Graduate Schools
Are you considering getting a graduate degree and are looking for information on graduate schools and graduate degree programs? There are many references, directories, books and websites out there to help you decide if a graduate education is something you want to pursue and even helping you find grad schools. This website is a resource for you and we have offered some advice below that was taken from ‘The Grad School Handbook’ by Richard and Margot Jerrard.
Graduate school is different in many ways from work on a bachelor's degree. You study in a single field, often working closely with professors in your area. There is a great deal of financial aid available. You need to find the school that is best for you, with good faculty in the field you want, and that will give you financial aid. These chapters will help you to do that.
For example, Paying for the Degree discusses all sources of funds, and emphasizes that a great deal of financial aid is available directly from the universities themselves in the form of teaching and research assistantships, and fellowships. Professors in the field will decide whether to admit you and give you financial aid. A good application can bring in tens of thousands of dollars in cash and tuition waivers.
Professor Richard Jerrard was Director of Graduate Studies in mathematics at the University of Illinois; Margot Jerrard has written handbooks, newsletters, and catalogs in the University's Graduate College. Together they know how graduate schools work, what students need to do to get in with financial aid, and how students succeed.
When you are in graduate school you have smaller classes and seminars, with many occasions to talk to your professors. You work and study with other graduate students. Even at a big university, you are a member of a small community of people working in the same area. There is an excitement that the faculty feel about their subject, an excitement they want to impart to the students.
Graduate school is challenging and will mean working hard, devoting
days and often nights to work. The standards demanded of you will
be higher
than they
were when you were in college. It will mean not joining non-student
friends when they go off for a weekend in the mountains and, instead,
staying
home to work in the library. Late hours spent poring over texts,
nights working
in a lab or studio or at the computer until the sun rises, will not
be uncommon. When you were an undergraduate the emphasis was on examinations
and grades.
Now, you will need to understand your whole field. It's hard work,
but
rewarding and exciting.
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