When a student enters a graduate program he/she arrives the first day to build a
professional career. No degree pops up at the end of several years,
as is the experience of the typical undergraduate. Rather, you develop
your own career goals immediately, and taking courses is not where
the action lies. Drain the brains of those on a faculty who are useful
to you. The graduate student should be capable of advancing knowledge
with a capitol K!
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Graduate
students are expected to be more self-motivated than undergraduates.
Research is the most important part of graduate education, and graduate
students are expected to get into the lab as much as they can, to
study the literature related to their research project, to understand
the project in depth, and to make suggestions for experiments or modifications
of experiments.
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Less structure, including fewer formal classes
Much more responsibility to initiate, question, and integrate
Master existing body of knowledge and apply it in an original way
to problem
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The
self-motivation and creativity demands are more intense. There are,
at times, less direction, but more responsibility.
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There is no defined program or end-point. A student must be willing to use
their own intiative and effort to complete the program.
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The graduate program is completely directed by the student, their interests
and their needs.
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In a graduate program the measure of success is not grades, but research and publications. A good graduate student will have at least one nearly finished, publishable
study before he or she takes the admission to candidacy exam. |
