The Steps of a Grad Student to become a PhD Candidate!

[MSW03]

Hey guys!

Going into my graduate education, I have future goals of earning my Ph.D! However, I remember during my undergrad, I didn't want to pursue a masters, so I missed out on a lot of opportunities that I could have seized as an undergrad that would have made me a better candidate for a master's program later (such as independent study with a professor, an internship, an undergrad thesis, etc). After graduating college, and a few years later, realizing that I wanted to pursue my master's degree, I wish that I had done those things during college! So, I want to take charge this time around and be prepared during my masters to be able to more easily apply to a Ph.D program later... With that said...

For people that are currently in a Ph.D program or have finished, what were your main accomplishments that you achieved during graduate school that made you a great candidate for being accepted into your Ph.D program? Clubs, honor societies, extra curricular activities, published papers, etc? thanks looking forward to hear your guys' thoughts.

[mop]

Research and good letters of rec are the real keys, get as much research experience as you can.

[fuzzylogician]

Once you're in a graduate program what you did in undergrad counts for less, and I'm not sure you want to compare yourself to people who got into a PhD program straight out of undergrad. As mop says, having strong letters of recommendation and some research experience is going to be very important. Additionally, you should finish the program with at least one strong research paper (or thesis) that you could use as a writing sample for your applications. Another thing you should be able to do at some point is get some of your work accepted to conferences and present it, maybe even write it up as a paper to submit to a journal (or at least to a conference proceedings). Some people also use an MA program to study additional courses in areas where they weren't strong enough in undergrad (language requirement, stats, etc), or they use it to move into a new/different subfield than the one they studied in undergrad. It's the research that counts--clubs, extracurriculars, and honor societies aren't going to be important. 

[MSW03]

Once you're in a graduate program what you did in undergrad counts for less, and I'm not sure you want to compare yourself to people who got into a PhD program straight out of undergrad. As mop says, having strong letters of recommendation and some research experience is going to be very important. Additionally, you should finish the program with at least one strong research paper (or thesis) that you could use as a writing sample for your applications. Another thing you should be able to do at some point is get some of your work accepted to conferences and present it, maybe even write it up as a paper to submit to a journal (or at least to a conference proceedings). Some people also use an MA program to study additional courses in areas where they weren't strong enough in undergrad (language requirement, stats, etc), or they use it to move into a new/different subfield than the one they studied in undergrad. It's the research that counts--clubs, extracurriculars, and honor societies aren't going to be important. 

 

Oops sorry if it looked like I was comparing myself to people who have gotten into PhD programs, definitely not what I was trying to do! I just wanted to gain some insight going into grad school on what I should focus on so that I can be a better candidate after grad school when applying to PhD programs

Thank you very much for your guys' insight! My MSW program finishes with a capstone project instead of a thesis, will that affect me?