Graduate School?

Hey Gamingforce,
So I'm rapidly approaching my final year of undergrad, and going to grad school is one of the options that has been put on the table for afterwards. Or at least it would be if I knew where to start.

Because frankly, I have no idea. I based my undergrad search on an online search form based on campus statistics and available programs of study, which was not the smartest thing to do in retrospect, but it actually worked out pretty well for me.

So for those of you in grad. school, how did you go about discovering/deciding where you wanted to go? What kind of criteria is important to keep in mind/look for?

I don't know if this'll help, but if I do grad school, I'm hoping to study general East Asian Culture with a focus on Japan, China, and South Korea. Any suggestions about some schools to check out for this?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

In my opinion, you should get a real job first, make some contacts, find out what you really love, THEN reinforce and build upon that in GS.

Lots of people get advanced degrees and think that they are going to have an easy time getting a job off the bat, but ultimately, employers are going to look at real-world job experience, not just experience gained through academia. If you do really well and impress a lot of people, then you might be able to get away with a job immediately after graduation, but I still think it's better to dabble in the realities of the job world first.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Megalith hit the nail on the head.

Grad school is nice and all, but I'd look in to it after a year or two. Some lines of work give a roof depending upon your education. With a masters, the "roof" is higher or often nonexistent. In my line of work, for example, getting a Masters will boot you up two years on the pay scale... Whereas if you worked those two years, you could potentially be much higher.

My opinion is to just sniff around in the industry before you commit to grad school. You might not enjoy the work at all, and it'd be better if you wasted four years (on average) of your life as opposed to six or seven. It's a "look before you leap" sorta tactic.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

There's been some pretty good advice given here, but I'll just add a few points.

First of all, try to get to know professors in your final year of your undergraduate studies. If at all possible, get a job with a professor or a researcher that is doing work in something you might be interested in.

This is very important for a few reasons:

i) You can get letters of recommendation. All the graduate programs I've ever looked at required at least 3 letters of recommendation for entry, preferably from faculty.

ii) By working with faculty, you may get a better idea of what you want to do in graduate school. Working with different people may give you an idea of what interests you, what you'd hate to do, etc.

iii) You might be able to get involved in research activities. It is a good idea to have that in your background, because it shows an inclination towards research - grad schools are looking for this, too. If you can somehow get published, that would be very impressive.

I second everything that's been said about real-world experience. I've accepted to an MS program, and I attribute it to my experience as a microbiologist out in the real world. My work gave me a much better idea of what it is I intend to research for my thesis, and I think that helps.

Graduate schools, in my experience, tend to like people with a very clear idea of what it is they want to do, research-wise and career wise. After all, as a graduate student, the school and your professor will have to spend precious funding on you - they want someone who is likely to succeed, and not drop out (which happens sometimes, I'm afraid).

So, be sure to do a lot of reading and talking to professors and grad students to see what's out there for you to do, in the field of East Asian studies. (and yes, you need to be much more specific than just "East Asian Studies with a focus on Countries X, Y and Z"! :P ) At the very least, if you try to get back to the school you're currently in, they'll already know who you are. Good luck.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I think it really depends on the field you're going into and how much you really enjoy the type of work you're doing.

I'm not really going into grad school because I think it'll make it easier to get a job, I know it'll probably make it harder for me because there's actually a higher tendency to become overspecialized in my field (Materials Science & Engineering). I'm mostly doing it because after my undergraduate work I realized how little I understand about the field and I really want to learn as much as I can about materials (which is also why I want to have a really heavy research position and also why I pretty much need a Ph.D. in order to get any job I want, but that's beside the point).

You should only go to grad school if you really feel strongly towards the subject or you know you need to do it in order to get a certain job in life.

As for deciding on where to look for grad school you can try looking at the rankings on US News (they do separate for undergrad and grad rankings), talk to professors (a best bet), checking out webpages of various schools, reading peer-reviewed journals on the subject you're interested in and see where a lot of papers are coming from, or when you're reading papers see if there's any authors that have interests very similar to your own. Then find out where they teach or even try e-mailing them to see if they can recommend someone to talk to (if they're not faculty somewhere). You could also look at where people in your department have gone to grad school before you; your school's career center should keep some sort of listing for that. If they don't, again, try asking professors where people with your interests have gone.

Since you're in the liberal arts you'll also have to be more concerned about funding than someone in engineering or science where their graduate education is paid for. If you wind up not being able to afford grad school (or figure it won't be worth the money) then it might not be worth your time even looking into it.

Edit: Also everything Stop Sign said above me in the post he wrote while I was writing mine.

Getting research experience now is probably one of the most useful things you can do to determine if the life of a grad student is one you'll be able to tolerate.

How ya doing, buddy?

Thanks for the advice so far folks.

RacinReaver, you make a good point about funding, because that does figure into my decision. Actually, one of the things that I've heard that makes me concerned about waiting for grad school is that it makes it more difficult to get federal and grant funding if you don't do it immediately after undergrad. Whether or not this is a myth, I don't know. But it's been something that's been in the back of my mind for a while. Anyone who might be able to shine some light on that?

I'm in no way disparaging real life experience. I agree that's important to develop the resume and spend at least a few years just working to get a feel for life out of college. However, one of the things that concerns me about just dropping into a job out of college is the fact that I'm just going to have a B.A. in Liberal Arts, with a Japanese language and culture concentration at that, which I feel doesn't seem to carry a lot of weight down the line.

The problem is despite the fact that I spent three years developing my Japanese studies, I've discovered this year that I have a large interest in expanding those studies into China and Korea as well, particularly in terms of concepts of foreignness both in and outside the cultures. Due to having a limited amount of time in college though, I've sort of been forced to focus my attention on Japan, but I wanted to explore outside of it while still in a structured classroom environment.

Am I limiting myself? I know a lot of people might say go to the countries to learn about the culture, (which is what I'm doing in Japan for a semester this fall) but I think there's definitely a tangible benefit to developing some background before jumping right in and trying to interpret things you know nothing about.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It also depends on "what's at stake." I'm in religion and government and am heading for a few top jobs in those fields in places heavily saturated with those workers. I MUST go. If you're trying for a mid-level job in a geographic area that needs your work, you may not find it necessary at all.

Summary: more information please, and good luck.

FELIPE NO

You should ask yourself what kind of steps did you take to prepare yourself for grad school. For example, I have experience working directly with three different professors on different things, and finally realized that grad school just isn't for me. Undergraduate research looks good on your resume especially for grad school, so start thinking about it.

It's a lot of work (and sacrifice) given that you will not be making a decent income for a few years, you're a prof's bitch for that duration, and you've got to be pretty passionate (at least pretend to be) about your area of study. Then think about what you want to do with that degree. What position/job are you aiming for? Do you want to be a prof?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by xanth

Actually, one of the things that I've heard that makes me concerned about waiting for grad school is that it makes it more difficult to get federal and grant funding if you don't do it immediately after undergrad. Whether or not this is a myth, I don't know. But it's been something that's been in the back of my mind for a while. Anyone who might be able to shine some light on that?

I know it doesn't matter for engineering/science fields since you'll be funded by your adviser as long as they accept you into their group, and I haven't heard anything about it being harder to get academic fellowships (where you get funded by an outside source such as the government or a private organization instead of your adviser needing to find the money for you).

I know what's important in engineering/science for obtaining fellowships is showing dedication to your field, being published, and having a good idea of what you'd like to research (as in, a specific project and not just "Asia"). It might be a good start for you to think about what exactly you'd like to start working on.

Jam it back in, in the dark.