1st gen college grad considering grad school after 7 years

[JP3]

This is my first post at The Grad Cafe!  A little background info about me: I was a 1st generation college student, went to community college and transferred to UC Berkeley where I earned my BA in anthropology in 2008.  My community college GPA was 3.79 and my UC Berkeley GPA was 3.39 (can we just round those up to 3.8 and 3.4? lol).  In community college I did a liiiittle bit of extracurricular stuff (I was secretary of my honor society and did some volunteer work and fundraising for the honor society, and I also did volunteer note-taking for disabled students.  I was also working at that time so that was about it!)  At UC Berkeley I also only did a liiiittle bit of "extra" stuff (although I believe I got units for it), namely being a research assistant to two archaeology grad students.  I also did an archaeological field school trip to Honduras.  My classes were mainly sociocultural anthropology and archaeology.  At that time I thought I would pursue archaeology.  

After college I ended up in the legal field and I have been a paralegal now for about 5 years (didn't go to school for a paralegal certificate or anything -- I qualify based on my education level, experience, and my having done the required CLE courses).  I know that being a paralegal is not for me, and that going to law school and becoming a lawyer is also definitely not for me, but working on Social Security disability cases and analyzing medical records as a paralegal has made me interested in studying public health and/or medical anthropology.  I've been trying to evaluate my interests since I've known for a while that I need to make a career change, and I've been realizing that I've been actually been interested in health topics for a long time, even before this job. I'm not 100% sure if I'd like to study public health or medical anthropology or both (I'm kind of liking the idea of the joint degree programs).  

In retrospect, I wish I had taken medical anthropology classes while I was at UC Berkeley, but, alas, I did not.  Sounded interesting at the time but I was a transfer student and I didn't have the time or ability to take all the classes I wanted to.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't just a "little" background info but it's all stuff that I thought might be relevant, so thanks for bearing with me if you've read this far.  I guess the main questions I have at this point are:

1) Do I even sound like someone who could get into graduate program? I feel like I'd look like an underachiever...I work and have a child and the only extra thing I really have time for (dance!) is unrelated to what I want to study.  Besides trying to do well on the GRE, is there anything I should really be doing to help my future self on grad school applications?  (I am currently applying for jobs more related to public health, but it's hard to come by public health jobs for people without public health degrees.)

2) How defined/refined should your ideas for what you want to study in grad school should be before applying, both for the purposes of your application statements and for yourself (what if you have various interests?  Should you just pick something and say you want to study that and then refine what you want to focus on once you're in?)

 

3) How defined/refined should your post-grad school career goals be before even applying for grad school?

4) Any tips for doing the above defining/refining?

5) Considering I've been out of school for a while and never took medical anthropology in school, should I still be going back to professors who would remember me for letters of recommendation?  Should I maybe use an employer and 2 professors?

6) Would I need to write a research paper or something related to medical anthro/public health to use as a writing sample if that was required?  Again, this is considering that I've been out of school a while and didn't write anything related while I was in school anyway...plus I lost all but 2 papers I wrote at UC Berkeley ( :-(!!!! )

Didn't realize this post would become so epic.  Any thoughts, resources, etc. are appreciated!



 

[JP3]

I almost forgot.  I've been wondering about my GPA...would schools consider my community college GPA? (My UC Berkeley GPA is *only* for UC Berkeley classes and not averaged together with my community college GPA.)  If not, would a 3.39 GPA put me at a disadvantage?

I wonder if it is actually true that admissions people would know that UC Berkeley doesn't have the grade inflation that other universities have.  A friend of mine claimed it would just be known, but I'm not too sure.  I didn't even know until after I graduated

[rising_star]

I'll only answer a few of your questions. You definitely need at least 2 rec letters from professors. One thing you might consider is taking another undergrad anthro class or public health class. That would show your interest, help you refine your research interests (which will help you write a compelling statement of purpose), and perhaps give you a chance to get a more current letter of recommendation.

[mutualist007]

I'm not exactly a first generation college degreer, but I'm close since I didn't choose something more vocational like nursing. But within my known family, my generation is really the first.

 

I highly recommend networking like mad and in the process find your "fit" or whatever that really is. Next, build your experience into your "fit". Those areas seem to be the most important factors in anthropology PhD applications.

 

I hope it works out well for you. I am back on the hunt for a fourth application season. Yet I am also wondering when I will hang it up if it doesn't work out well this time.