My confusing journey to picking a grad school

[dfrecore]

In the US, it definitely isn't the norm to go straight from a BA to an Phd. Thankfully, we also don't put kids onto certain tracks when they're 16 to try to determine their futures and steer them in a certain direction - although this is a separate problem with not having non-college tracks in schools that kids can choose for themselves in high school, like carpentry, mechanics, or culinary arts (thankfully our high schools have these options in my town).