MIKE >> Howdy y'all! It's Mike and welcome back to another vlog.
I just got back from a pretty
heavy day working with folks in my cohort and during that time someone
asked me to speak to an undergraduate who's thinking about the master's
program that I'm currently in so right now I'm I'm in the mood to answer
questions. Particularly about masters programs. But along those lines, I thought
I'd take this opportunity to document some of the thoughts I've been having
and go through a little bit about the program selection process. Now for a lot
of my life and I'll be using myself as an example throughout this, graduate
school is just this big, monolithic, thing. Kind of amorphous, you know, it happens
after undergrad, but one of the important distinctions when you're
thinking about graduate school is to think about whether or not you want a
Masters or a PhD. And there is a big difference between the two. Now I can't
tell you whether or not you would want a Masters or PhD. That decision is up to.
But one piece of advice I would give you is that it's gonna be really guided
by what you want to do after school. In my case the decision I was choosing
between was going for my current program which is Masters of Engineering in
Space Systems or a PhD in Astrophysics and
it was tough because I really like both those things but the decision I finally
came to with that I wanted to go build cool stuff and to do that at the level I
wanted I really needed a Masters because it would get me to where I needed to be
to do the things I wanted to do the most quickly. In your case to parse between
which one you might want, there's a couple of resources all send you to.
If you have an academic advisor, a boss in the industry you'd like to go in to ask
them. They should have information on the kind of degree would need to get to
where you'd like to be. Another good resource if you're wanting to work in
the U.S. is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They keep a lot of data.
I mean a lot of data.
About jobs, minimum degree levels, most things you'd want to
know about various different jobs. And well some of the descriptions may be
pretty generic as is the nature of polling, it can still be a pretty good
tool to figure out the trends for in the industry that you'd like to be in.
Before I give you my second piece of advice, let's go through a thought exercise.
I'd like you to think about your undergraduate. And what you liked and
didn't like about it. After giving you a moment what I think I liked and your
answer might be a little bit different than mine but after talking to a couple
people this is kind of a consensus I have come to is that the people in your
program, the general vibe of your program, and your advisor are gonna play
a massive role in whether you like the graduate program that
you're gonna go to. Now, based off this thought exercise, my advice is gonna be
make sure your adviser is right for you. This is a little bit different from the
advice that you're given when looking for an undergrad, which is to decide on
the program and don't get me wrong, the program itself is important, but you'll
find that in your desired field, you're gonna find a couple of schools that fit
those criteria. So to further down select from that group, an advisor is a pretty
important thing because you're gonna be working closely with them for the
duration of your entire graduate degree. So having someone that you feel
comfortable with and you feel is empowering you to do a good job in your
degree and in your research, whatever is necessary to fulfill the requirements of
your program. The better person you find a better time you're gonna have. The next
piece of advice after this is make sure the program that you want to get into is
the kind of environment you'd like to be in. Because it sucks to think you're
going to start a really big next chapter of your life, are excited, but there's
something about your program your department the people in it that really
rubs you the wrong way and now you've made a financial and time commitment to
work with them and if you can visit beforehand, talk to current students, talk
to your adviser about the culture and environment of your department or
college, the better. The more information you have while making the
selection the better time they're gonna have now my last tip is almost almost an
emotional housekeeping kind of tip but it is also very practical in and of
itself and that's to take inventory of your level of comfort being away from
your support systems. Grad school may entail moving away from home for the
first time. You might have been away from home an undergrad but some
people go to undergrad in their hometown or get a job out of high school or
college and when they're starting to consider graduate school their best
option might be far away from home.
In my case I kind of travel this line.
I grew up the youngest of an Irish family so I have a very strong family dynamic,
but Michigan is about seven hours from home for me. There is a trade-off that
you have to be comfortable with. I shall go home and see my family
and that was one of my requirements. Other people might not, I shouldn't say
might not care as much that's not emotionless, but other other people might
be more comfortable being further away from home and again that's all personal
preference. Aside from that I really don't have any more tips. If you have any
questions please leave them in the comments below, I'll be happy to answer
them. But aside from that I hope you have a nice day and I'll see you in the next vlog