Graduate School

What are you going to study?

I have no advice except that I wish you all the luck. Seriously - I admire people who continue their education into a specialized area of what they want to do. I graduated college with a B.A., but I really think people who go further than that have a special tenacity that I wish I had. Good on ya.

Well, I applied to grad schools last year and started the PhD program in Philosophy at the University of Washington a couple of weeks ago. It sounds like you're applying to schools in a range that were a bit out of my reach, but I imagine the process is still somewhat the same.

I was working 40 hours a week when I did it. Finding time to reread old books, rewrite old papers, and do all the annoying grunt work to prepare for the GRE can be hard. It's a really stressful process, but it's certainly manageable.

Expect to feel stressed and anxious and possibly hopeless at times, but try not to sweat it too much, because it's not supposed to be easy. An annoying application process is the first of many weeding processes that schools have to narrow down their applicant pool.

This is all really super general and I'm really not in a much more informed position than you are, but feel free to ask any questions that come to mind. If I can't answer them myself, I can probably ask some of my fellow students and get some answers you might find helpful.

It's funny that you posted this when you did, as I am preparing to do something similar and am completely mortified/thrilled. I'm 29, married with a 3 year old, and going back to obtain a 2nd bachelors (1st was a BA) in biology with plans of pursuing medical school afterwards.

I don't have any idea if what I'm doing is absolutely right (it's going to be rough from a financial standpoint), but I feel like if I don't shove off the dock now, I never will. My wife is supportive, and I know I can do it, but I am still filled with that ever-present self-doubt that turned my pops into the 64 year old wandering vagabond he is today.

So, yeah, that's how I feel. Sorry about the gush there. I haven't really had the opportunity to put all of that down in words until now. Thanks.

Go Huskies! I went to UW for my BS in Computer Science. I started my first year in a PhD CS program at Georgia Tech this summer. The application process was pretty stressful for me, but I think that is unavoidable. The only advice I have is to get things done early. One of my application due dates was really early, but the good thing about that was that for all the later deadlines I had plenty of time to polish and refine my applications.

Well, as of right now I tell people Philosophy of Science and Epistemology, but that is subject to a great deal of change. That could skew towards Philosophy of Language a bit, since I tend to take a pretty unorthodox linguistic approach to Epistemology, and then as a result, Phil of Sci in general. So, I'm not really sure.

In my head, it's hard to keep the different philosophical subfields separate from each other. Language and Science and Epistemology all run together, not to mention that I think you can shoe-horn them into ethics just as easily if you like. If I can give you any advice, it's to avoid what I get caught up in and not to worry about the "big picture" so much. Most philosophical work is done on a much smaller scale and doesn't require that you have some sort of meta-theory which explains how it all ties together. That's really something we can probably save for when we're old and cranky and don't have to believe people when they tell us that we don't know what we're talking about.

So yeah, whether it's your applications or your pursuit of any given field (Bio, Philosophy, Med School, whatever), take it all in small steps. Break it up into small pieces that you can actually accomplish and then the bigger things will start to snowball from there.

And when people ask me what I plan to do with it, I usually just tell them that I'll worry about that when it's actually time for me to get a job.

Anyways, keep me posted on your progress. And if any questions do come up, let me know, either through the thread or PM.

If you want a serious career, go to a school outside of your home country. This looks really good to hiring committees of major universities. Bump Oxford up hire, look at Canadian and Austrialian universities.

This advice comes from my cousin who was Dean at the University of Melbourne in Austriala.

Best of luck to you!

I'm enjoying grad school 80% of the time. It really is nice to get paid to be a student, though.

I actually have a B.A. in Philosophy (among other useless degrees I've acquired like Comparative Religion and Psychology). Luckily, I also had a minor in Physics and special interest areas in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Guess what I'm using now? Yep, mostly the Physics, Math, and CS background!

I'm actually studying visual perception (human vision), and I'm in my 5th year (have my M.A. now and I'm working on my PhD).

I've been trying to think back to applying to graduate school. I've never really gotten stressed out about the application process (for anything). I always just saw it as busy work that I had to do... but I usually did all of my applications in the couple days before they were due.

Regardless, grad school and academia in general are great places to be, so I wish you the best of luck!

Also, as far as the GRE goes, nobody I knew really studied for it, and everyone basically scored about the same as they did on their SATs.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, if you did well on your SATs, you should be set... if not... maybe do some studying then!

Can you really study much for any of it other than the Quantitative part, though?

Ditto for that; everyone I know did not study and did about the same as on the SAT. I don't know if philosophy and theology programs put weight on the logic portion; that you can study for just by doing logic puzzles. It's pretty straightforward.

I did professional school, so I can't comment personally on PhD programs. I can say that going to the "best" school for whatever your degree, and going to different (preferably all over the world) schools for the different degrees is important to having a strong academic career. If you mostly want to be a minister, though, and the teaching isn't so important, then that may be less important to you in the long run than the philosophy of the program you attend.

Also keep in mind that for PhD's it's not just the school, but who your advisor is and your committee. It's important to have a respected committee and an advisor who actually likes to work with grad students. PhDs are much less about any classes or organized work and more about research, publication and writing - and those happen best with a mentor who will support you and drive you to do better things. An advisor who really knows the field can help you publish a more important and valuable work which will be more likely to be noticed and well received by the academic community.

Great advice!

I won't repeat too much of what has already been said. It's great to focus on the life of the mind, and you want to pick the best program that you can. But don't forget about the money. If you can get fellowships that don't require you to teach, that's fantastic. If you get a multi-year package that still requires you to do some teaching, that's OK too. If you get year-to-year funding and you have to teach, that's hard. Make sure you talk to grad students who are there already, and find out how secure they feel.

Another thing that you might want to look at is time to completion. A PhD is a long haul, and it gets hard to finish when you're trying to work and write at the same time. Ask about write up money or opportunities to teach when you're writing-up.

Also, don't be afraid to negotiate your aid. If you get a good package from one school but not from the one you want to attend, talk to them. Tell them that somebody else has offered you a better deal--maybe they can scrape up some more money for you.

Finally, try to visit the schools before you make your final decision. You're going to be spending a big chunk of your life there, so make sure you like it. And the people too.

I have a BA in architecture and decided to get an MBA because I was miserable as an architect and needed a career change...best decision of my life.

It was a rough two years because I went to school at night after work...if you do decide on graduate studies do it now before your life gets encumbered by marriage, children, etc.

I started a PhD program at age 30. It's kinda scary that I'll still be in school until almost 40. But it's a career that I know I want to pursue and will enjoy doing for the rest of my life. My advice is to pick the program that is best for you, not just the school with best name. I looked at NYU and Columbia, but found they had terrible social psychology programs. I ended up going to the CUNY Graduate Center, which is a NYC public school, but they specialize in what I want to specialize in. They also accept a small number of students so that they can finance the tuition for each one for 3 full years. And they also forward fellowship and grant opportunities via an e-mail listserv so students are made aware of other funding opportunities one can apply for.

I also liked the program because of the community established between the professors and the students. I can walk into any professors office at any time of day and they will welcome me and offer their assistance. I'm not just a glorified lab rat, these professors find value in encouraging students to pursue their own research studies and not just use us to finish their own work. I've had friend's drop out of other program's because they felt like just a cog in the machine.

Lastly, I looked at the graduation rate of the University and the types of jobs that the graduates received after completing their studies. A doctoral program and degree is useless if you can't get a job after graduation. My program has a very good success rate and alums all over the world that they are eager to put current students in touch with.

I don't know much about the program you are interested in, but I would research all the schools you have listed and make sure they can truly match your needs.