|
| Choose Graduate Education | 1. Determine your personal goals. Perform a truthful evaluation of your priorities, academic strengths and personal interests. Look for the advice of your instructors for information on alternatives within the field, once you have identified a general field of study.
2. Evaluate your career objectives. The professional degree will advance your career in a particular area, particularly if you have some work experience associated with this profession. It is a comparatively short-term investment of time and money that leads in general to increased salary, greater mobility, more responsibility and greater job security.
3. Learn what graduate and professional institutions are all about. Discover what a master's degree or a doctoral degree is. Start asking yourself different questions to help you look for a program that will best meet your needs.
4. Look at your credentials. Remember that an admissions committee will be looking at all your credentials, so it is possible that strong features of your credentials could make up for weaker aspects. It is significant for you to be realistic with yourself about your credentials.
5. Obtain good references. Good letters from faculty describing your ability to do extremely well in graduate school strongly influence admissions decisions. Professors can not write a good reference letter for you, iIf they do not know you. Ask questions in class, go to office hours, show interest in the subject and work hard so the professor will notice and be familiar with your work.
6. Prepare for the Graduate Entrance Exams. These exams may be an essential feature of your credentials, and preparing for them is very useful.
7. Plan early. Know all the deadlines and be aware that graduate institution application deadlines are frequently in the late fall.
|
|
