you said, he had an adult learner coming back in his 50s, that there's no perfect timing. You just have to have a purpose and a commitment to yourself, that you're going to see it through. So start where you can, and then just see where it goes. And as we said, it's an adventure. One last question for you, Rex, for someone listening who is wondering whether now is the right time to take that next step. What would you say to them? In a past life, I was a real estate agent, and I sold houses, sold a bunch to myself because a real estate, real estate developer, and I would say there's really a perfect timing to buy a house, and very often, most agents will tell you the best time to buy a house is now you figure out refinancing everything else later on down the line, but make sure that you are owning a piece for yourself as opposed to renting. I think there's a lot of similarity there in education, there's really a perfect time for education. There's really going to be the kids don't need anything extra from me. Works, not asking any more of me my exactly where I want to be when it comes to my finances. You know,

Unknown Speaker  00:24:14  

the perfect time doesn't need to exist for you to say, I'm going to start now. I think starting now is the near perfect time, and once you start, just figure out what your next steps are, right? You finished undergrad, you got a job, you're able to take care of yourself. So you're obviously a competent and capable person, adult. So ask yourself, as competent and capable as I am now, what skills do I need to get to the next step or the next stage or the next chapter in my adventure, and then use that to kind of guide what it is, what you want from graduate school,

Rex Jarrett  00:24:52  

we keep calling it an adventure, and that's because education is a tool. It's not the goal itself. You're not just supposed.

Rex Jarrett  00:25:00  

Just go to school, you're supposed to use that tool to upskill yourself, sharpen your mind, sharpen your critical thinking, enhance your leadership skills, and then use that to take small steps. You know,

Rex Jarrett  00:25:13  

someone once said to me, even falling on your face is moving forward, right? So even fall even if you get into grad school and it's hard and it's difficult and you feel like you're failing, even falling forward, even falling on your face, is moving forward. So small steps. Maybe start with a certificate, a single course. Our Community Leadership Program has a skills course. People can register for almost any time. Many of our master's degrees have certificates you can say, hey, let me start with this small time commitment. And if it works out, and I feel like being a student again is right for me, you can step into that momentum and continue into your graduate degree. But I think the biggest risk is standing still, because standing still there's no progress. But as I said, even falling on your face is moving forward.

Dennise Cardona  00:26:05  

Oh, thanks so much, Rex for sharing your insights. I love that last thing that you just said. I loved everything that you said. You shared some really great, really great helpful information, and really appreciate your time being here with us today. 

Rex Jarrett  00:26:19  

Yeah, no. Appreciate you for having me. There was an awesome opportunity to talk about a university I love, and hopefully whoever's listening to this can join us if they haven't already at UMBC. 

Dennise Cardona  00:26:29  

Thanks everyone for tuning into this episode of UMBC's Mic'd Up up. If you'd like to learn more about our offerings, just click the link in the description. Thanks so much.