Fair points students toward graduate schools
Consistent with national averages reported by the National Center for Education, the number of USU students planning to pursue graduate degrees is on the rise. To help these students learn about options, Career Services hosted the annual Graduate School Fair in the TSC Ballroom Thursday.
According to the NCE, the number of master’s and doctorate degrees awarded annually increased 49 percent and 54 percent respectively from 1999-2009.
Shelley Lindauer, the associate dean of the USU School of Graduate Studies, said this increase makes sense.
“I think we live in a world now that a bachelor’s degree is going to get you a jumpstart on something, but it’s really not going to lead to a career,” Lindauer said. “For most disciplines, in order for someone to advance up the ladder and to really get that career position that they want, they are going to need to have a graduate degree.”
She said a graduate degree is key to advancing a career and salary.
Career Services holds the fair every year to help students who are interested get started in furthering education, Melaeah Christensen, coordinater for the Career Services fair, said. The goal, she said, is to provide an environment in which students can learn how to prepare for graduate school, plan steps to be accepted into the school of choice, meet staff from different programs and get help in applying for various graduate programs.
Christensen said she supports the pursuit of graduate degrees, which can open doors and provide possibilities for students of all disciplines. This is why the graduate fair is useful for students in all years of study, she added.
“The fair gives students a chance to network with different opportunities,” Christensen said. “They can see what graduate programs are out there to pursue.”
Joshua Blume, a senior studying economics and international studies, said he was not especially impressed with the diversity of the programs displayed. He came to the fair to get a head start on his graduate school research and was hoping to get an idea of the studies offered, he said.
“There aren’t a lot of the schools here that I want to go to,” Blume said. “I want to go to higher-ranked schools, and there aren’t a lot here. Mostly it was just schools from the state of Utah. There are a lot of bio-sciences and only two law schools, and that is what I am interested in.”
Cathy Dawson, a junior studying theatre arts and landscape architecture, said she had a different perspective of the fair.
“I learned things I never would have,” Dawson said. “The fair showed me a lot of options. Unconventional education is opening up. There are so many things to choose from. It would be impossible not to go to graduate school.”
Upperclassmen were not the only students attending the fair. Sam Beirne, a freshman studying conservation restoration ecology, said she came to the fair to get an idea of where she wanted to go in the future. Austin Spence, a freshman studying biology, said basically the same thing.
“I don’t know what I want to do with my life,” Beirne said. “I think I want to go to grad school, but I don’t know, so I was just coming to check it out.”
She said more than anything this fair taught her to keep her grades up and look for other options of study.
Spence said his concern as a freshman was that he was still new to everything. He said he knew graduate school was in his future, he just didn’t know how to get there.
“I want to be ready,” he said. “I want to know what they are looking for. I think the fair will help me get an idea of what I need to do.”
– brianna.b@aggiemail.usu.edu