What should I study and where?

[IanJ]

I'm currently a senior at the university of Toronto (UofT for the uninitiated). I live in California and will be going to grad school in the USA.

My majors are history and French.

I am fluent in six languages; English, French, Spanish, German, Russian and Hebrew. I have a smattering of three others; Finnish (don;t ask), Arabic and Afrikaans.

I have lived in four countries and traveled extensively.

My question for the forum, is what areas of study do you think make sense for me and which schools should I apply to?

I was thinking along the lines of something to do with diplomacy?

My cumulative GPA will probably be 3.4+ which reflects a steady rise for every year.

Thanks for any and all feedback!

[Gunner24]

That's impressive that you know 6 languages! Do you have any internship/work experience in any of those other countries that would help make your case for an Int'l Relations/Diplomacy/etc. PhD?

It's difficult for us to tell you what to study without knowing you at all. You should explain what sort of thing interests you...I know you're trying to be pragmatic based on your current skill set, but PhD is one-part intelligence, two-parts perseverance, so if you aren't bought in to your field/sub-field of study, you'll burn out. If you explain what your passions and interests are, you may be able to get some suggestions of actual fields where you could study those things. If that makes sense.

Best of Luck!

[Langoustine]

Haha. What do YOU want to do??

[cranberry]

I think you definitely need to think about why you want to go to grad school in the first place. Lots of people apply to grad school for the sake of going to grad school, thinking "Hey, I've been doing this school thing for a while now, so grad school seems like the logical next step." They think that grad school is just an extension of undergrad, and when they realize it's not, they burn out. Several acquaintances have done this, and trust me, it's not good. Of course, it depends on the program and subject, but in general you should apply to Ph.D. programs only if you are serious about pursuing a career in academia. M.A.s give you a bit more leeway, but it's hard to get funding. Basically, I suggest figuring out your academic passion and career plans before looking at grad school, rather than the other way around. If I misread your post, my apologies, but it sounds to me as if you're trying to find a program to make the grad school plan work.

[psycholinguist]

It's great that you're interested in grad-school! I remember being at this stage: wanting to go study something, somewhere, and not being sure of how to go about it.

First of all, yeah, ask yourself the questions. Which field would I absolutely love to dedicate a career to? What am I most passionate about? Which classes have I just loved? Which sorts of jobs can I see myself doing? Am I aiming for academia (universities, think-tanks, etc.), or for a job involving international relations (diplomacy itself, NGOs, development, journalism, etc.). What do I like to read about and/or write about and/or do research in? How do I want the languages to come into play: do I want to be able to use them all frequently (e.g. international relations, political science, economics, comparative literature, European studies, history, translation), or do I want to study them directly (linguistics, any of those particular languages as a field)? Exploring is great, and do please take as long as you need in order to narrow things down: keep in mind that statements-of-purpose need to be well-motivated and specific, so saying 'I might want to do this, or maybe that, but possibly also another thing' isn't going to reflect well on you (I learned this one the hard way). The Princeton Review's guide to college majors is actually a great overview of what different fields look like and which careers they might be conducive to.

The next thing to do is make a list of schools in the field(s) you intend to pursue further degrees in; I'd recommend finding a copy of Peterson's grad-school guide. (They have a website, too, although I find the book more useful.) Go look up the fields you think would work best for you, and take note of all of the graduate programs that look promising in places you'd be interested in living. Look them up one at a time: each department is very different, and the school's name is far less important than who is working there; you're searching for people whose research is a great match for your research-interests. Look through a bunch of papers by promising-looking people; this is a fantastic way of establishing whether you'd be interested in working with them.

If application season is looming and you're still uncertain, that's a good sign that you should go off and do something different for a while to get experience in the relevant field(s) through other means. Volunteer for CIDA or another NGO, travel abroad, do an internship for the foreign bureau of a large newspaper, etc. This will serve two very important purposes: first, it will give you a much, much better idea of what it is you want to do; and second, it'll look great on the résumé once you apply!

Anyway, best of luck. (And hello from across campus!)