You’ve gotten your Baccalaureate degree and are looking to move on to higher degrees. That’s great, but be aware that it’s a lot more work than one would expect. To get into College, you may recall, you took a test or two, filled out a lot of forms, and sent them your Grades. Graduate school is, in fact, no different aside from a few key things.
1) You need letters of recommendation. Most schools request three. I wouldn’t send more than four unless you’re looking against something hard like grades below a 3.0 or you really did superb work with more than three undergraduate instructors.
Get these in ADVANCE of the deadline. Professors can be absent minded. I had one of mine forget about me entirely and I had to email him once or twice to remind him to mail the letters. Do not, of course HOUND your professors. This is a timing matter. If you want to apply and the deadline is next week? You’re probably not going to get the materials together. Period.
2) Timing. Graduate schools are not going anywhere. I promise, no really. If you miss your deadline, just contact the school or look online to find the next deadline. There’s no rush, and it’s best to make sure you put your best foot forward.
3) the GRE TEFOIL etc… these tests are expensive and rather limited. You can take the GRE 6 times a year and up to once a month. I’ll be honest, I took it twice and may have to take it again. Okay? It’ll be fine.
Studying is actually not so bad. I would make sure that you don’t over study, if you clog your brain then you’re going to basically implode. Also don’t cram the night before. This test is set so that you basically cannot cram and short term memory it. The English is shockingly enough the hardest part.
The breakdown for the General GRE is Maths, Vocabulary, and Writing
Writing will be two essays, usually on a given topic or a choice of two topics. The key here is to not throw 10 dollar words around, particularly if you don’t know how to spell them. What they are looking for is strength of argument, grammar, and the basic flow and pace of your composition.
Vocabulary is a bit backwards. It’s word association “Beer:Mouth is to…” and then you get a list. Also antonyms, NOT synonyms. Be careful on this one. The words are from left field, and sometimes you’ve never heard them before. You’re going to get caught going “bwa” at least once. Don’t worry, breathe, and pace yourself. There will also be sections where you answer questions based on your reading comprehension. The paragraphs are numbered and remember to not over-think.
Maths is rather basic. You’re not doing extreme equations and sometimes the framing of the question is what scares you. You want to make sure that you go back and study geometry, algebra, and things like FOIL method. You’ll probably see a lot of fractions, do not let things like differential equation framing scare you. It’s not asking for that, it’s asking for something a little more basic, trust me.
3) Research your school. When you fill out the online application you’re going to be asked what faculty you’re interested in working with. See, this is more like a job application than anything else you’ve done for school. You’re going to want to research the department that you’re interested in, find out who you want to work with and why. It wouldn’t hurt to at least know their most recent work. They want to see if YOU fit with the culture of their university. Also YOU want to make sure that YOU fit with that school.
4) Do YOU want to go there? It’s not about going to Harvard, or Case Western Reserve, or MIT. It’s about if YOU are an “MIT” for example. If your whole family goes to University X but your personality and your desires feel more comfortable with University Y, go to University Y. Not being comfortable, not doing what you REALLY want to do will put you out of school faster than grades.
This really astounds me. “Oh I want to research” or “Oh I wanna be an Engineer” are not reasons to pick a school. Engineering in particular is a huge field of study. A degree in any of the disciplines can branch out into HIGHLY specialized careers. “I want to do research” is the biggest cop-out that students give. What do you want to research? Where? What exactly is your end goal? If you don’t know the answer maybe you should wait and that brings me to my final point.
5) Life is not a race!! Can I repeat that? Life is not a race. It doesn’t seem to fail, at about 20-24 people are graduating, moving on, and then they think the following:
OMG LIFE IS GOING TO END AT 25 AND EVERYTHING THAT I EVER HAVE TO DO IN LIFE I HAVE TO HAVE DONE BY THEN BECAUSE I AM DONE LIFE IS DONE AT 25!!! OMG WHAT THE HELL OH MY GOD I HAVE BEEN OUT OF SCHOOL FOR THREE MINUTES AND I AM NOT MAKING 400k A YEAR I AM A FAILURE.
I did it, you did it or you WILL do it. There is no law that says you have to be done with school at X age. There is no law that says if you’re living at home by X age that you will never move out and turn into a goblin. I promise, I mean, I haven’t looked at every law everywhere, but I have this on pretty good authority.
Take your time with this. There is nothing worse than waking up at any age and realizing you rushed into something and now you’re stuck. Take your time, research your universities of choice, talk to grad students in the programs you want. Talk to professors, talk talk talk.
Now this isn’t to say sit there and never move. But DO sit down and think up a reasonable time frame. “Okay, I don’t know exactly what I want to do. I can work for this long and research. If I still don’t know when that time rolls around, maybe I need to take some Graduate Non Degree classes, maybe I need to sit with someone, do some research, job shadow.” It’s important to have a plan. People think more about haircuts sometimes than they think about college and that’s just insane. So DO game plan, set a time frame and do it. Just don’t freak if you’re not a massive success moving the planet before you’re 30.
There you have it. Good luck and keep it moving, guys.
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What to expect when you’re going to grad school
March 5, 2010 by woolfhysteresis
You’ve gotten your Baccalaureate degree and are looking to move on to higher degrees. That’s great, but be aware that it’s a lot more work than one would expect. To get into College, you may recall, you took a test or two, filled out a lot of forms, and sent them your Grades. Graduate school is, in fact, no different aside from a few key things.
1) You need letters of recommendation. Most schools request three. I wouldn’t send more than four unless you’re looking against something hard like grades below a 3.0 or you really did superb work with more than three undergraduate instructors.
Get these in ADVANCE of the deadline. Professors can be absent minded. I had one of mine forget about me entirely and I had to email him once or twice to remind him to mail the letters. Do not, of course HOUND your professors. This is a timing matter. If you want to apply and the deadline is next week? You’re probably not going to get the materials together. Period.
2) Timing. Graduate schools are not going anywhere. I promise, no really. If you miss your deadline, just contact the school or look online to find the next deadline. There’s no rush, and it’s best to make sure you put your best foot forward.
3) the GRE TEFOIL etc… these tests are expensive and rather limited. You can take the GRE 6 times a year and up to once a month. I’ll be honest, I took it twice and may have to take it again. Okay? It’ll be fine.
Studying is actually not so bad. I would make sure that you don’t over study, if you clog your brain then you’re going to basically implode. Also don’t cram the night before. This test is set so that you basically cannot cram and short term memory it. The English is shockingly enough the hardest part.
The breakdown for the General GRE is Maths, Vocabulary, and Writing
Writing will be two essays, usually on a given topic or a choice of two topics. The key here is to not throw 10 dollar words around, particularly if you don’t know how to spell them. What they are looking for is strength of argument, grammar, and the basic flow and pace of your composition.
Vocabulary is a bit backwards. It’s word association “Beer:Mouth is to…” and then you get a list. Also antonyms, NOT synonyms. Be careful on this one. The words are from left field, and sometimes you’ve never heard them before. You’re going to get caught going “bwa” at least once. Don’t worry, breathe, and pace yourself. There will also be sections where you answer questions based on your reading comprehension. The paragraphs are numbered and remember to not over-think.
Maths is rather basic. You’re not doing extreme equations and sometimes the framing of the question is what scares you. You want to make sure that you go back and study geometry, algebra, and things like FOIL method. You’ll probably see a lot of fractions, do not let things like differential equation framing scare you. It’s not asking for that, it’s asking for something a little more basic, trust me.
3) Research your school. When you fill out the online application you’re going to be asked what faculty you’re interested in working with. See, this is more like a job application than anything else you’ve done for school. You’re going to want to research the department that you’re interested in, find out who you want to work with and why. It wouldn’t hurt to at least know their most recent work. They want to see if YOU fit with the culture of their university. Also YOU want to make sure that YOU fit with that school.
4) Do YOU want to go there? It’s not about going to Harvard, or Case Western Reserve, or MIT. It’s about if YOU are an “MIT” for example. If your whole family goes to University X but your personality and your desires feel more comfortable with University Y, go to University Y. Not being comfortable, not doing what you REALLY want to do will put you out of school faster than grades.
This really astounds me. “Oh I want to research” or “Oh I wanna be an Engineer” are not reasons to pick a school. Engineering in particular is a huge field of study. A degree in any of the disciplines can branch out into HIGHLY specialized careers. “I want to do research” is the biggest cop-out that students give. What do you want to research? Where? What exactly is your end goal? If you don’t know the answer maybe you should wait and that brings me to my final point.
5) Life is not a race!! Can I repeat that? Life is not a race. It doesn’t seem to fail, at about 20-24 people are graduating, moving on, and then they think the following:
OMG LIFE IS GOING TO END AT 25 AND EVERYTHING THAT I EVER HAVE TO DO IN LIFE I HAVE TO HAVE DONE BY THEN BECAUSE I AM DONE LIFE IS DONE AT 25!!! OMG WHAT THE HELL OH MY GOD I HAVE BEEN OUT OF SCHOOL FOR THREE MINUTES AND I AM NOT MAKING 400k A YEAR I AM A FAILURE.
I did it, you did it or you WILL do it. There is no law that says you have to be done with school at X age. There is no law that says if you’re living at home by X age that you will never move out and turn into a goblin. I promise, I mean, I haven’t looked at every law everywhere, but I have this on pretty good authority.
Take your time with this. There is nothing worse than waking up at any age and realizing you rushed into something and now you’re stuck. Take your time, research your universities of choice, talk to grad students in the programs you want. Talk to professors, talk talk talk.
Now this isn’t to say sit there and never move. But DO sit down and think up a reasonable time frame. “Okay, I don’t know exactly what I want to do. I can work for this long and research. If I still don’t know when that time rolls around, maybe I need to take some Graduate Non Degree classes, maybe I need to sit with someone, do some research, job shadow.” It’s important to have a plan. People think more about haircuts sometimes than they think about college and that’s just insane. So DO game plan, set a time frame and do it. Just don’t freak if you’re not a massive success moving the planet before you’re 30.
There you have it. Good luck and keep it moving, guys.
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