One of the things I’ve been obsessed about over the past few months is graduate school. I’ve decided to focus more of my content on the things I’ve learnt these past few months to help prepare people who are either in undergrad right now or are recent graduates looking to go to graduate school.
Why I want to do this in particular is because I realize a lot of mistakes I made when I was in undergrad (that I’m sure many people are still making) that will hurt my chances of going to graduate school or make my profile less competitive.
After national service (or whatever the equivalent is in your country), the two options you’re faced with is either a) getting a job, or b) going to grad school. Of course, there’s c) joining the pool of unemployed graduates that keeps getting bigger every year, but I’d rather we not talk about it.
Like everything else, going to graduate school requires rigorous preparation. You need to find out what you need to be doing now that will not just up your chances of getting into the schools and programs of your dreams, but also equip you with the skills and experiences necessary to excel in those programs. So, I guess the first question to ask then would be…
In everything we do, foresight will save you a lot of regrets. Figure out early what you want to di and start planning towards it. What you want to do could be something in the long-term, or even a short-term thing that ends up contributing to your long-term goal.
Whiles it is not uncommon for undergrads to have figured out what they want to do post-graduation, it's important to at least have a clue of what your interests or career prospects might be. I advise that you speak to career and guidance consellors of your university (which I'm sure most schools have) to help you navigate this journey of discovery.
I keep refering to undergrad and not national service as a way to emphasize that you should not make the mistake of waiting until after your undergrad to start doing these things. But if for some reason, you're already done with your undergrad, all hope is not lost.
so, say you wanted to get a masters in public health, the next thing to do would be to…
If for instance, you’re doing Biochemistry in your undergrad and are interested in pursuing a PhD in Biochemistry, doing this will give you an idea of the cut off grades the schools you want to get into typically accepts.
Find out how prestigious the university you want to go to is, what their acceptance rate is, any scholarships they have available, and what profile of people fit their scholarship scheme. Do your research early!
It’ll be a pity to find out after your undergrad that Johns Hopkins doesn’t accept students with a GPA below 3.75CGPA.
For an aspiring Ms or Phil Computer science student, maybe building apps or posting your coding projects on Github early on in undergrad will immensely boost your application and set you apart from the 50 candidates applicant pool who all have a 4.0GPA.
The important thing is that looking into these things early helps you position yourself beyond just qualified to the applicant that gets admitted, or even better, the one that gets admission with a scholarship.
You’ll also find out that for research-focused graduate programs, research experience and publications will set you apart from large applicant pools with equally academically competent candidates.
Disclaimer: Please bear in mind that I’m not an expert on the topic. I’m simply sharing what I’ve learned from experience and from several months of research into grad school applications.
if you found this helpful or educative, please leave an upvote, a comment or reblog, and let me know what you think in the comments
