Graduate Study after IS

The Department of International Studies holds a series of seminars about graduate school in the United States, Canada and Europe. These are held regularly every year. Below is a short summary of some of the topics covered in these seminars. For more information, please contact Dr. Gassan or your faculty advisor.

Caveat: The information on this page is good for most graduate programs in the humanities and social sciences. However, details will vary from discipline to discipline, from university to university and among programs in the same university. Check with your desired programs from time to time as you ready yourself to apply, and go for the big picture here, even if some details will vary.

What is Graduate School?

Graduate school consists of the advanced study of a particular academic discipline. When you enter a solid graduate school, the character and shape of your classes also change. All of your classes will be seminars: there are no more lectures. Sometimes, you will also begin work quickly in a lab, workshops or in fieldwork situations. There are no more quizzes, midterms or final exams for each course. All this comes at a cost: you have a great deal more responsibility, and your work is expected to be much more rigorously executed. There is much more work than in a typical undergraduate class. On the other hand, you have a great deal more control over the pace of that work. You have the chance to choose the topics and items you research.

Although you learn a great deal in graduate school, its greatest benefit is that it gives you the skills and ability to be able to learn things for yourself, to evaluate material, to sort through arguments and information, and to be able to quickly read and understand material.

There are two major types of graduate degrees: the master’s degree and the PhD (“doctor of philosophy”—all disciplines used to be part of philosophy, and so the title stuck).

A master’s degree usually takes from one to two years to complete. In recent years, fewer people go solely for a master’s degree unless it is needed for a qualification or if it leads directly to employment. (For example, secondary school teachers in the US are now expected to have a master’s degree. One use for a master’s degree in history is as a qualification for work in a museum or historical society.) A typical master’s degree program consists of a set of seminars followed by a final piece of research that is equivalent to a journal article. In many cases, a comprehensive final exam on your field and a body of research is also required (this is often called your “comps,” short for “comprehensive”). The master’s thesis research will take up most of your second semester or second year of work, depending on how long your program is. If you have a comprehensive exam, you will find yourself working on this, too, for the last part of your master’s degree program. For the exam, both an oral and written examination can be administered. The most important part of your master’s degree program is nonetheless your piece of independent research. It can become the seed of your PhD, or, if good enough, it can be submitted for publication.

The PhD, or doctorate, is much more in-depth. In many doctoral programs, a student is accepted to a combined master’s/PhD program. Some programs just have a PhD. The PhD can take anywhere from four to seven years (or more) to complete. Usually, the more quantitative disciplines—such as economics or number-crunching political science—take less time while the more qualitative disciplines take longer. The outcome of a PhD is a substantial body of research, equivalent to the highest unit of research in your discipline, e.g., a book–length original study in history, philosophy, etc.; an extensive calculus of an unsolved problem in economics, lasting 30 to 40 pages; or a thorough laboratory study of a psychological hypothesis with an extensive write-up.

The PhD usually folds master’s level work into it. You do whatever your program deems a master’s or the equivalent of one, and then you begin the PhD itself. For this, you often have to take an examination (“comps”), although if you did this for your master’s degree in the same program, you won’t have to do it twice. Then you work on your research or thesis proposal. Before you can go off and start writing your thesis or testing your research, you usually defend your research proposal before an examining board composed of your committee, i.e., your advisors. At that point, the PhD candidate is “ABD” (All But Dissertation). The defense of your topic (sometimes called a “topical”) prefigures the final dissertation defense that you hold once your research is completely done. The final defense, once passed, earns you the PhD title.

Your PhD research will be a long piece of original research on a particular subject: it is, basically, a book or the highest unit of publication in your discipline. As such, it can be challenging, even maddening, to complete, but in the end it can be one of the most important things you’ve done in life. Even if you don’t go on to teach and research, having completed a PhD gives you analytic abilities and mental endurance that will empower you in any walk of life. This is why people with doctorates receive higher pay grades for their qualifications.

Although all this might sound awful— years of classes, years of work—doing the PhD is a liberating process for many. At last, you can study what you want, in as much depth as you can. At last, there are no assignments, no tests, no droning lecturers: you are free to research as you will.

Getting In

The standards and processes for getting in to graduate school vary widely around the world, although there are some common factors. Note that much of what is stated below is most applicable to a university in the United States, with a fair degree of carry-over to Canadian universities. Please talk to your professors for information about the process of being admitted to a European university.

-Your admissions portfolio (in order of importance).

A good graduate program looks at the complete student. Your application package is a presentation of what you were, what you are and what you want to be. For a US university, it consists of:

-Your transcript. (See notes about preparing your transcript in the Start Thinking NOW section.)

-Your Graduate Record Examination (GRE) score. The GRE is a standardized test like the SAT that consists of an analytical reading and writing section, a test of your vocabulary and other English language skills, and a section that tests your mathematical ability. For most graduate programs, only the very worst scores automatically disqualify you (they will look at the other material you submit). The GRE is used in United States programs especially, but not in other cases. Check with your school first.

-Your statement of purpose. In this, you explain your educational arc. That’s where you came from educationally, and where you are going (to echo the opening line of Plato’s Phaedrus). In your statement of purpose, you will briefly explain what drew you to the field in which you did your undergraduate studies, what you’d like to do in the program to which you’re applying, and what you think you’ll want to do with your graduate education afterwards. The center of your statement will be a not too focused but not too general statement of what questions you’d like to work on in graduate school. With this, you want to be prudent. You shouldn’t be so focused that a graduate program will pass you over because they have no one there who works on your topic. At the same time, you need to show them you are ready for high-level work: being too general or vague shows you don’t get what research is all about. In arriving at your statement of intent, talk through your ideas with your recommenders. Also, if there are people at the program to which you’re applying who have specialties in your proposed area of study, think about them a little bit when you are writing: they may pick you out of the hat because they want to work with you. This last piece of advice means that you may want to individualize your statement of purpose a little bit for each separate program to which you apply, according to what faculty are at each program. On the other hand, don’t write the entire statement to a few people: you never know if they will be around in the future.

Beyond the academic stuff— which should be central to the statement— you might briefly explain who you are, where you come from, and what made you who you are. This last part can be crucial: if they understand a bit more about you, they may suddenly realize why your educational purpose has the integrity it does. They may also understand why you took a non-standard route to graduate school, if this is what you did. Remember that, in some ways, they’re hiring you to be a part of their team. They have to live with you just as much as you have to live with them. Convey your spark! Just make sure that your autobiography doesn’t take up more than a frame to the statement of purpose—the center has to be the academic focus.

The statement of purpose is one of the most crucial parts of your portfolio. Your statement gives the admission committee a focused sense of what you want to do in their program (of course, the recommendations will give them an idea, but this is your chance to explain yourself) Yes, this is terrifying. Yes, it’ll be hard. DO NOT SAVE THIS FOR THE LAST MINUTE! Have friends and professors look at it, and follow their advice.

-A research or writing sample. Some universities actively discourage applicants from sending this, while others rely on it as the most crucial part of the application (because they trust their own judgment most of all for their own program). If they tell you not to send it, then DON’T. Nothing annoys them more than people not being able to follow instructions. If they do ask for one, then make sure it:

• Is relevant to the field you’re applying to, or is closely related. If you’re applying to a graduate program in sociology, for example, send them a substantive paper from one of your sociology classes or a paper on social theory from another class. If you send them something from a different field—e.g., English Literature—make sure you briefly relay to them why it is relevant—e.g., you plan to do oral sociology and use literary theory to explore people’s embedded perspectives.
  
  
• Shows competence in research and the ability to write excellently. Your sample of research should engage with the obvious and important sources pertaining to your topic—e.g., the right primary material, important secondary sources, the obvious debates, the relevant empirical findings. Your research sample should be clear, well written and rigorous. It should show how to claim a thesis, follow through an explicit argument and handle obvious objections from the field it is in. It should show solid interpretation of data or textual evidence.
  
  
• Is your best, finished, final, rewritten product. If you submitted something for class, rewrite it. Wait. Rewrite it again! And once more! Don’t rely on the professor’s “A” grade: he’s grading you on something you didn’t have a lot of time, probably, to do. Take the time to make it your best quality work! You can’t be perfect enough on this. No, you can do better. Make it better.
  
  
• Isn’t too long. Your sample shouldn’t be more than around 15 double-spaced pages. If it’s a part of a larger study, tell them; they understand that. If it does come from a longer piece, send the most interesting part. Most of the time, they know the arguments already; they’re looking to see that you’ve found something interesting and that you can reason clearly and rigorously with awareness of your topic’s field.
  

REMEMBER: these are your words, your work. This is so crucial because it conveys that you can function in the field, that you can write, that you can say something interesting, that you’ve got a brain. Spend the time this needs to be perfect.

-Recommendations from your professors. You should choose professors with whom you’ve worked closely, who know you and understand your work, and with whom you’ve enjoyed working. Be very clear about all those criteria before you ask a professor for an application; a lukewarm or vague recommendation doesn’t help you at all. If a university asks for two recommendations, get three (one might go astray). It is a good idea to discuss with your professors what you plan on doing, where you’re applying and why you want to go there. Also, when you finally have an agreement with them on their writing letters for you, be professional: give them a small package that includes your CV, your statement of purpose for graduate school, the recommendation forms for each of the schools along with stamped envelopes for them to send the forms and recommendations in, and perhaps even your writing sample. In other words, place them in the mood and with the information to write you as good a recommendation as they can. They will be writing details about you and speaking to your plans, in any case.

Start Thinking NOW

If you’re a senior, there’s not a lot you can do about your transcript. Concentrate on the writing sample and personal statement. Also, if the transcript is truly dismal, but you can actually do excellent work, you may want to explore options for taking some studies after your BA or BS at other institutions where you can have a second chance to show your potential. You might also apply first to a lower quality graduate school, do well there, and then transfer to a higher quality program.

If you’re a junior or sophomore, begin thinking about graduate school now. Even if you never go to graduate school, your efforts now will pay off: you will have challenged yourself and given yourself a degree that’s worth something.

Admissions committees will look at the entirety of your transcript. First or second-year failings— a class dropped, a D grade— are excusable and understandable. Later problems, though, suggest that there’s something up with you. Were you having family problems? Were you questioning your commitment to school? This isn’t necessarily fatal, but you should (briefly!) explain that in your personal statement. A great deal is explainable: admissions committees are composed of professors who teach undergraduates every day. They understand how life goes when someone shifts majors, needs to take some time off, or is relatively late in discovering his/her true academic love.

What looks very good to an admissions committee is that you challenged yourself. Did you take hard classes, or did you save all those 200-level classes to the very last semester? Did you take seminars and increasingly upper-level classes? Did you demand a paper in a class that didn’t require it? (That’s one way to impress a professor: do extra work.) Did you show some consistency in your degree in the last year or two? Did you get increasingly better grades, or, if the classes were obviously hard, did your grades at least level off? If you’re going straight from undergraduate to graduate school (not recommended in most cases), then did you show signs of a “senior slump?” (If so, then maybe you need some time off.) The kiss of death for an admissions committee is when what you did was cake. If you acted like a slacker, they will discard your application. Why do they want to spend time on you?

There are a number of other topics that are involved in graduate school. These include:

-What does it cost?

-How do I pay for it?

-What do I do with a graduate degree?

-How do I explain to my family why I want to do this?

The answers to the first two questions vary. No matter what, don’t let cost dissuade you from applying. We can help you find scholarship opportunities, and you should search the Internet and ask around for possible leads on scholarships, if you need one. Also, please note that many doctoral programs (but not terminal master’s programs) give substantial or partial scholarships. If you have a strong enough application to a PhD program, they may pay for everything.

The answers to the last two questions also vary. For a start, see Why is an IS Course of Study Useful? on the IS homepage. Its reasoning applies even more to graduate school graduates than to undergraduates. A master’s or a PhD degree makes you more marketable in any profession, even if you switch from research, say, to business. Graduate work signifies a serious mind. That’s valuable. You can always research and teach, too: Why not be the first outstanding student to graduate from IS and come back as a professor some day, beating all the competition for our jobs?

Overall, please see your professors for more information, or e-mail Dr. Gassan.