With undergraduate debts and financial independence looming over some seniors’ heads after graduation, many Boston University students are considering the pros and cons of going immediately to graduate school, embarking on a career or taking time off after college.

Although graduation for most is more than six months away, seniors are currently facing application deadlines for both schools and jobs, such as the mid-November due date for some medical school applicants and December grads aspiring to attend graduate school this spring.

Many students contemplating this choice say they weigh the option of career experience against further education.

Career Services Director Dick Leger said taking time off helps to put graduate school into perspective.

“Generally speaking, it’s better to take time off,” Leger said. “It helps to clarify goals and [allows one] to make more positive decisions.”

College of Arts and Sciences senior Douglas Perkins said he plans to take time off to find a focus.

“I am not going to graduate school right away because I don’t know what I want to specialize in,” he said.

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Associate Dean Scott Whitaker said taking time off can be valuable as long as the time is spent wisely.

“There is a difference between sitting on the back porch for a year and participating in social programs,” he said.

Whitaker said some Masters in Business Administration programs actually prefer a student to gain work experience prior to acceptance. Other fields however, such as pre-medicine, urge students to continue education immediately after completing undergraduate work.

CAS senior Brian Cohen said he is interested in going into the medical field, and said it’s an easy choice to go to grad school.

“I’m going right away,” he said. “For my field I think I need a master’s degree.”

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Jeffrey Henderson said in an email “work experience is normally irrelevant” to admission.

Henderson said there are a variety of components that applicants must have if they are to be accepted, regardless of when they apply.

“GRS has 50 distinct programs,” he said. “And students are admitted by each one on a program-specific criteria, but what every applicant must show is aptitude to make original contributions in research and scholarship in the chosen field.

“If the time off has not affected the readiness of the applicants in their chosen fields,” he continued, “it has no bearing at all.”

Whitaker said the important thing to consider while evaluating this choice is to make a decision that will advance your goals.

He said he asks students to consider if taking time off is “an intermission or the next step.”

When advising students on when to attend graduate school, Leger said “there is no such thing as a scripted answer” about whether students should take time off.

“The concept of being left behind has no real meaning,” he said. “The right time is your time.”