Your Senior Year Starts When You Enter College
Diane Burns, MEM-2471
All too often, students get to their senior year of college and are completely flummoxed as to why they are not get- ting accepted into graduate school or how they are not receiving job offers in their chosen field. The smart geology students (and usually that goes hand- in-hand with a good advisor) begin their journey towards graduation years in advance, when they first matriculate. One of the first and foremost ways to lay the groundwork for success is to hit the ground running with coursework. I do not mean by taking tons of geology classes. I mean hit the books hard, get good grades and keep that GPA high. It is always easier to earn a good GPA and maintain it than to start low and try to improve it later. One way to help facilitate this is by getting a room on campus, preferably in a dorm that is aca- demically oriented if possible. Studies have shown that if students remain on campus instead of having off-campus housing, they have – on average – a grade point level higher GPA than non- resident students.
That is not to say “work, work, work” and not do anything else. Another sug- gestion for paving the way to success is getting involved in some campus group(s). This not only gets the students a break from studying, but it helps stu- dents get and practice life skills that will be attractive to graduate schools and prospective employers. This does not mean, however, simply attending group meetings and passively staying in the shadows. The student should become involved – run for officer posi- tions, come up with activities for the group to do, manage the logistics of making the activities happen, handle the budget for the group, come up with new ways to run the group more effec- tively, efficiently and financially sound. All of these skills are invaluable and to be able to demonstrate that the student has that experience makes the student much more marketable. The type of group with which the student becomes associated is important as well. Joining a bowling league may be fun and some of
these skills can be obtained, but joining a Geology Club would make more sense in this major. Joining an honors society, like Sigma Gamma Epsilon, can be even more valuable – not only can the skills set be gained, but members who apply for federal positions are usually given an automatic pay increase over other hires just because they have that hon- ors society connection. On average, this can be an increase in a starting salary of $10,000!
Then the
specifics...getting into indus- try is a little less work than getting into graduate school, at least as far as prelim- inary tasks are involved. Maintain your GPA, hone those professional skills and earn the respect of your teachers so that they can provide glowing recommenda- tions when the time comes. For someone interested in going on to graduate school, it becomes a little more complicated in the junior and senior years. A student interested in this path should first start to work a research project into their schedule during their junior year. This project does not have to be in the sub- discipline that the student envisions as their career path, although that can be beneficial. Mainly, students need to be able to demonstrate that they can handle a project from start to finish and take it to a convention to present their findings. This in itself will set students in better positions than most others graduating in their year.
The legwork to find the best gradu- ate school possible, however, is often underestimated and started woefully too late. Students should start researching graduate schools in their spring semes- ter of their junior year and into that summer. Look for graduate programs in the field(s) that are interesting, find the professors in that department who perform that kind of research and review their C.V.s. If they have not published anything in the last five years, the student should probably pass on that professor as an option – if the professor is not publishing, they are probably not current in their fields and will not be extremely helpful to the student. If the
professor is publishing, then the student should see how successful the professor is in obtaining funding. While not a deal-breaker, the better the professor is at getting money, the more money there should be to facilitate research…and “perks.” When I was in graduate school, my advisor had very little money avail- able. I still did a nice project, came up with some findings that were relatively new and unique and obtained my degree. That said, other students working under an adviser who was very successful in getting grants were handed laptops as they entered the program – free and theirs! My field area was 10 miles away from the university, and I drove there in my Mazda 323 with my two canine field assistants after I was finished at school for the day. Other students who worked with advisers with money were shipped to Scotland to do field work, sent aboard the Deep Sea Drilling Project ships or flown to Africa to collect fossils. The point is, more money means more freedom to do whatever research interests there are.
After identifying several schools that have professors with whom the students feel they can work, the students might want to send the current advisees of the professor some emails and see what their experiences have been. Prospective students need to determine a best fit for them, not pigeonhole themselves into what is considered the best school/ professor from others’ viewpoints. For example, if a student works really well on her own, she may come to detest the micro-managing adviser. If a student really wants his hand held throughout the process, an adviser who only wants to see results and does not have time to spend with him is going to be problem- atic. A little soul searching and honest assessment of the student’s personality is going to go a long way in this area. Once prospective advisers have been identified (and this process should be completed by the end of summer/begin- ning of senior fall semester), students should then craft an email introducing themselves to the professors and ask- ing if they will be taking on students
www.aipg.org
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56