#forgot i need letters of recommendation when i start applying for grad school

[luxpenumbra]

aaaaargh

[salvadorbonaparte]

@rainminfall asked for more info about the application process.

UCC: This is the uni where I did my MA. I already had a good relationship to my supervisors who encouraged me to apply for a PhD. They accept applications on a rolling basis and I never actually finished my application - instead I first applied for funding through the Irish Research Council which is possible without an offer. My supervisors then presented my funding application to the committee and sent me an offer lol. UCC offers very little internal funding (tuition fees only) but an IRC scholarship can also cover cost of living and research expenses.

UCL: I only just now started this application. When I first looked there were no international scholarships available but I randomly saw one advertised on LinkedIn and my supervisor quickly emailed a lecturer she knows there. UCL requires you to fill out a timed Google form with a 500 word proposal so they can decide if you're welcome to apply in the first place. The application itself then needs a more detailed proposal, references etc the usual. They offer some internal and external funding but the deadline is in January and you already need to be accepted so it's going to be Tough for me.

Amherst and Columbia: I emailed someone there with a little introduction and my research interests to see if it's even worth it applying. I got a really nice answer and was invited to a zoom call with professors to talk about my research background and was able to ask some questions about the program. The application itself is similar to UCL and UCC - an online portal where you fill out your personal and academic info and then write a little proposal although in America it seems to be more focused on yourself than your thesis. They offer internal funding and way more money than Ireland or the UK.

Turku: I missed the deadline for this one. They accept applications multiple times a year but there's a hard deadline for funding because they don't have tuition fees but offer 2 paid research assistant positions to fund cost of living. The deadline was regrettably in September.

Bologna: I missed the deadline because it was in June? July? And I don't know much about it.

Warwick and Berkeley : I missed the deadline but it should be similar to UCL and Amherst/Columbia respectively

Harvard: Pretty much the same as the other American universities but they require a GRE test which costs too much money and I also really don't want to study for a standardised test for fucking grad school?? Also forgot to mention but American universities have application fees while European ones generally don't.

In general you apply online and you should have an idea about your research area and a potential supervisor, maybe even have already contacted them. They all pretty much ask for the same info (name, address, past universities and grades and transcripts, other academic experience like publications or conferences, the program and supervisor you're applying for, a proposal or personal statement, 2-3 letters of recommendation....)

I didn't want to say the names out loud for weird reasons but now it's getting really real with deadlines and my first offers so here's my current PhD options:

University College Cork (already sent me an offer)

University College London (currently talking to a potential supervisor)

University of Massachusetts Amherst (had a very promising interview)

Columbia University (had a very promising interview)

I was also considering Turku, Bologna, Warwick, Berkeley and Harvard but for the first four I missed the deadline and Harvard wanted some weird expensive test I wasn't willing to take.

[cancerbiophd]

I'm defending my dissertation this summer in biomedical engineering. I'm looking for jobs and postdocs, but I feel unqualified for most of them. Because I had so little funding for my research, I didn't get to learn and use some methods like PCR, Western blot, flow cytometry, etc. except ELISA and Luminex. Most job listings say you're required to have proficiency in methods like these. I would otherwise be qualified, and the research is right up my alley. Am I better off getting a postdoc for further training, or are any of these jobs actually more forgiving about your skills and willing to train you?

Hi anon! Congrats on defending soon and getting that sweet sweet PhD!

My short and sweet answer is: 

Play to your strengths. Don’t let the companies hold all the cards. If you’re an expert on ELISAs and Luminex, then companies seeking candidates with that kind of experience would love you on their team, even if you may not have experience with other skills. 

Apply to as many positions as you can, including the ones where you may not think you qualify 100% for, because a) a candidate checking all the requirements in a job posting is rare and b) in some cases, a company or lab would be more than happy to spend time training you on specific techniques if they think you’re a great fit for the team.

If you feel that expanding your skills as a post-doc would be a good investment for your career, then for sure also apply to them as well. It’s also always helpful and reassuring to have more than one job option in the end too!

The post-school (no matter which level) job search can be a tough and time-consuming journey, so just keep throwing your ball into as many courts as possible. Getting into industry straight out of grad school without a post-doc first is especially hard for some fields, and may require dozens and dozens of applications and interviews over many months. 

Here’s the long and detailed answer:

Firstly, leverage your strengths. Outside of your technical prowess at ELISA and Luminex, these are some of the transferable strengths of hiring a PhD (no matter what field) that can benefit a company, and thus are aspects you can highlight in your cover letter/CV/interviews:

As far as basic knowledge goes, we’re experts in our fields. True, we don’t know everything, but when confronted with something new, just give us a few days, because we’re very good at getting to the nitty gritty bottom of things. 

PhD’s are fast learners, creative problem solvers (especially when given limited resources, like in your situation), and very dedicated to whatever task is on hand. 

And in order to do that, we’re meticulously organized, have great time management skills, and for those of us who have had undergrads in the lab, we have some experience in delegating tasks and managing personnel.

We have great communication skills: both oral (public speaking), and written (manuscripts). 

For those of us who have been successful at receiving financial awards (eg. fellowships, grants, etc), we’re proven ourselves great at marketing our work. 

We can take punches (criticism) and adapt well. 

And we have grit. The fact that we survived walking through hell and back for 4+ years proves our dedication and commitment to hard work. 

Secondly, let’s talk about job postings themselves and how they may not tell the whole story:

Some job postings may highlight the skills and goals that the candidate will become proficient in during the job, especially if it’s directly related to the company’s intellectual property. So it may not be necessary (or realistic) to be skilled in those yet.

The job posting itself may also be very broad and non-specific to the actual position (and is just a boilerplate posting the company likes to use for whatever reason), and thus may not actually include all the nuanced criteria the hiring manager/team is looking for. (I know from experience that Roche does this.)

Lastly, having a candidate right out of grad school who is proficient in every single one of the skills listed on a job posting is unrealistic. And companies know this, but they can still dream about the “perfect 1 in a million candidate” who may magically meet their wish-list. But realistically? That person most likely does not exist. 

Next, here are some scenarios when a team would hire a candidate who does not necessarily have experience in all the listed skills:

The candidate can prove themselves to be a fast and eager learner of those new skills.

The candidate has other desirable skills that the hiring team would value equally (which may or may not be listed in the actual job application, but you can certainly highlight in your cover letter).

The candidate’s personality works well with the rest of the team (sometimes it’s way more important to hire someone who will get along with the current employees than someone who checks all the boxes because protocols can be taught, but personality can not be changed). 

The technical skills that the job requires are not readily available or taught in a grad school setting, especially if it’s really cutting edge and/or part of the company’s intellectual property. 

Bonus: the candidate has network connections within the company/team who can vouch for their talent, work ethic, personality, etc. 

So, in conclusion: If a company is hiring a PhD specifically, the candidate’s transferable skills may be more valuable than their technical skills because techniques can be taught in just a few weeks or months, but those transferable skills take years to perfect. Therefore, as long as you meet the basic criteria (like education and experience level) and have experience in some of the listed technical skills, you should definitely apply. 

Lastly, just to end with a few notes of realism/other misc tips:

Technical experience is still important, especially if the hiring manager is specifically looking for that in a candidate. It may also be the deciding factor between two candidates who are otherwise equal in attributes. Some hiring managers may even put those experiences higher in priority than transferable skills, like if they need someone to hit the ground running when they start.

There is less job applicant competition in smaller companies/start-ups than in big established companies. The more competitive a position, the more “sparkle” the applicant must have, such as a post-doc or multiple publications, or being an internal candidate (someone who already works there), or was referred by the hiring manager/team, etc. So, pretty tough door to crack ajar (though not impossible!)

If it’s important to you to gain more experience in more diverse research techniques, then a post-doc would be the best path to take. I normally think post-docs should not be necessary for industry, but I think in your situation it may be a really great path to take in order to learn more techniques and to see what it’s like working in a well-funded lab (the differences in opportunities and organization can be pretty eye-opening). In addition, one of the downsides of industry is that because a company has its own specific niche in the market, your repertoire of lab techniques may start getting narrower and narrower. 

I recommend working with a recruiter. In exchange for a small % of your eventual salary, they will work with you to find open positions, get your application to the hiring manager, and in some cases will also help coach you in interviews. The easiest and most passive way to get in touch with one is to create a LinkedIn profile and set your status as Looking for Work (or something like that, I forgot what the exact verbage is), and usually a recruiter will personally message you soon after that. 

Wow that answer was way longer than I anticipated! But I always try to dump out as much knowledge as I have because I’m hoping something there will help! Good luck anon, and congrats again on finally seeing that finish line! Please don’t hesitate to reach out again if you have any further questions. 

[a-mountain-girl]

Hi! I’m about to start applying to grad school and I’m really pushing for schools in Scotland. Do you have any advice for applying/and if you’ve started the Visa process, how does it work? Thank you!!!!!!!!

Hi,

First off, congrats! That's a momentous decision, and one that comes with a lot of stress but so does every decision when graduation looms on the horizon.

As for advice, I don't know what sort of program you're applying to or anything else so this is some general advice based on my experience.

1) Ask for recommendations early. It's best if you get these from professors who know you well and work in the area you're applying to. If you're going for a graduate degree in a different subject like I did it will be harder for them to write a persuasive letter but it can still be done. Just pick which professors you get along with best and have known the longest. You'll need to tell these professors which programs you're applying to and why and give them the deadlines by which these letters will be needed. Update them if things change and if you ask really early you may need to remind them about these dates once or twice. One of my professors completely forgot she'd agreed to write me a letter two weeks before I planned on sending my first applications and while she was in the middle of an unrelated huge project. If I hadn't reminded her in person... that would've been bad. Another professor lost the general dates I'd given her and missed one of the deadlines to submit a letter which led to a week long goose chase to get in contact with the school and her. So try to keep to set dates and be very clear about what you're doing. Send reminders a couple weeks beforehand if you need to.

2) If you have a writing center available, go to it. If that's not a possibility you should still be able to get help online. I wouldn't have been able to pull together any of my materials, much less polish them, without that help.

3) Be sure to look through all the information you can about the programs you're applying for. A lot of the essential information about application materials and what you should focus on in, say, your personal statement will be spread around between different web pages. This is also true for the other information you'll need when you get accepted.

4) Apply for scholarships and grants as early as possible.

The applications for Scottish schools don't differ much from other applications, except they generally don't have application fees. (yay!) The one significant difference in mine was a proof of funding section which required me to prove that I either had all the money I'd need in savings or had already filed the FAFSA application. I don't know if that's peculiar to my school or not though.

I'd also like to pass on a little info I got from a professor when I was in the process of getting rejected by every other program I applied to, and that is that it's not personal. There's so many things going into a board's decision to accept or reject you, it really doesn't reflect on you as a student or as a person.

As for Visa applications, I haven't started yet. There's information on that available from the UK government and each school will have an office that will help with that. The school does have a file they'll have to submit for you, and you can't start on that application until you're within a few weeks of departure so it's not something you need to be concerned about right now.

Good luck!

[justawanderinglostsoul]

Thinking about my future is terrifying. I know what I want to do, and I know what I need to do to get there, but taking the first step is what scares me most.

The husband and I have been talking a lot about what our future looks like, and it’s honestly just a giant guess at this point. But we’re dead set on baby #2, so that’s for sure happening at some point, depending on how long it takes.

Because of baby #2, he’ll be staying in the Navy. Which is fine, because honestly I never really thought he would get out anyway.

I canceled my enrollment in the MAT program because I realized I don’t want to be a teacher. After researching a ton, and just thinking about it, it’s obvious that teaching was my backup plan all along. I just never actually tried for my top plan, I just skipped to my backup because of fear.

Last night, I applied for a different master’s program. This program is in Information Systems, which isn’t really my top choice, but it’ll get me to where I need to be: the military.

I first started thinking about the military seven years ago, when I planned on enlisting. Long story short, that didn’t happen, so I forgot about it. But I didn’t really forget.

Four or five years ago I first started toying with the idea of going in as an officer in the Navy. I wasn’t really serious about it, until maybe 3 years ago when I brought it up again. Since then it hasn’t really left my mind; it’s always been there, maybe not up front but at least there.

I realized I don’t think I’ll ever be happy unless I go for it. But my college gpa is absolute garbage, and I’m unable to get the recommendation letters I need, so I had to find a way to make it happen. Grad school is my best bet because it’ll give me a chance to get a higher gpa (aiming for a 3.5), plus time to make connections for rec letters.

Looking at our timeline, I know I can’t apply while we’re here in Italy. I just don’t have the time to do everything before we leave here; plus, having a second baby kinda makes that impossible for now. I also can’t apply while my husband is on sea duty because I can’t just leave him with the kids alone when he could deploy. So, I came up with being able to apply during our last year of his sea duty, so around 4 years from now. I’ll be 29, and the age limit is 32-42 depending on what community I try for. So it’s not too late.

I just have to actually overcome my fear and do what I need to do to get to the point where I can apply and actually have a shot at being accepted.

I hate making plans for the future like this. I’m definitely an “immediate gratification” type person, so making plans for years in the future is really stupid to me. I wish I could apply now, once I graduate this summer, but I can’t because life. So I have to push it back farther. But I can do it. 29 isn’t too old to start a career. It’s not. I don’t know why I have myself on this strict timeline that’s just an imaginary thing made up by society.

So yeah, there’s my long-winded rant/vent for the day. Enjoy my word vomit.