On a lighter note :)

[evenstar]

So here's a more light-hearted topic to focus on the positives of the process while we wait...

To anyone who wants to share: What made you want to go to grad school? What programs are you applying for (You don't have to name schools, just your general area of interest), when did you figure out this is what you wanted to do?

I think it'd be interesting to hear stories on how we got to this point of applying to graduate school.

I'll go first! I'm applying to counseling programs and one sociology program. I've known I wanted to go to grad school for awhile now, because my career goals directly require at least a masters degree. I changed my major countless times my first 2 years of undergrad...I felt scattered all over the floor like I would never figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Then I got a job as a colorguard instructor (you know, the flag/rifle/sabre/dancers that run around the field with the marching band) at a high school near my university and fell in love with teaching and working with high schoolers. I always knew I was going to grad school but this helped confirm my program of choice...school counseling (and sociology at my current institution because academia it is also an interest of mine, we'll see if/where I get in and decide from there). Anyone else care to share?

[frankdux]

without going into the specifics: i already did a terminal masters in a related field but did not feel properly challenged nor intellectually satisfied. i need to go further or else i'll be kicking myself the rest of my life.

[Tonights]

I've wanted to be an archaeologist since I was 5.

I formally knew I wanted to go to graduate school on the first day of "Introduction to Cultural Anthropology" and haven't wavered since.

[MAN]

I had no intentions of going to grad school after getting my bachelor's. I went off and got a salaried job (semi-related to my economics major). I was working in investments sales. After a year in sales, I knew that I was no salesman. I left that position and went to the operations side of investment sales. The salary is decent and the job is easy, but there is still a lot of sales-y activities and the career is pretty much a dead end (unless I wanted to be a salesman). So, I looked for transfers within my company, but I didn't see any good options. I took a look at what I was doing and realized I don't care about the investment industry.

I always enjoyed economics throughout my undergrad experience and the jobs I want to pursue are easier to obtain with an advanced degree, I put them together and decided to pursue grad school in economics.

[Tritonetelephone]

I never really saw a PhD as one of my goals in life (my parents were both corporate), but when you love sociology and you want to do research, there really isn't an alternative. As one of my profs explained, outside of academia, sociology is "consumer trends of mushroom soup."

Not to mention, I was a big GLBT activist as an undergrad and always envied the people that produced the data that I would use to support my positions. (I'm doing gender/sexuality)

[fenderpete]

I was a bit later going into my undergrad career than a lot of my cohorts, but I knew that politics was something I was driven to study and understand. About a year into my degree I knew I wasn't going to get to go into my course in the depth or breadth that I wanted to, so I think I was always thinking about the possibilities of graduate school.

As I got more into my degree and surrounding subject matter I knew I wanted to go into the practice of policymaking rather than writing about it (news journalism had been my original goal). Two years down the line and I'd narrowed it down to wanting to work in foreign policy with a Middle East focus - preferably in the USA as I feel that's the hub of what I'm most interested in.

A PhD was really my only option to get funded study in the USA and get me wired into the community I one day hope to be a part of. I'll only be the second person in my family to do a doctoral degree if I do get in (after my grandfather) so it would be a pretty big deal. I'm hoping that with a PhD rather than just an MA or BA there'll be no limit on how high I could rise in terms of my career, and I would be equally well suited to a think-tank or the State Department. That's all pie in the sky at the minute pre-March though

[sabana15]

I was a math/phil major and went to college as a math major thinking I'd be an actuary. However, once I got there, I started taking phil classes and fell in love. Add in a semester studying abroad in central america and mathematcial modeling competitions and i knew there had to be more there. i'm acutally the second person in my family to complete a ba--my mom went back to school when i was elem.--so the prospect of grad school, much less a phd is pretty crazy. my family thinks i'm a bit nuts

however, i really fell in love with political systems--and man-made social systems--and using mathematics to explain them. the only real way to do that is through graduate study. i took two years off to refocus and to find my 'dream' programs that would let me get right down to what i wanted to do right away, versus starting in math and then switching over eventually.

and now, here I am

[Tritonetelephone]

I was a math/phil major and went to college as a math major thinking I'd be an actuary. However, once I got there, I started taking phil classes and fell in love. Add in a semester studying abroad in central america and mathematcial modeling competitions and i knew there had to be more there. i'm acutally the second person in my family to complete a ba--my mom went back to school when i was elem.--so the prospect of grad school, much less a phd is pretty crazy. my family thinks i'm a bit nuts

however, i really fell in love with political systems--and man-made social systems--and using mathematics to explain them. the only real way to do that is through graduate study. i took two years off to refocus and to find my 'dream' programs that would let me get right down to what i wanted to do right away, versus starting in math and then switching over eventually.

Aww, I used to want to be an actuary, too! I went from calculus (HS) to music theory/composition (1st year) to sociology (BA), for similar reasons as yours. But I really miss the calculus.

I think if I had been born 5 years later, I would have gone into engineering or chemistry, with all the "girls in the sciences" initiatives they have now.

Any other women feel the same way?

[dragynally]

I took screenwriting and creative writing classes in high school. I loved it! However, I saw college as an opportunity to spread my wings, try new things, you know all the cliches. So I studied American Studies, which I also love. It gave me research experience and the opportunity to study things that interested me. I knew that I would come back to screenwriting and film after college. That why I am now applying for a film MFA.

[miratrix]

I've wanted to be an archaeologist since I was 5.

Pretty much! Only instead of 5, i was 11. (I wanted to be a swimming instructor when I was 5 - didn't realize that was a weekend job for high schoolers rather than a career, and I absolutely idolized my swimming teacher.) I kept an open mind until my senior year in college when I'd narrowed it down. I'd like the chance to do more awesome obsessive research, and there's not much you can do in archaeology without a graduate degree. If I fail horribly, I will try to reinvent myself as a marketer or something, but it'd be nice to succeed....

[Tinyboss]

I fell down (up?) a slippery slope...first I wanted to teach high school math. But I didn't realize I needed 24 math hours for that. By the time I had taken half that much, I thought I might as well plan on a Master's degree, so I could teach in community college. After a few more classes, though, I realized that I'll always want more math, so I might as well go for the PhD and try to become a researcher.

[Boz]

For myself, and perhaps for other English majors as well, I think that there was a turning point in undergrad when I first began to look at literature with a critical eye and learned to appreciate texts not only for the pleasure that I took in reading them, but for the possibilities that they offered for interpretation. Of course, reading critically is second nature to most of us now, and I often forget that I *learned* to think in this way, but the first time that I became conscious that I was actively engaging with texts, rather than just consuming them, was certainly a milestone in my progress as a scholar. This laid the foundation for my desire to study English professionally.

But anyway, I first realized that I wanted to pursue a PhD when one of my professors advised me to consider this option during my second year. And then, after I thought about it, it *did* seem like the natural course for me to take and the best way to employ my talents. I knew that it would be a fulfilling career, etc., etc., and that I wouldn

[gadhelyn]

I've been interested in science since I was 5ish and got presents like a telescope, microscope, chemistry set (actually, I think this was more like 9), and started watching Star Trek. At first I wanted to do physics, and went to Virg Tech my freshman year as a physics major. Then I wanted to do math, so I transferred to UNC-CH (I had more friends here than at VTech) and became a math major. Then I got a job at the endocrinology lab, and switched to biology. Last year I took a course on MATLAB and really enjoyed it, especially modeling the carbon backbone of proteins, and figured out that bioinformatics would be a wonderful fusion of the sciences I have enjoyed.

Grad school will get me the training I need to perform research in bioinformatics regarding protein structure and function. Just the biochem and biophysics aspects of structure and function would take a PhD program to learn properly, but I also have to learn how to program at a high enough level and how to come up with and understand the formulas to predict structure and function.

Why research, though? Right now we're working on an antibody that may decrease heart disease progression in diabetics to the progression of a normal human. In fact, we've submitted a manuscript of our first pig study with it, showing that the antibody decreased lesion development by about 60%. It's just been really exciting to see how research actually can have real world consequences. It's almost like a drug, the feeling from knowing something may have such an effect on medicine. One day maybe I could write a program that would be an accurate predictor of x-ray crystallography, which is how protein structures are currently discovered. X-ray crystallography takes about 10 years for a single protein.

[ohheygradschool]

Oxford. I did my junior year abroad there - fell in love with both my subject and the academic culture and haven't been the same since.

[rising_star]

To anyone who wants to share: What made you want to go to grad school? What programs are you applying for (You don't have to name schools, just your general area of interest), when did you figure out this is what you wanted to do?

I wanted to go to grad school b/c I couldn't get a job after undergrad. Seriously. Option 1: real job. Totally failed. Option 2: Grad school (had always been in the back of my mind anyways). Option 3: full-time theater internship. Could've gotten one but didn't need it. Plus, who really wants to make $175/wk (before taxes) with paid housing? And you thought grad school didn't pay well...

Found my interest through some random courses I took as an undergrad. Found my grad concentration on Google.

[saritapie]

Writing my undergrad thesis. It seriously made me crazy, I almost quit nearly once a week, I cried for no reason an average of twice a week, I was convinced I was doing everything wrong, I withdrew from social life, I got totally lost and overwhelmed and never thought it would go anywhere... and then one morning in February, five months after I drafted the proposal, while I was slogging through a "background" chapter, I had one of those "Aha!" moments that threw everything I had been studying for the last four years into perspective, and all I wanted to do was write. (Unfortunately, I was sitting in a plant phys. ecology class when this happened

[Emma2003]

I have been drawing nonstop since i was a wee one. It is all I ever wanted to do. I decided a long time ago, that i will do whatever is necessary for me to succeed in building a life in which I never have to say, "I used to paint." And one in which I can declare my occupation as "artist" on my tax returns. Realistically, even if i never teach, which I hope to do, this means that I need to hone my craft and there's no place better than school. I want to be a master of my craft, thus grad school.

[UnlikelyGrad]

How did I get into chemistry? You might say I was dragged, kicking and screaming.

My dad has a Ph.D. in chemistry. And though he has many children, I was the only one who was majorly interested in science at an early age. By the time I got to my teens, Dad was saying to me on a regular basis, "UnlikelyGrad, you want to be a chemist." My response was usually something like "No way!" (Dad strongly disapproved of swearing or there would have been some Hells, Damns, etc. tossed in there.)

My high school chem teacher told me that I was a natural at chemistry and should consider majoring in it. I said, "Chemistry is all well and good, but I wouldn't want to make a career out of it." (Translation: I'm not going to be like my old man.)

I went to school at a well-known institution and marked my major as astronomy. BigNameU required a year of freshman chem; I went to class and enjoyed it. My TA said, "UnlikelyGrad, are you sure you don't want to be a chemist? 'Cause you're terrific at it." I smiled at him and told him what I'd told my high school teacher.

Then I pretty much failed out of BigNameU. My grades in physics and astronomy were absolutely abysmal. I knew I needed to transfer. I knew I wasn't cut out to be an astronomer. What could I major in instead? Geology, maybe? Well, how about chemistry? I figured I could give it a try...

So I transferred and changed my major to chemistry. I started right into organic and absolutely loved it. Whee! I was at the top of the class. Everything came to me naturally...and then I realized that everything everyone had ever said to me was absolutely true. I really should have been a chemist all along.

[tnk0001]

I wanted to be a doctor one way or another since I was a kid and somewhere along the way went towards PhD instead of MD..... why Neuro though? I started out in physics for 2 years in undergrad and was mediocre and unmotivated, so I switched to biology and and stumbled on neuroscience and found my calling. I just love academia, researching, and teaching and have no desire to enter into the industry.

[cardnav]

I knew I was going to grad school, but it was always a question of what for? I ended up getting involved with my Undergrad's career services center and really enjoyed it. From there I became interested in Human Resources, so I decided to apply to grad school for it, so I could have a better grasp on the field.

[Phonologist]

I've just been endlessly fascinated by my field since taking the intro class almost three years ago. Being a grad student and hopefully being a professor are kind of secondary achievements for me; I'll be happy as long as I get to be a linguist. Before all of this I was considering law school (ha!).

[dherres]

I remember telling my mom I wanted a doctoral degree (although i said "doctor's" from mishearing the word, lol) in 7th grade, I think mostly because I wanted to be like my uncle, a researcher at UMass Amherst.

5 years ago, however, I would have laughed in your face if you told me I'd be applying to PhD programs. I struggled to find my fit during the first few years of college, bouncing from major to major.... then came 3 months in rehab for addiction in another state and the realization (followed by affirmation) that psychology was where I should be.

The idea of going to grad school came shortly thereafter, but without the firm belief that it could actually be realized until last February when, in a moment of panic, I realized how close I was to graduating. Still uncertain as to a specialization, I worked with my therapist to clarify what I wanted out of my career.... Knowing I wanted to stay in psych at the least, I began an unhealthy obsession with Berkeley, basing my declared interests on those of the department's faulty, and then researched other possible schools following said interests. After a time, I realized that I was more into Berkeley than any topic within psych I thought I'd study, and asked myself, "if Berkeley didn't exist, what would you go into?" Immediately, I heard a voice (this sounds crazy) say, "I/O psych." So I went with it.

I've had doubts, but that's just me; I doubt myself quite often. I firmly believe I'm making the right decision, though, especially as I've explored the field, contacted members of the APA division, and gained as much experience and information as I could (and compared it to the aforementioned list of career wants I made, lol).

[ebee]

I knew I wanted to go to grad school since undergrad. I considered applying straight out of undergrad but decided against it for some reason.

I moved to DC for work right after graduation, and anybody who's worked in DC knows that the MA is the new BA, especially in my field. So once I got to the point where jobs I was interested in required an MA I knew it was about time to go back. Plus, I work with a graduate fellowship program so I'm surrounded with info on schools, grad students, and potential grad students. My interest was definitely piqued over the last 1.5 years in my current job, and since I can't really advance in my current position I figured this was as good a time as any