How does a lighter courseload affect graduate admissions?

[StrangeLight]

but you have an excuse. tell them you're interested in their class and thinking about applying to grad school and would like to talk to them about it. they'll meet with you.

[virmundi]

Isn't it a little weird to just e-mail a professor who doesn't know who you are and ask for an appointment? I mean, it's one thing to wait before contacting a professor who's actually teaching you or has taught a class you were in, but how would you break the ice with a prof. you have no real excuse to contact?

You are trying to position yourself to get into graduate school, right? You are interested in the professor's work, right? This is *precisely* how I approached my advisor and one of my committee members for the first time, a full 18 months before I had even matriculated at the institution where they taught. They gave me a trajectory and I followed it, and thus when I applied to do my M.A. there, they accepted me (fully-funded -- almost unheard of for an M.A. student at my institution) because they saw promise in me.

One of the things that you might as well learn now is that in academia, you must cultivate relationships and you must engage in professionalization -- most of this happens outside of the classroom. Yes, you need to do well in classes, and yes, your work has to meet the standard... but you also have to engage in a wholly different way to what you might be used to in order to succeed in this field

My unequivocal advice is to express your interest in working with the professor. If your school offers an honors thesis, suggest that you'd like to do an honors thesis with them, or talk about their classes, or ... whatever! I don't think that it is weird at all.

Edited February 23, 2012 by virmundi

[thedig13]

but you have an excuse. tell them you're interested in their class and thinking about applying to grad school and would like to talk to them about it. they'll meet with you.

You are trying to position yourself to get into graduate school, right? You are interested in the professor's work, right? This is *precisely* how I approached my advisor and one of my committee members for the first time, a full 18 months before I had even matriculated at the institution where they taught. They gave me a trajectory and I followed it, and thus when I applied to do my M.A. there, they accepted me (fully-funded -- almost unheard of for an M.A. student at my institution) because they saw promise in me.

One of the things that you might as well learn now is that in academia, you must cultivate relationships and you must engage in professionalization -- most of this happens outside of the classroom. Yes, you need to do well in classes, and yes, your work has to meet the standard... but you also have to engage in a wholly different way to what you might be used to in order to succeed in this field

My unequivocal advice is to express your interest in working with the professor. If your school offers an honors thesis, suggest that you'd like to do an honors thesis with them, or talk about their classes, or ... whatever! I don't think that it is weird at all.

That makes sense. So, when I approach them, should I drop by office hours and ask for some sort of an appointment, or should I introduce myself via e-mail first? I feel like the first option might be a bit abrupt and somewhat-rude, but, I've tried contacting professors by e-mail before, and they've simply never replied to me in the past. If I'm planning to take a course with them in the future, and they've already shunned an e-mail from me, how do I handle that in the classroom? Will it be awkward?

[TMP]

go to the officer hours. Seriously. Professors generally don't love office hours because students don't visit them or if they do, they're usually complaining about the class. So your presence may be a godsend to them.

[thedig13]

go to the officer hours. Seriously. Professors generally don't love office hours because students don't visit them or if they do, they're usually complaining about the class. So your presence may be a godsend to them.

All right. I will stop by the Department of History to check up on what Professors' office hours are right now.

[thedig13]

I'm sure I'm starting to annoy you guys by now, but I have yet another follow-up question:

I stopped by a professor's office hours, one who I'm especially interested in working with. Sadly, from his body language and his tone of voice, as well as the nature of his responses, I felt like he was generally disinterested in anything I had to say or ask. It was slightly upsetting because I had a lot to talk about (like course content for his trademark class on the 1960s, his current research interests, what he'll be teaching over the summer), but his answers were jarringly short.

For instance, when I asked him if he had any thoughts or insights on the graduate school application process, he mentioned obvious things like "letters of recommendation, a good GPA, and high GRE scores" as if I had absolutely zero idea of even the rudimentary aspects of an application. To be fair, it was the last 15 minutes of office hours, and it really seemed like he was preoccupied with something else.

Essentially, though, I'm incredibly discouraged. It's particularly devastating because he's the only professor in the department whose interests align with mine almost perfectly. I was really looking forward to building some sort of awesome, instantaneous vulcan-mind-meld connection (a person who teaches a history course on the music of the 1960s and the Beatles *HAS* to be awesome, right?), and, instead, I feel like I got the cold shoulder. As I see it, I have two options moving forward: I can cut my losses and give up on him as a POI, taking what classes I have to with him and staying out of his way otherwise. Or, I can take more courses with him with the hopes of standing out as a stellar student, and maybe make my name stick a little bit more firmly in his memory.

If anybody has any advice on how I should deal with this moving forward, please help me out?

[Sigaba]

@thedig13

During my undergraduate days, I frequently took as light of a course load as possible. Part of the reason is that I was working part time in a physically demanding job and I wanted to maximize my availability to work and to do the work well without compromising too much on my coursework. As I held my own when it was time to do a senior thesis and the additional coursework to qualify for honors, and I was at a highly regarded public institution, my light course load--and a few "crash and burns"--did not factor into the graduate admissions process. However, please keep in mind that everyone's situation is different. While this approach worked for me, it may or may not work for you.

Instead, I urge you to take to heart the guidance you've received in previous posts to focus on your language skills.

Now, as for your interacting with professors, I think you need to develop your self confidence and to manage better your expectations. Please keep in mind that professors often have a lot on their plates, are not always the most sociable of people, and can be very ambivalent when it comes to dealing with undergraduates. So if a professor appears to be blowing you off, or appears to have non receptive body language, try to have a thicker skin.

I also think you should disabuse yourself of the fantasy of the Vulcan mind meld/instant rapport with a professor. Yes, those types of relationships do occur and hopefully you'll get to experience them. However, you will also need to develop the skills and mindset to operate in professional relationships that are not as rewarding. The bottom line is that somewhere along the line, you're going to end up working with at least one professor who is disinterested--if not outright hostile--to you and to what you want to do as a historian. (But I'm not bitter.)

Also, consider the value of figuring out your strengths and shortcomings as a student so you can play to the former while you work on the latter. For example, if you have doubts about your skills as a conversationalist but you're very good at writing things out, there's no harm in 'scripting out' what you want to talk about and taking a brief list of talking points when you go to talk to a professor.

Or, if you feel more comfortable talking to people closer to your own age and experiences, you can have a series preliminary conversations with graduate students, and use those chats to build your confidence.

HTH.