As someone who recently went through this process myself, I know how confusing, daunting, and overwhelming the graduate school application process can be. I have compiled all of the resources I used when reaching out to potential advisors, writing cover letters, and looking at different programs, in the hopes that these may help you, too. Thankfully, there are a lot of opportunities out there. The challenging part is finding the right one for you!
Allyson’s Guide to Grad School:
Graduate School Fellowships
One major question for a lot of grad school hopefuls is funding. Here are some links to funded fellowships; I also recommend looking at schools you are interested in and seeing which fellowships/external funding opportunities they recommend.
Once you're in grad school...
Navigating grad school, especially if you don't have any friends or family who have gone the academia route, is very challenging. There is a lot to learn about the culture and expectations of an academic research institution, and each school has a different atmosphere. That being said, there is one thing that I think all graduate students across disciplines share, and that is that they have a primary advisor/mentor/principal investigator that they report to. This person is likely the one who funded your graduate position, and so in effect they are your boss. But at the same time, they are not your boss, because your degree should be driven and mainly dictated by YOU as a student. These nuances make it difficult for us as graduate students to advocate for ourselves, and also to know exactly when and how we can voice our opinions and make our own decisions.
One thing that I wish I had done with my advisors at the beginning of graduate school was to explicitly discuss and write out our expectations. This means from my advisors I would like to know what is expected of me on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. From my perspective, I want to tell my advisors what I expect of them, i.e. I expect them to review my proposals, manuscripts, and other relevant papers and provide critical feedback on them that will help me improve my writing.
I recently found this worksheet on Twitter that I think would have been a great exercise to conduct with my advisors. This would facilitate discussions about expectations in a clear way early-on in your graduate studies and would provide a road map for you as a student to know when you can go to your advisor for help, and when you're expected to figure that out yourself.
Allyson’s Guide to Grad School:
- Search your research topics of interest on Google Scholar and Research Gate (i.e. "coral restoration"). Go through recent articles and look at the authors. Start there with your advisor search!
- Look at potential advisors' websites before contacting to see if they are taking students that year, or if they require any specifics in your intro email.
- Don’t be afraid to ask potential advisors questions about funding.
- Talk to students in their labs to see learn about their advisor's mentoring style, as well as how they like their school
- Have informational interviews with people. Use social networking to your advantage!
- Make a science twitter. I see so many lab and job opportunities on there.
- How to contact a potential supervisor: https://conservationbytes.com/2015/04/01/how-to-contact-a-potential-phd-supervisor/
Graduate School Fellowships
One major question for a lot of grad school hopefuls is funding. Here are some links to funded fellowships; I also recommend looking at schools you are interested in and seeing which fellowships/external funding opportunities they recommend.
- NOAA Sea Grant Graduate Fellowships - www.seagrant.noaa.gov/graduate-fellowships
- The American Association of University Women (AAUW) Educational Funding and Awards - https://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/educational-funding-and-awards
- The National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) - https://www.nsfgrfp.org
Once you're in grad school...
Navigating grad school, especially if you don't have any friends or family who have gone the academia route, is very challenging. There is a lot to learn about the culture and expectations of an academic research institution, and each school has a different atmosphere. That being said, there is one thing that I think all graduate students across disciplines share, and that is that they have a primary advisor/mentor/principal investigator that they report to. This person is likely the one who funded your graduate position, and so in effect they are your boss. But at the same time, they are not your boss, because your degree should be driven and mainly dictated by YOU as a student. These nuances make it difficult for us as graduate students to advocate for ourselves, and also to know exactly when and how we can voice our opinions and make our own decisions.
One thing that I wish I had done with my advisors at the beginning of graduate school was to explicitly discuss and write out our expectations. This means from my advisors I would like to know what is expected of me on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. From my perspective, I want to tell my advisors what I expect of them, i.e. I expect them to review my proposals, manuscripts, and other relevant papers and provide critical feedback on them that will help me improve my writing.
I recently found this worksheet on Twitter that I think would have been a great exercise to conduct with my advisors. This would facilitate discussions about expectations in a clear way early-on in your graduate studies and would provide a road map for you as a student to know when you can go to your advisor for help, and when you're expected to figure that out yourself.