Advice on becoming a professor in the social sciences?

[JeffCH]

Hi everyone, 

I am currently a third year undergraduate student looking for some advice on how to maximize my chances of getting into/completing a masters and PhD program, and also becoming a professor afterwards :). 

I seem to have the grades thing down, as I have gotten straight A's throughout my honors undergraduate degree in Sociology thus far. However, I am interested in knowing what kinds of things I could be working on and improving at this point in order to improve my academic abilities. For example, although I consider myself to be a good writer, because I am mildly dyslexic I struggle with reading dense journal articles. Would it be wise to start regularly reading sociological journal articles in order to improve my grasp of difficult material and improve my ability to understand this material? If you could think of anything that you wish you would have worked harder on/improved before starting graduate school, I would really appreciate it if you would share it with me (and anyways else who's reading this)! 

To be honest, I just love academics and really want to peruse a career in it, but I want to make sure I am able to start working on the skills/abilities I will need in the future  

Thanks everyone!!  

 

[HTM18]

Just some basic stuff to get this thread started....Start preparing for your GRE test! If you're an international student take the TOEFL exam and aim for a high score too.

 Think of professors that are willing to write you LORs. 

[European Lumpi]

Additionally, get research experience. See if you can RA for a professor you know, make sure to write a senior thesis if you're in the US. All of this has the advantage of looking good  on your CV, helping you write better applications, and will also help you figure out if you actually want to go down the academic path. It's really hard to judge whether academia is something you actually want to commit to long term, without having spend an extended amount of time doing research.

Otherwise it depends on the type of research you envision yourself doing. If you want to do quantitative research, start taking methods and math(!) classes. This would significantly raise your ceiling and show that you're serious about your training.

Edited July 24, 2018 by European Lumpi

[high_hopes]

I read this eBook a few years ago and found it quite useful. You might want to check it out: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/93455