Panel offers advice to future graduate students
Undergraduates hoping to further their education have a lot to look forward to.
Utah State University Career Services held a career forum last Thursday in the Taggart Student Center Auditorium. The theme of the forum was, “How To Get The Most Out of Graduate School.”
Assistant director of Career Services Randy Jensen and student Leon D’Souza hosted the forum featuring USU professors David Tarboton, Charles Swenson, Rimma Shiptsova and Jing Huang. President Kermit L. Hall also sat on the panel.
Tarboton, with a master’s degree and doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and current civil and environmental engineering professor at USU, began his five minutes of advice by saying he couldn’t even remember his Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores. He said the advising professor a student chooses is more key to success as a graduate student than the research performed. Every graduate student should make sure that their adviser is working on research that interests them and is something they want to use in future careers.
“You’ll be learning a lot from them,” he said.
Hall said he agreed wholeheartedly and added that getting in touch with previous students of the professor can be a great aid in deciding if you’d enjoy working with them.
“A professor with the grayest hair on their head does not mean they’re the smartest,” he said.
Nor does a high-ranking university mean that the department you’re going to research through is the best, he said. Small departments in less-distinguished schools can be the better ones for a particular student.
“You have to research your decision,” Hall said.
Shiptsova, an associate professor in economics, acknowledged her introduction to graduate school more casually. While attending a conference in Moscow she said she met some professors from Ohio State University and they mentioned the graduate program to her. She applied and was accepted to OSU after doing research, she focused mainly on the region of the country she’d like to live in and the size and attitude of the university.
“You should focus on the current projects the college is working on as well,” she said.
Huang, an associate professor of political science, served on the admissions boards at Harvard and Stanford. He added his advice to the rest of the panel’s.
“It is not how good you are, it’s how special you are,” he said.
Cover letters are the number one way to show that. He said they should only be one to two pages in length telling them who you are and what makes you special.
“There are 500 to 600 applications for 20 spots so you can imagine they only take 5-10 minutes on each application,” Huang said. “Your job is to catch their eyes.”
When students are trying to warm the professor up to them, Huang said they shouldn’t use flattery, or empty words. Often, it’s best for an applicant to challenge the professor’s idea and show them their strengths.
Swenson, an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering, graduated from USU with a master’s degree and got a doctorate from Cornell University. He said he used his education experience in acknowledging the worries some USU graduates have of not succeeding at more distinguished graduate programs across the nation.
“If you can excel at USU, you can do well at any school,” he said.
While attending Cornell, Swenson already had a family. He also relieved students’ worries by saying that if they put the hours of work in, even with a family to support, it will be worth the time and sacrifice.
“You want to be independent and work hard,” he said.
Joe Brewer, a junior majoring in finance and economics asked what extra-curricular activities are important to have on your application for graduate school. Hall responded by saying experience working with people is good to have. He added that it’s a big help to have volunteer experience and internships on applications as well.
“In the business world now, you need to have dimensions,” Hall said.
Graduate school is a lot of time, energy and money. Shiptsova said that if a student applies to graduate school with a doctorate as a goal, they are more likely to get funding. Swenson and Tarboton agreed that often in the hard sciences, tuition is wavered or supplemented by working for the college or as a teaching fellow. Being poor, said Shiptsova, will shock you but is worth it.
“Investing in yourself is worth it,” Swenson said.
Also mentioned by the panel of educators is the advantage that can be gained by waiting a few years between finishing undergraduate studies and beginning graduate research. Time to get experience in the field you like is important, Hall said.
Jenny Ballif, a senior majoring in crop sciences ,asked whether or not it’s smart to change areas of study from a bachelor’s degree to a master’s program. Tarboton and Huang said that it can be a great plus to have two diverse areas of study, although going from a bachelor’s in history to a master’s degree in engineering would require some pre-requisite courses.
Other main points from the forum included the need for a student to know their advising professor and the need to make sure the department and school are the right place, environment, and atmosphere they want to devote their research time to.
“Know the people you’ll be working with before choosing to work with them,” Hall said.
Career Services will be hosting a professional and graduate school fair Wednesday from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. in the TSC Sunburst Lounge.
-ireneh@cc.usu.edu