Graduate School

Graduate School Opportunities: How Graduate School May Be The Key To Your Future

Are you one of the many planning out how to leverage graduate school opportunities in your favor? It is safe to say that every serious profession benefits from some form of advanced education. Now, while academic post graduate education may not be right for every career path, for many, graduate school offers keys to future opportunities and advancement that would otherwise simply not be possible. And just as importantly, it offers an exciting, if challenging, path to personal growth and development as well. Your decision what to do next following your undegraduate degree--whether to pursue graduate school opportunities or not--is serious and deserves your due consideration, and there are many things to think about, such as grad school ranking, whether to attend a traditional non-profit, campus-based, school, or an online grad school like Kaplan or University of Phoenix.

For many career paths, graduate school is the next logical step to take following your four-year degree, whether a bachelor's degree (BA), bachelor of science (BS), or bachelor of fine arts (BFA). While your undergraduate degree is often sufficient for entry into many professions, an additional advanced degree will almost always give you a step up. This is especially true if there is stiff competition in your chosen field, or if you are entertaining thoughts of ever going into management. One point to keep in mind is that in some professions, the only true way to advance is through management. In other cases, an advanced degree may be a requirement if you are planning to teach or if the field demands additional years of study in order to meet entry level requirements. The degree that you earn will vary with your career choice. Not every profession has the same terminal degree. For example, in business, the terminal degree is an MBA; in Liberal Arts a Ph.d; in the arts, an MFA.

Graduate School Opportunities in Other Countries

Every country with an educational system based roughly on a progresson from high school, undergraduate college or university and on to graduate school uses slightly different terminology and ways of describing the processes of further education. If you are already thinking that you want to attend graduate school and possibly in another country, it is important to udnerstand how that system works and how you will fit into it coming from the education system in your own country. Thus, graduate schools in the United States, Canada, France, and Russia, for example, all operate a little differently and you will have to satisfy their requirements for admission. It is also helpful to know that while not all four year colleges offer graduate education, most universities offer both undergraduate and graduate programs. Where you atttend will depend on your needs versus the offering of the program as well as graduate school ranking. The relative importance of ranking, however, will have a lot to do with your own personal and academic needs as well as with your undergraduate performance.

One important way in which the American system is different from that in other countries is that graduate school programs are usually not aimed at qualifying the student for any specific job or profession. That is, the programs are not generally vocationally oriented. The schools that target specific job types are usually called professional or vocational schools. This reflects the fact that they train with a very narrow focus in mind in order to qualify the student for work in their particular area of expertise whether that be law, medicine, business, or culinary arts. If you are certain that you want to spend your working life in one of these areas, there will be no better preparation than this sort of advanced study.

Finding the right graduate school opportunities for your needs is a matter of great importance, as your studies will represent a serious commitment of both time and money. Once you are certain of the type of degree you want to pursue, finding the right school will be a case of research followed by multiple applications. The schools are looking for quality students every bit as much as you are seeking a quality school. You will need to try to make yourself into the ideal student for them, but also be realistic enough to know that you may not land your top choice.

Each graduate program determines how it evaluates and accepts students. Ofen these decisions are made on a personal level after the students undergo interviews with administrators and faculty. Grad schools retain the upper hand in setting their own standards because there are always more students trying to gain places than there are places to be had. The most obvious method of filtering students is to set a minimum test score level. This certainly has the effect of reducing the time the college staff need to spend processing applications, as many can be discarded quickly upon seeing unsatisfactory grades.

However, not all graduate schools rely on such a rigid system of evaluation. The reason is simply that it only sets one standard for students to meet. It would be quite possible for a talented student to fail a one time examination, and yet be more than capable of producing a quality thesis and satisfying all requirements for degree study. It is really more necessary to make an evaluation of the student based on their ability to study, to research their subject, and to accomplish their work--which more accurately reflects their ability and knowledge. Now that graduate courses seem to be taking ever longer, it is even more important that the student is able to carry out quality research over time.

Job Market Influences Grad School Programs

One of the major reasons for the increasing length of graduate programs is that the job market is becoming increasingly difficult to enter for students completing their studies. Programs in the humanities and social sciences typically last longer than those in the natural sciences. Natural science graduate studies can even be completed within the intended three to four years in some cases, although this will vary from college to college and even from student to student. Social science programs can even last for twice as long as originally intended.

Students today have many more tools at their disposal to help gather information, compare, and evaluate graduate school opportunites and programs than did students in earlier years due to the Internet. Not only can you find comprehensive details on every program and course available, you can also research funding options and subsidized student loans. There are even online study options which can ease some of the practical difficulties in being able to complete high level education programs. Further, with the easy availability of social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, you can get first hand information on programs from current students and faculty themselves. In fact, there is so much information available, you have to watch out for information overload. Nevertheless, in the end it is essential to be as certain as possible that you know what is available to you before you apply to graduate school.

Criteria for Evaluating Graduate Programs

Graduate school opportunity assessment: How do you decide which graduate school is best for you? In order to help you begin thinking about how to make a choice, we have provided a set of criteria below to assist you in determining which programs are the best match for your ambitions, talents, skills, passions, and imagination:

Admission requirements

Make an inventory of the admission requirements. You need to know how to prepare for application as well as whether or not you can realistically expect to be admitted to the program. How important are GPA and test scores and are there any other standardized metrics that the program considers important? What program specific criteria carry the most weight in selecting students?

Kinds of Programs

What are the strongest programs? Which carry the greatest reputation. Do the programs in your interest area focus on theory and original research, or do they put most importance on application and demonstration of skills? What resources are available in the way of libraries, laboratories, computers, and study facilities.

Faculty

What is the background of the faculty in the programs you will be applying for? What are their degrees, experience, publications, research, and awards? Are any of the faculty nationally recognized? what is the ratio of faculty to students? How is the department ranked against other departments in the country?

Philosophy of Education

This basically means the program's vision of education, and how it defines the goals and meaning of education. This will significantly influence the nature of the program and how it is taught.

Reputation

Is the university accredited? Is the program nationally ranked in terms of excellence? Is the program well established or relatively new? Who has graduated from the program and what are they doing now? What is the attrition level?

Library

Pretty straight forward. Is the library strong in your field of interest. Other questions to ask concern number of volumes and variety of collections. As a graduate student you will need to be certain that you can use the library as a research resource.

Physical Facilities

This concerns the physical infrastructure of the university. As a student in a graduate program you want to be sure that there are sufficient classrooms, study facilities, areas for mixing with other students, and that the program has sufficient supplies and resources for you to do your work. If you are in the sciences, then would mean appropriate labs, equipment, computers, Internet access and all the supplies to for proper operation.

Cost of Study and Residence

Be sure to do an inventory of tuition, fees, financial aid, loans, scholarships, internships, teaching assistant-ships, research assistant-ships and any other funding sources. Research the actual costs of residence and living in your chosen location.

Size of Univerity and Program, and Physical Surroundings

Take note of the physical surroundings to be sure that they are acceptable and that you can live in the location of your program for the duration of your studies. Be sure to note how many students are normally in the program. If program student body is large, you want to be sure that you will have adequate access to faculty.

Career Assistance

Make note of career assistance available. Also find out the success rate of graduate finding employment. With respect to a career help, check the availability of internships and practicums.

Networking

Networking is really one of the key components to success in finding suitable employment, and one of the goals of a good graduate program is allow you the opportunity to meet competant and successful professionals in your field. Thus, you want to find out if the programs you are considering are strong in this regard. Find out if your schools have an office or department that specializes in establishing contacts with successful alumni.

 

 

 

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