Recent graduate looking to start graduate school in one or two years

[Axion004]

Hello,

I just recently graduated with my undergraduate degree and have obtained employment in a field similar to which I would like to go into for graduate study. I have taken the GRE and had an okay score with a high score on the Quant part, my grades in undergraduate study are above the 3.0 median but not perfect. While I was an undergraduate student I had two direct internships in IT and statistics and one short research project in an unrelated field. I have been looking into MS programs in the fields of MIS/Human Computer Interaction/Network Systems/Informatics/Security however I am hesitant to start graduate school very soon with 40k in undergraduate loans. Currently I work in an office cube and hate my life but at least the job serves the purpose of paying back undergraduate loans. What other alternatives do I have? How would I look at getting involved in any sort of research opportunities? Help me if you can.

[starmaker]

You could switch jobs to something at an industry or government research lab (e.g. Microsoft Research, IBM Research, BBN, SAIC, MITRE, the NSA, a DOE national lab), which would get you research experience. Or, you could talk to professors at local universities, see if one would be willing to let you volunteer in their lab.