misshavisham

Well in coming here, that is what I'm trying to do...determine my chances for continuing on in this career. I truly beileve I was having so much troubles because of psychological issues...the classes were really not hard at all so I KNOW I'm capable of straight As. The problem is getting recruiters to see this. Your questions are my exact questions. How competitive am I and are my chances completely blown of getting into a PhD program.

yeah it is. we do plan on publishing it as well, and i'll be second author on a review paper we're going to publish, and second author on an internal report from one of my internships at the national lab.

I also forgot to add, I was thinking about taking the GRE subject test in chemistry, just to kind of prove I'm not a complete idiot. But then I got the thought that if I didn't get pretty much a 100% on it, the schools I'd be applying to would look at me in a more negative light because it's a test generally taken by undergrads going into grad school, not someone that has finished a masters. And I think even if I'm confident in my knowledge and study, I could never get a 100%.

I'm in an incredibly embarrassing situation. I just finished my third semester of grad school (in a Masters program) and I have two C's in graduate courses on my record. My GPA is still above 3.0, so at my university, I'm not in danger of academic probation or anything, but of the five classes we're required to take (actual classes, not just research hours), I'll have 2 A's, a B, and two C's. I don't have an excuse, the classes were actually easy, but there was a death in my family that threw me into a very deep depression. I knew the entire time I was taking the classes I should have dropped and taken time off to improve my mental health, but I'm stubborn and pigheaded and I didn't. Now I'm stuck with these two rather unsightly blemishes on my record. So the point of admitting all this is I want to know if my chances of getting into a PhD program are now blown completely, or even my chances of gaining a job with just a masters. I know there are very few jobs available to masters to begin with, so I feel like now I have NO chance of finding a job, or of getting into a PhD program. I'm worried I may just have to drop out completely and completely change my whole future. But the thing is of course I don't want to do that...I want to be a scientist. I should also mention the school I'm getting my masters at is the same school I did my undergrad at and that is because my undergrad grades are not stellar either. I wanted to go straight to PhD, but couldn't get accepted to a PhD program, only masters, so I was using the masters as kind of a stepping stone to a PhD. But I do have pretty good research experience; I did two internships at a national lab and my current research advisor is pretty fond of me and said she supports me 100% and knows I'm capable or more (meaning I'll get a very good reference from her). So give it to me straight. How completely screwed am I? In your experience, how much do companies rely on actual grades rather than experience when hiring? Or even schools for that matter if I decide I still want a PhD. If it matters, I want to end up in industry.