Last Thursday I attended a great seminar by GRF Sara about how to apply to grad school. I had always kept grad school in the back of my mind as an option, but was unsure of how committed I was to the idea or what I would study there. The discussion we had helped me think of graduate school and PhD programs in a different way than I had before. They are continuations of education, but in a way they are almost like a job and should be treated as such. I also discovered that some PhD programs will actually pay you, in which case I can absolutely see myself getting a PhD.
When Sara mentioned that being paid to read books all day is like a dream come true, I agreed entirely. It got me thinking about historical scholars of literature, back in the 1700s or even further back. Before education was made widely available (or as widely available as it is today), education was reserved only for wealthy. People who wanted to study books all day and compare intricate symbolism in one genre to another could only do so if they did not need to work. The way PhDs are structured now is so different to the way education was conducted back then. People would just read in their “study” and learn from it, without needing to write long dissertations. It’s possible they did so for fun, but they weren’t accountable to anyone for it. For me to be able to consider doing something like this with my life, despite not being one of those “don’t need to work a day in my life” kinds of people, is absolutely amazing and should be taken as a privilege! I absolutely want to take advantage of the fact that I even have the opportunity to continue my education and hope others will feel the same way.
This sounded like a very informative and interesting seminar! I would also like to grad school after college and this would have been a great seminar for me to attend. I would like to go to graduate school to further my education, be able to do research, and contribute to the scientific community.
If you would like any advice or a person to discuss graduate school with in general, I’d guess that you could reach out to Sara and talk to her during a time that you’re free since you missed the event. She ran the event like a round-table discussion and made sure to address each person individually to give them advice. Good luck with your graduate school endeavors!
I wish I attended this talk. I sometimes consider what it would be like to receive pHD, as I’ve considered pursuing one but am always insure due to the excessive work load and stress. I think it’s interesting the way the GRF made it sound like getting paid to read books, which has given me a new perspective on the idea of grad school since that sounds really exciting and fun. I also think that graduate programs such as pHDs are not as emphasized/popular as law school and medical school are, so it would be interesting to see how that space works and learn more about it.