Hello and welcome back to another episode of choices. Choices. Choices. My name is Tyler and here with me today is my colleague Sylvia. Say Hi Silvia. I filled in. Today's episode, we're going to be talking about grad school. Yea. That has obviously a really broad thing to talk about in one podcast episode, but we're just going to briefly cover some of the different programs that may come up in different choices that you could have in grad school and things to think about as you go through your four years at UD. So currently I am in grad school. For example, we can start there. I'm in the online MBA program at UD, the Masters of Business Administration. And it's my second master's degree. And just FYI, when I tell students that you don't need a specific major to get into most grad programs. I never took a business course before starting this program. And I've been doing pretty well. I would say, what has the MBA entailed for you in terms of courses that you've taken in people that maybe you've met or even why you decided to do the MBA program. Sure. So I'll start with why I'm doing the strategic leadership concentration. And I just had this moment, this epiphany one day where I realize that I'm always thinking about things and how they can be better. Like how can I make the process better and improve things to be more efficient? Because I love efficiency. And I looked back into the programs IUD offers, and it had never occurred to me to get a business degree. And then I saw this strategic leadership concentration and I was like, oh, Let's do that. And it just felt right. So I did it. And just like the undergrad business programs, it has a core set of classes that everybody has to take. And then it's only like five courses that are in the major concentration. So I've been taking, I took my first accounting class and my first econ class, and my first operations management class and things like that. So it's a little bit of everything as some of my students know, and I think it's also worth mentioning. I actually used to do MBA admissions before I came to this job. So I actually got to look inside what that process entails, how applications are I guess, adjudicated for lack of a better word, and even conducted interviews of candidates myself. So I gotta seek kinda that end of it. I never got to see much of the backend in terms of the career services or academic advising. But I did work pretty closely with them because oddly for admissions, there's actually a lot that you need to know about the whole operation because you're always going to be asked questions about all of it. You're absolutely right. We actually, the most common major that we saw in business school admissions was actually not business students, it was engineers. We add a lot of engineers come in. There are a lot of engineers in my program because we, in every class they're like introduce yourself. And a lot of them are working in some kind of like engineering field or science field. And a lot of those individuals will usually go on to do like Ops or product development with companies. And so that's usually where we saw a lot of engineers end up. Even if you decide to major in something not business, there's nothing stopping you from eventually obtaining a business degree, at least at the master's level. So that's kinda nice thing when it comes to being undecided is that whatever you decide to major in, and as we've said before, there's not like some sort of iffy real committee that makes sure that like you go into the career that you majored in and that will hold you to the burner for it. And I feel that I'm trying to understand more about students as they think that they're going to be caught skipping something. If they decide to work in a field that's different than what they majored in. So I think it's always good to point that out. Anything else you want to discuss with MBA programs in business school as a whole, you know, we, we are, We didn't really come in with a plan for a one thing. I think it'll come up later in terms of like money and paying for grad school. So let's continue on. First with the types of grad school. We might kinda continue then with professional programs. When we talk about professional programs, we always refer to business, medical, law. So whenever we hear pre-professional programs or professional programs, it's usually those three. I don't know if there are any others and I'm missing there or speech language, we have a pre-professional triumph for so. And then forensic science can also be a pre-professional track even though forensic science could be a whole bunch of different fields, right? Right. So let's go on to medical, cuz that's the big one. Yes. So let's talk about this. I want to first start off by saying Sylvia and I are not experts in all of this, however, have area. We're not experts in all of this. However, we have met with experts multiple times about this. So I think we bear enough credit to discuss what we have here. So with medical programs, it's basically either Med School, which is an MD program or an OD program, which I don't think it's necessary to talk about the differences between those two to now. It's fine. Continue there. So we have med school, which is that traditional doctor training, and then there's literally everything else. Flags bowl because a physical therapy, occupational therapy, physician assistant programs are not going to be the same as going to med school. Or they. A difference in terms of like length of time and the amount of school that you're doing. But they're all doctorate programs. The only one that I don't think is a doctorate program yet, and it might have changed is occupational therapy. But everything else I think now requires a doctorate level, which I think is really funny that they do because you still wouldn't call like a physician assistant, Dr. cuz that would be too confusing. Bray? Yeah. I also don't know and I'm going into law now, but I always wondered why they aren't called doctors when they earn a doctorate to because they have a squire of the under their name instead. But that's not a reason. It's just what they have instead, why are you trying to change the status quo? My bad. But there's also vet school and dental school and I would say dentistry is probably the most similar to med school, probably. Yes, I would absolutely agree. Oh, once that we rarely talk about are like pharmaceuticals and optometry, I haven't had students talk to me about those. What else is there in health? We mentioned optometry, I guess an offset as ophthalmology. Yeah. I think those would be very similar in terms of like what program you R2 will. Well, is it Colon? Yeah. Well, one can do surgery or we're cutting this far. Well, yeah. But I'm looking it up now. So in ophthalmologists you actually have to go to med school to be an optometrist. It's autonomous you program coursework also includes full-time clinical training as a resident during the final one to two years the program, it sounds like there's just like some tiny differences but amongst them. But in terms of like getting and to them, it's a very similar process across the board, I would say including like most grad programs, but we'll get into applying to grad programs a little later. Let us move on with more types of programs. Yeah, Alice, I think it's going to just stick those types right now. So let's talk about law school next. Yes. So law school following something similar with business, you can major in anything before you do law school. Sometimes they can help to take certain kinds of coursework ahead of time, but it's not required to apply. But law school is a three-year program, usually that would grant you a juris doctor. Okay. Icom and earlier about the why don't we call them Wagner? But you'll hear it called it's a JD. And once you complete your not league, automatically ready to become a lawyer, you also have to pass an exam called the Bar exam, which allows you to practice law in whatever state you take it in. When you're in law school, there will be kind of a push for students to focus or specialize in a few different types of law which Sylvia, I was doing a little bit of prep work before this. And you'll be very happy to know that L. Sack law school admission council has a website and on it is actually a interest assessment of what kinds of law you would be most interested in. For the record, the top two ones that I got were criminal law and civil rights law. Well, now I'm a little annoyed that you didn't share that with me ahead of time so I could focus assessment. Well, I'll give you I'll give you the link if you want Ira. Yeah, that would be essentially Law at that point. So where business and law you don't need anything done ahead of time to apply to those programs. Medical school, you usually have to complete prerequisite courses at the undergraduate level before you apply. But well, there are some things, some other things you duty to prepare like each of those require some kind of standardized test, like whether its the end cat or the owl fats or the GREs, or the GMAT, or the MITs for teaching. Mit's. I'm trying to remember ON kids for dentistry. I'm sure we're leaving out some kind of test. No, I think that actually covers most of them. Ok. Which one did you take? Fun facts? I never took a graduate exam for I specifically focused on programs, Fred, I was interested that did not require a GRE score because I did not have the money to pay for the exam when I was a high school teacher and I did not have the time study because I was a high school teacher. Okay. All right. I guess I'm used to like the state that I was living in. A Master's degree was expected for teachers. And to get that master's degree or to get into the program, you had to take either the GRE or the MAT. And we recommended to students that they take the MAT if they could. Because apparently it was a little easier. Hm, well, we said something similar when we were doing business school admissions, we recommended the GMAT versus the GRE, but we framed it as easier to students, but that's not what the case was. It was that the GMAT was just a lot more applicable to business. And so for students who are interested in pursuing business, there is a safe assumption that the probably had some kind of Acumen and coursework or knowledge beforehand. So it was probably just more applicable to what they would actually be studying, whereas the GRE was so Rod and you'd have to know so much about so many different things. It's kinda like an SAT or ACT all over again. Oh yeah, it is. I took the GREs. So then of course, there are various subjects when it comes to PhDs, masters of arts, Masters of Science, Master's of Education, masters of public policy. So they can be more specific, just like a bachelor's degree can. Obviously, these programs are very different. So they all have their own, like not all PhDs are created equal, Right? Right, right. And then you also have joint programs which could be appealing to people who have a very specific interests in terms of like wanting their MBA along with their JD. I saw a lot of JDs paired with up with PhDs. So you can end up with having too. And then there's also PhD programs where you earn a master's degree on the way to the PhD. Sometimes the Master's degree, you have to get first and sometimes it's optional. Yes. So it can vary a lot depending on the programs by point is that there are so many programs out there. Right? And I've noticed that at least in a lot of the ones that I've talked to with students. You don't have to have the specific major beforehand to apply to them. I think even when I worked at Pitt, we had I'm glad you brought up joint programs because we had a ton of joint programs there. There were joint programs with the MBA, Master of Public Policy. It was one with the law school. There was one with doing a Masters of health administration for Hamas, call them kids and they're in their late twenties. For students who wanted to specifically work in hospitals at the business level, which I have thoughts about. What else we have. Oh, there was the one with the engineering school as well. Although for engineering, you did have to have a bachelor's in that. So it's always good to look ahead of time what programs you'd be interested in. Although I don't think somebody who does a bachelor's in music is going to want to do a master's in engineering. And anyway, you know now that it's true, I can only speak for myself. There are music engineers. I'm talking like if you guide a music performance degree and decided that you wanted to get your Masters in civil engineering because you want it to engineer bridges. Could happen. I wonder if there's like a, well, I guess you could do oh gosh, I wonder if there's like an expedited program where like you could do your bachelors, masters in four years because you wouldn't need to do any of the Gen Ed requirements for the engineering degree. Yeah. If you've got your bachelor's in something completely different. Well, I mean, sometimes if you already have a bachelor's degree, but it had nothing to do with the master's degree that you want. Sometimes I'll take work experience into account. If no, I've been working in some kind of field related to engineering, they might take that into account. They care more that you have the experience. So sometimes students do need to go back and take like certain prerequisite classes, like the prerequisite classes that we recommend to students who are pre health or pre whatever there to get you into the graduate program. And if you didn't take that while you are an undergrad, you can just take it after year in undergrad. And before you go to grad school, when I was thinking of going to get a PhD in math, I hadn't taken math so long that I was like there's no way they're going to let me into this program. So I decided to go back and get a second bachelor's degree in math first, only to realize later on, that was a huge mistake. I didn't need to get another bachelor's degree. I could have just taken a few classes and then applied for like a Master's degree first and then gone on to the PhD. So just FYI, some things might make sense to you in the moment, but talk with experts, talk with people who know about these things before you bake rash decisions and end up getting a second bachelors degree for no reason like I did. I guess the last thing that I have to say is just if you find yourself in a situation where you're thinking about grad school at all, but you're not sure what you want to study or where to begin. I think it's always good to just kinda cast a wide net and type in something that you may be interested in studying and then just put master's program after it in a Google search. Because a always kind of fascinates me the scope of different things that you can study at the master's level. Lake. I know we've talked about biomedical illustration a few times and the fact that that's its own kind of almost professional program of sorts. You would never know that going into undergrad, that that's even a possibility. I mean, it wasn't until recently. I know I notice that we have a master's in criminology and that's nine, common knowledge. So it's always good to kind of know about those things. That's one way that I learned about the different types of programs that are out there. When I was searching a school that had one type of program that I wanted, I kinda looked through all of their programs and found other ones that sounded really exciting. I would say kind of on the, the other side of that coin of casting a wide net is if you don't know what you want to go to grad school for, you know, don't go. Yes. Oh my gosh. Should've started the whole episode. First of all, grad school isn't always necessary for what you want to do. In fact, most times it isn't. And sometimes people think I should go get my grad degree to make myself more valuable because I'm having trouble finding a job. But a lot of job experts will tell you that that can actually puts you at a disadvantage when you have too much schooling and not enough experience. Because employers value experience more no matter what. And not to say that they don't value a degree. But if you don't have the experience to back up the job that you're going for, then you're not going to get it and sometimes you can be considered overeducated. And when I say that it's more in terms of like money, unfortunately, where people don't want to extend an offer to somebody that they assume will want more money simply because they have a master's degree. Because graduate degrees do kind of bump you up and salary in some industries. But it usually is because it helps with the I wanna call it. It's because you already have the experience under your belt and kinda go back. I know I've talked a lot about my time serving in business school admissions. But these, the points that you're making are literally things that get discussed in the admissions committee. These are things we literally talk about. And one of the things that actually gets brought up as an admissions component is how many years of work experience as a student have. If a student comes in and only has one or two years of work experience and wants to do an MBA and wants to go work in corporate finance. We would be taking a huge risk on this student because an employer is going to just say, well, you've got one or two years. Of good track record and good work. But you have all this education and are asking for this higher salary if you end up not doing well for our company, we just wasted a bunch of money on you. So either you have to prove that you're a valuable asset to our company and can take that risk or we don't take that risk and we'd pass you off somebody else in favor of a candidate who we know can do the work at the level and at the salary level that they're requesting? Yeah. So I would say when you're considering grad school, definitely ask yourself why? Men, if the why is to make yourself more valuable to employer, find out if it actually does, if it's necessary to get that for the career that you want before you go and dive into grad work. Because honestly, it is a lot of work. It is a huge commitment and possibly could be a huge financial commitment as well. Not necessarily just with tuition, but the fact that you're in school is time away from doing something else. And so really think about why you're going to be going to grad school. And some of those reasons can be like personal fulfillment. Like It's totally fine if you want to get like your MFA and poetry. It is not necessary for any job. But there are still plenty of people who do it and value their time doing it as well. So yeah. Okay. So we talked a little bit about admissions kind of so we can continue on with that. When it comes to most programs, they do take into account GPA, undergraduate GPA horse separately, and they also take into account the test scores that are required. And you can find programs like Tyler did where they don't require test scores. Yup. Yup. Granted. Huge caveat here. When I was looking for it was kind of a cram where it wasn't necessary because that wasn't the kind of things that they were looking for. You wanted to have academic aptitude, but they were looking for people who had various experiences to bring into the classroom and in lieu of a test, Helen, thank you. Click what athletes that were in lieu of a test score. We actually how to conduct a pretty lengthy interview and we had to submit a writing sample because that was a big part of ours was that we had to read a lot of scholarly articles and know how to do lit reviews and write about research and findings. And so leave that test score. It was we had to show other ways that we were competent enough. The program. Yeah. It had been a while since I took the GREs. So my test scores are no longer valid. For the MBA program. I had to retake them and I was like, I don't want to and I was trying to find a loophole. And I thought my loophole was that I had taken like calculus and whatever. They're like, no, it had to be higher levels of math and that and I was like, How did I not take higher levels when I was a math major, but only for a little while. But they did give me an alternate, kinda like you did where I took like this online MBA math course. And I am so glad I had that option. There was more value to doing that than there was retaking the GREs. Because I learn something from that that was very helpful. Going into my business classes, where I never taken a business class before. So tests and then personal essay is my favorite. Personal essays are always going to be very different in terms of what you have to write about how long it has to be all of that size. So I mean, frankly, it could be a whole podcast series on just personal essays. So I don't want to talk too much about it. I will say I being my experience applying to graduate school and helping friends who applied to law school, the overall purpose of a personal essay or personal statement, as it may also be referred to, is to give the committee an idea of who you are as a person and why you're applying to the program and what you hope to accomplish. That is usually the format. Sometimes there can be guided essays that you have to do for pit when I worked in the business school, we actually had prompts. And so there were certain things that had to be included in those personal statements. So it can vary in terms of what they require, but in general, that is the purpose of them. And I can't speak for all admissions councils. But at least when I was doing this, they mattered a whole lot because a test score can be a test score. But if a student is coming in and has 0 idea why there are, why they're applying to the program where it's really vague. If they weren't showing and the essay that they had any sort of knowledge about industries they were interested in and why they wanted to work in them. We didn't admit them because it showed that they didn't know why they were coming. And we can risk bringing in students who are going to be flight risks or are going to be a lot to handle because they have to be functioning adults at that point. They have to navigate courses, they have to navigate the whole career search aspect. And if they have no sense of identity and who they are and why they're there. They're just going to frankly, be a disservice to themselves and also to the program. I was very lucky that when I was applying to the Counselor Education Program, I was living with somebody with a writing master's degree who didn't teach courses on writing personal statements. And I gave her my first draft and she tore it apart. She was like, this is not going to work. None of it's going to work. And I was like why I thought it was well-written and she was like, it needs to be a story. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yes. And I was about to say it's not a cover letter, but honestly, cover letter should also be stories. I remember working with this student when I was a career counselor and her personal statement read a lot like my first draft. It sounded very mechanical. Sounded like you're just telling them what they wanted to hear and was kind of a laundry list of things. And I gave her that kinda the same advice that my friend had given me in terms of Make it personal. Pick one thing and needs to have a through line. Because all the examples that she gave me, she gave me a bunch of samples that she uses for her class. And they all had these stories where you can venture off if you want to say something else and include it, but you always need to tie it back to the story, to the main points. And funny enough, I ended up writing my personal essay about her. Oh, yeah. And it was about a day where she was stressing out and I kind of sat her down and helped her realize that she had plenty of time in her day. And she had brought that up later. And I wrote about that and it was part of why I wanted to be a counsellor. It worked. I remember writing mind for grad school and thinking it was kind of almost had like a bit of a shtick. And so I was kinda concerned at first and then I ended up having one of my mentors look at it. And he had kind of walked me through different processes in years prior acts as interested in doing Fulbright programs. And so I learned a lot about how to formally all of that together and express ideas a lot and writing. And you're going to laugh at me for this, the overarching theme or the kind of leak through line that happens throughout that essay was actually me talking about how I was sitting in the middle of a rehearsal for Shrek, because when I was teaching high school, that was the school musical. And so each paragraph kind of like detailed where I where the rehearsal was in the process as kind of like this background thing that kept happening. And I thought it was so gimmicky at first. And then my mentor sent it back to me and he's like, that's how you write. That is how you should write us. Hey, okay, Crick. It's, yeah, I tell students to think about it from the perspective of somebody who has to read 200 of these. Yes, you can, it's fast. Make it stand out, make it interesting. And I had kind of compared it to cover letters where honestly, when I've been on search committees, I skim over cover letters because they all end up being the same. And I love it when I read one that is different and has a story and it's engaging and tells me about that person. Yep. That big asterisk I am going to put on this whole conversation. Make it interesting, make it memorable, but make sure that it's not memorable for the wrong reasons. Yes, I'll make it relevant. Yet. I would say it's hard because it's such a it's such a hard thing to describe, you know, don't make it memorable for the wrong reason and then, you know, what does that look like? It's going to be different for each person. I will say the essays that people remember the most are the very best and the very worse and the very worst for me, were not the ones that were completely sterile and unoriginal. It was the ones that were just lake a bit bizarre. I think is the best way to put it there. What is one I still remember to this day. I'm not gonna go into too many details, but I remember it's starting off with on a dark and stormy night, March 19, whatever I was born. And I was like, OK, this is a little out there. So I would probably not begin an essay with details of the weather when you were born. At, well, I think with that example, it's because it's like, yes, yours was gimmicky but yours was sincere. It was authentic. Me talking about the day you were born when you don't even remember it. Like that's not sincere, that's not authentic, that is completely gimmicky. It's kind of like beginning a speech with Webster's Dictionary defines as a right? Yeah. Okay, so we talked about GPA a bit. We talked about standardized test scores, personal essays, transcripts as kind of an offset of GPA, you just lit up. So Sylvia has things to say, but recommendations. Oh, yes. Let's discuss this because transcripts, it's a very cut and dry thing. We're going to look at grades for classes. We're not going to pay too much attention to freshman year, at least for some programs, I think for med school, they are going to look at this basic science lab course is quite a bit. But I think overall, we don't pay too much attention to freshman year. We're more interested. What did you take, how did you do And does your transcript kinda tell a story as well? But from a broad perspective, transcripts are just going to be. What courses did you take? Looking for? Quantitative background, what mass did you take? Any accounting courses if you're doing business, if you're doing law and I'm not even sure what they would look or it's very standardise. It's more like SAT ground checks. Yeah. I think I would be a good way to put it, but that's transcripts as a whole. I want to talk about recommendation. I tell students from the beginning start working on those relationships because if you don't think about that, so let's say you get to the beginning of your senior year and that's when you want to start applying to a grad program. And you don't have anybody to give you a recommendation because all you did was solely focus on getting the work done in your class. You didn't do extra curriculars. You didn't build relationships with your professors. So then it's too late. It's too late to get a recommendation from anybody at school. And you can not get recommendations from family members or friends who don't know you in some kind of academic or work capacity. So when it comes to work recommendations, like if you have a supervisor, that's also kind of a last resort depending on the grad program that you're applying to. Because if you're going for like an MA, MS, or a PhD or something like that. That's more academic. You'll want to have recommendations from people in academia. I think. Going further with that, I've had students who are interested in link social work are different social science majors, but I think this can apply across the board. Research assistant, ships graduate assist, and ships can greatly help with financial aid. Light can pay for your tuition. Help like I didn't have to pay for my master's degree because I had a graduate assistantship. And one of the ways you can do that is by helping faculty do research. I think that applies when you go into those types of grad programs. Yeah. And because there are other types of graduate assistant sheets available for other things. But I was going to say it's not just for the financial aid or the graduate assistant chefs, but getting research experience as an undergrad is vital to like a psychology program. You don't have any research experience. You are not getting into a psychology PhD program. And that is all they care about. So I always emphasize that with students particularly going for psychology is you have to have research experience if you want to continue on in this field. And I think that even ties into strong recommendations, even if you decide not to do the research oriented type of program, still having an academic contact to write a recommendation can help, especially if you have a transcript that it looks a little shaky. If you can at least have a professor who has worked with you for multiple classes or is known mu over multiple years and can at least attest to some kind of credibility with your academics that is going to be so helpful. And I want to stay on this just a little bit longer because I have vivid recollections of bad academic recommendations as well. You want to have somebody who knows you and who can actually test to who you are, has had you in multiple classes, are known you for a number of years who used to stay in contact with. Because if you ask an academic contact to write a recommendation, they don't know you too well. I am here to tell you they will mention that in letters I have seen it said, I do not know this student well, I had them in one class, didn't participate. Their grades were good. And that was it. And I deny those students. It was usually because there were other things bad about their file. It wasn't just the recommendation, but they were denied. Usually, if you ask somebody for a reference and they tell, you know, I would move on. Yes. And I have had students ask me for recommendations like if they're transferring schools or something like that and I'm like, I cannot write your recommendation. I don't know you in an academic capacity. I only advise you on what to taken courses. I only know your grades. I have no experience working with you as a student. So I can't say anything and I flat out tell them that and don't be insistent because if they do agree to write that recommendation, it will be a poor one as Tyler had described. And it's funny because I say this and yet when I was applying to the counselor ed program, it was it was actually only a couple years out from getting my second bachelor's degree. But like I said. Build those relationships. Something I did not do the second time I was in school. I still hadn't learned my lesson, but I had built a lot of relationships in my first degree when I was doing theatre because you kinda have to. And I reached out to those professors. And it had been seven years since they were my professors. Had we kept in touch? No. In fact, I don't think one of them even knew who I was. And he actually was the only one who said it's been so long. I don't know if I'm the best person and I was like, it's fine if you're not the best person, I would still like you to write one and he did. And I have no idea what anybody wrote. I have no idea if any of them wrote something that made a difference. Because there's another thing when you submit some recommendations, sometimes they'll give you an option of whether you want to be able to see what they say? My recommendation. And this is not my recommendation. This is what I've learned from other people. Always check. No. Because people will be more honest if you trust them. Yes. People will take issue if you want to see what they're going to write. And they can't write u as glowing over a view if they know you're going to read it, or just the fact that you want to Riyadh. So just check no, and let it be unnecessary for eternity. I actually wrote a recommendation for student not too long ago and I know that you had said you don't usually do it for students. I was only comfortable doing that because I knew that student from how frequently we had met and because of the conversations that we had. So I felt I knew the student well enough to do so. And when I saw that they had it's called waiving your right are waiving your right of access, which basically means, sir, I'm good with not seeing that. I think when I saw that, I felt a lot more comfortable in being more honest about everything. And I think it's because is going to be some more personal language in there, especially if the recommender feels very strongly about the person they're writing about. And I think it's because I late, if I had known that my student was going to see that, I would have been a little bit more sterile. And what I had said because I don't want it to potentially make a student even feel uncomfortable or feel like, oh, that's a little too touchy feely. But that's also what the sign of a good recommendation would be. Wouldn't you rather have something that is personal and is going to have a little bit more of that personal touch. It's a very weird sort of complex thing. But having done those, I kind of like when student can't see that because it just allows me to be a little bit more who I am and how I want it, right? Yeah. I think it's really interesting. Like the point that we're trying to get across is like, yes, we're saying good things, mmm. But we want more freedom to say does good things. So just wave your right to read it. Yeah. Yeah. And frankly, if you feel uncomfortable waiving your right to see what a person wrote, I think it is very important to ask yourself, what is it about this person that I don't trust them to write something good about me. Yeah. Okay, so we've talked about what is typically covered in an application. I know we're almost out of time. I was thinking the last thing that we could discuss, I don't know if it's relevant is when to start looking and when to start applying. When to start looking is as soon as you want to. As soon as you know, you want to do something like if you know in your first year of undergrad that you want to go to med school, start looking up different med schools. The reason being is because even though we have kind of a pretty set list of prerequisite courses that premed students need to take. There are some med schools that require courses beyond that. And they're med schools that don't require as much. And this goes for any school that requires prerequisite. So like speech language pathology programs also have prerequisite courses. And it varies between the programs and as long as you know ahead of time what those courses are, you can plan that out while you're in undergrad. And if you don't know that until your senior year and you don't have the time to take what you need, then you might have to take some courses after graduation. And that's not totally uncommon. It's definitely happened in the past with plenty of students. So it's not like it's a huge failing on anybody's part. I think another thing I will say, and this is a totally personal experience. It he think he want to go to grad school. Consider multiple programs and multiple pathways. You want to make sure that you have hashtag choices when you're looking at it. But it's also because you don't want to put all of your eggs into this one basket And this one thing and this one path that you want to do because if you change your mind or something doesn't work out or you don't get admitted to a particular program, you want to make sure that you still have other things kind of in the back pocket to consider. It doesn't mean you have to apply to all this programmes and cast a wide net, but at least kinda keep those ideas on the back burner. That's kinda my biggest thing there. So I think that doesn't necessarily apply to every life because some people, for example, know they want to be a lawyer in which case you're not really going to cast a wide net in terms of different types of programs you're going to go to law school, true? Yeah. Like I said, I'm coming from a very personal point of view because I put all my eggs in one basket and then my whole life plan and got flip turned upside down. And I'm not doing anything close to that. Now, Let's talk a little bit about paying for grad school. One example I am going to give you is, and I always go back to psychology because I majored in psychology and I looked into a lot of psychology PhD programs and even city programs. And I tell students don't pay for a PhD program. A lot of Ph.D. programs have funding. Find the one that will fund you. So I know what their concern is at grad school is expensive and yes, the tuition is higher, but there is more funding for students possibly. And a lot of graduate assistantship have tuition waivers. So if you work at the school and have an assistantship or some kind of teaching assistantship. Depending on your program, you might not have to pay any tuition the whole time you're there, right? It largely depends on what you're going for, the funding that's available, and what it entails for you to get that. Scholarships for law school aren't uncommon. And so you get a full ride for law school. You have to be a pretty extraordinary individual. And hatch, we've done a lot like my friend Joey. We actually went to grad school together and then he decided after a couple of years to go to law school, sees a L2 2L wherever you want to call it at Ohio State. He recently just got awarded a full tuition scholarship. But the work that he does outside of law school on a daily basis with diversity and inclusion, social media, and the writing that he does. I mean, he hustles hard, he earned that merit scholarship. But then there's other programs where there will be little to no end vet school and med school or to that pop into my mind a lot. They're very expensive. I think of bakeries and that med school and law school and things like that, do not have as much financial assistance is because these are programs training you for jobs that are very high-paying. So the assumption is you will be able to pay back your loans. Whereas if you are going to get your PhD and then work in academia is not as high paying. So I mean, there's no incentive to go and pursue that and that's why there is more financial assistance for such things. Mm-hm. Good point. Yeah. Honestly, the biggest takeaway that I hope everyone comes from, away from this in terms of paying for grad school is go where you don't have to pay unless it's not common. Because like that advice obviously doesn't apply to med school. You don't go to med school if they're not going to pay for it. But I will say that getting the financial assistantship is usually more common with PhD programs because of the research aspect of things and teaching you have to do. Yes. So it also depends on the, the school that you end up that cuz if you go to a research university where a lot of grad students do teach the classes, then that means there is opportunity for you to get those positions and have your education paid for? Yes. Whereas if you go to a smaller school that is not research driven, there might not be. So it just depends. I think this can even be an offshoot of why people try to go to more elite institutions as a whole, because the money is there. So if you go to someplace like an Ivy League school or research one university like University of Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State. One of the many schools in Florida for just as examples, the money is going to be there because they are behemoths as institutions, they will likely have the money. Although that can also vary by department. Well, it's funny that you say that because I think about like the example that I'm thinking of is my alma mater, which is George Mason. It's not as like huge in terms of, I guess prestige. It is huge in terms of population. But it is a big research institution. And so almost all of my psych courses were taught by grad students. Me when I was working at J MU. That's not as big of a research driven institution. And they are very good about getting their masters students into graduate assistant ships. Because graduate assistantship aren't always gonna be research because you have like office positions or internship like positions. Yeah. Nehemiah, you graduate assistantship was not Research at all. I work in B office of recruitment and retention for the College of the Arts. Can steady. But because it was an on-campus assistantship on the Kent State campus that qualified me for full tuition. So that was what I did for two years in addition to working another job and going into classes full-time? Yeah. I didn't have my first Master's degree paid for. So this is another example of do as I say and not as I do learn from my mistakes. I would not trade my time there. I learned a lot. I loved my experience in grad school, but I did straight out pay for it. Kind of I say kind of because I'm still paying. Let's end this by talking a little bit about how we chose our grad programs. I I talked a little bit about why I chose the one I'm in currently and it had a lot to do with well, I work here. But how did you choose your grad program? My experiences enforce generally pretty utilitarian because I had to do it based off of what I could afford. And that ultimately came down to what programs didn't require a GRE score. So I started there, but then I also was looking for programs that were more practitioner centered. And so for mine, I didn't want it to be as research oriented and doing a lot of learning about theory. I wanted it to be more centered on the praxis of being a student affairs practitioner, working with students, learning how a university functions as a whole. And I also wanted something that was a little bit more elective driven. I wanted a program work kind of shaped my own experience with the classes and not be confined to. Curriculum that everyone had to do. So there is no kind of variety. So those were kind of the things I was looking for. And I applied to Iowa State because that was my alma mater, Kent State, that was like the wildcard. I applied to, Colorado State and University of Massachusetts Amherst. Denied from Colorado State. I got a very, very late deny from UMass for the nature of my program. Your conditionally admitted to start, but then you have to interview because a program requirement is that you have to be hired for a graduate assistantship. And if you are not hired by any of the units that interview you because it's basically like a job. If they choose not to hire you, you don't get to move forward with the program. So Iowa State, I only guy bore interview offers and my last choice was the only one to make an offer. It was not even going to be a full-time assistantship and hardly any of my tuition would be covered. Kent State gave me my first choice assistantship, and paid for all of my tuition in size a hub, pretty easy quotes decided from here. And I had a good experience, then that's law matters most Oh, yeah. There was no way I was taking out loans for grad school. I wish I had that for a site. I think at the time in my mind I was like, I'm going to be paying off student loans for the rest of my life. So why not just pile them on who cares? And a part of me regrets that. But another part of me was like, No, that makes sense. I think that Colorado State was actually one of the other schools that I was considering when I was looking at grad schools for counseling. So my choice in grad school was a very long process that I'm only going to talk about after I made the decision to finally choose counseling and choose career counseling. And then I ended up finding counseling for higher education. And I was deciding between Colorado State, I think I can't remember. It's been so long. And VCU cuz I had moved to Richmond like a year before that are less than a year before that at that time. And my decision ended up being that I wasn't ready to leave Richmond. And so I only apply to VCU and I got in. And it's funny because everybody who gives advice about grad school will tell you apply to many different ones, but don't apply to too many. And I did not do that. I apply to one. But the thing is, is that for me, it was if I don't get into it, who cares, but for people who need to get into a grad program? Yes, definitely apply to like five to ten programs. More than that. It's too much because when you're writing your personal statement, you do need to make it personal and you kinda need to make it about the school. And if you're applying to too many, you can't really keep track and only apply to the programs where if you get in, you want to go. Because if you applied to so many, just because you're thinking quantity over quality, you only get acceptance letters to the places that you are like. I wasn't really sure I wanted to go. Well then how are you going to feel about that decision? And I think a good caveat to all of this is ten to 15 is a really reasonable net to Kass. However, it is. Okay if that is not financially feasible because with every application becomes comes an application fee and those compile on really fast. That's why I said five to ten, man. I'll place a ten to 15. No, I think 50, I think more than ten has too much cuz that's yeah, it's the fees that come along with the application fees because if it's like, for example, it's $50 for an application fee on average or something like that. Isn't that like $500? I yeah. I think I spend between 3045 for each application. I think there was actually one. I didn't complete. I think it's because it would have been too much money or there's something wrong. But yeah, it was it was also just going to be too expensive. I thought core was pretty reasonable. Umass, I thought I had a chance and CSU is like the long shot. So I think I at least had kinda viewed my category, said I had the safety school, the wild cards, the long shots. You know, I don't think I'd ever apply to a longshot school and that fly I have never been rejected from a school that I've applied. So kids, if you set your sights very medium than U2, can never experience rejection. Notice, can I go? I see the logic with that. However, here's my logic with it. You will never know if you would have gotten if you didn't try. Nih nah, I'm just kidding. I'm absolutely kidding. I can't. Ok. Well, thank you all for tuning in to another episode of the podcast. We hope that what you heard us talk about Stay with grad school was helpful. I know this is definitely kind of a bit of reminiscing for me. I don't know about you, Silvia? A little bit. Yeah. Well, this has been Twilio and Sylvia and this was another episode of choices. Choices. Choices.

Choices: Episode 6 - All About Graduate School

From Sylvia Lee December 02, 2020

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In this episode of Choices, we discuss all things grad school. We go over the different types of graduate schools (including medical, law, business, education, etc.), choosing a program, and what is involved in preparing for and applying to the programs.

Department Name: University Studies
Appears In: University Studies

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