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Graduate School Application Workshop: A step-by-Step Guide to Making the Deadline
- 1. Graduate School Application Workshop A Step-By-Step Guide to Making the Deadline
- 2. Workshop Outline When What 3:00 – 3:30 Workshop Presentation Introduction & discussion Things to consider before applying Quick stress & time management tricks 3:30 – 4:00 Workshop Presentation - The 4 STEPS to APPLY STEP 1: Research & select programs STEP 2: Acquire Requirements! STEP 3: Connect with key people STEP 4: Write 4:00 – 4:30 Workshop Presentation: How do I write? 1. Writing emails to professors/ supervisors 2. Writing messages to strangers asking for help! 3. Writing a research proposal 4:30 – 4:40 BREAK 4:40 – 5:45 Workshop Exercise 1. Writing a statement of purpose 5:45 – 6:00 Workshop Evaluations
- 3. Is graduate school for you? FAS Career Services American University of Beirut
- 4. It’s costly if you don’t find funding Studying abroad can be very stressful Academic jobs are tough to find, abroad AND in Lebanon You’ll be out of the job market for 3-7 years The tenure track is not a certain track, abroad AND in Lebanon Pros & Cons FAS Career Services American University of Beirut Your earning potential MIGHT increase You’ll conduct lots of research You might get to travel ≠ People will call you Doctor! ≠ You love your topic ≠ All the senior students are doing it!
- 5. It’s for me. Where do I start? FAS Career Services American University of Beirut
- 6. Step 1
- 7. Step 2
- 8. Step 3
- 9. FAS Career Services American University of Beirut Step 4
- 10. How do I write? FAS Career Services | American University of Beirut e-mails to professors asking for a reference letter my statement of purpose my research proposal messages to strangers asking for help!
- 11. How do I write? FAS Career Services | American University of Beirut e-mails to professors asking for a reference letter my statement of purpose my research proposal messages to strangers asking for help!
- 12. How do I write? FAS Career Services | American University of Beirut e-mails to professors asking for a reference letter my statement of purpose my research proposal messages to strangers asking for help!
- 13. How do I write? FAS Career Services | American University of Beirut e-mails to professors asking for a reference letter my statement of purpose my research proposal messages to strangers asking for help!
- 14. Contact the FAS Career Services for a prep. They say you have 10 seconds To attract a recruiter FAS Career Services American University of Beirut Sure you don’t need help?
Editor's Notes
- Intro + who I am Your name + major & what you’re applying for + what do you dread most about your application to graduate school? Disclaimer about workshop: it is designed for people who know they want grad school and need practical guidance Together, we are going to draw on 2 things: psychology & story telling to increase your chances of being accepted Write on board: Crunching application = Time management + Resourcefulness + Introspection + Good writing Tips on how to take notes on laptops during workshop
- It’s beyond the scope of this workshop to give you guidance on WHETHER you should or should not apply, but here are some things to consider: The job market and the problems of over-qualification + the versatility of you knowledge (specialization or not?) + importance of skills Tip: read blogs on PhDs / become BFF with your professor / as we will see later, you need to become proactive + resourceful (I’m gonna show you how to do that in a couple of slides!) What are good reasons to go to graduate school? What are bad ones?
- We said we’re following 2 principles. Here’s the first heads up I will give you: Stress doesn’t bode well on our bodies. What does stress do to us? Handout 1: the to do list We’re about to see your to do list. To be able to do it, you have to know how we deal with stress: when we’re overwhelmed, which you very well might be, we tend to freeze. What do you think we should do about that? Set small, achievable, measurable goals Lay out all your tasks in front of you (visuals help!) + determine how much time you need for each set a timeline. Don’t rely on your own memory Organize your stressors Put your emotions aside –> It’s okay to obsess + to stress a lit. But. Be an engineer: point is to increase the chances of you getting accepted. You need to understand you’re not alone in this. Delegate tasks: seek help, you won’t be able to do this alone. That’s OK.
- Per vacancy find job search engines: Nature Jobs.com or Jobrapido FUNDING - Three options: Apply for funding separately, through sources THEY will give you Apply for funding separately, through sources YOU look for (like The Said Foundation, British Lebanese Association, Fulbright program, Asfari Foundation Scholarship) Receive funding automatically WITH the program (more true for PhD): Europe usually you have to apply to funding separately USA: it’s usually assumed that they pay for it Canada: it varies, but usually you have to find separate funding
- A PhD proposal = an outline of your proposed project that is designed to: Define a clear question and approach to answering it Highlight its originality and/or significance Explain how it adds to, develops (or challenges) existing literature in the field Persuade potential supervisors and/or funders of the importance of the work, and why you are the right person to undertake it
- Statement of purpose = Personal, Creative, Passionate it is a STORY … It’s 90% fun. 10% necessities. It tells the story from A to Z - Z being the point of application. Everything in your life has been leading up to this moment. Your job is to tell me how. If YOU know these things, your reader will know you. If you don’t, your reader cannot know you. And if the reader has not “met you”, if your story doesn’t stick, you’re just another application. Who wants to hire a stranger? When do we tell stories? (when we’re relaxed, comfortable, confident, when we have content, when we have an audience. It’s a pretty lax process, one we usually love to do. Especially extroverts.) It is STORIES we remember: not faces, not people, not facts: stories. You want to say something people will remember? Say it in a narrative. It’s the first and oldest form of art: oral performances. How do you tell a story? Can anyone tell me any story they’ve recently heard, one that left an impact? It’s about events It’s about timing: what leads up to what It’s about the ending: the punchline: what happens? It’s about someone. In this case, it’s about you. To write it well, you have to do introspection: Who am I? What is unique about me? (what I know, what I’ve done, thoughts about the world, and what I want to do in it) EXERCIZE Part 1: Write down 3 elements that define who you are. Clusters: family, experience, cause. Example: “I grew up in a home with 3 kids”. Turn to the person next to you, and tell them one story that’s based on one or more of these elements. The story has to be told in under one minute. EXERCIZE part 2: Who has heard a boring story lately? How do you tell a good story? A good story goes straight to the point. It leads up to it, but it gets there right away. A good story has passion. You can tell me about a potato, and make me interested in it, if you have passion. Who volunteers to give us one element that defines them? How can we now turn that fact into an emotional experience? that’s what you need to figure out. Once you have that story, you will fit it into a format. You can decide how, and when. But the important thing is the story. EXERCIZE part 3: Read Paragraph 1: sample of Statement of purpose. Did it grab your attention? Do you still want to read? What exactly made you want to read? As a recruiter, what have you learned about this applicant? You learned the elements that make her, her: “I grew up with a twin sister (as an element of her identity) + family played a big role in my love for cinema.” Read last Paragraph 1: sample of Statement of purpose. Would you accept her?