Graduate School-Bound? What’s Your Concentration?

By Julia Dunn on August 24, 2016

One of the hardest things (for some students) about applying to graduate school? Explaining why you want to go and what exactly you want to focus on within your field.

It’s seemingly the easiest part of your application — why in the world would you pursue grad school if you didn’t know why or what your concentration is going to be? But it’s also one of the hardest questions, because it feels like it’s a permanent commitment. It almost feels as though you’re an incoming first-year trying to choose your major, except this time, there’s not really an “undeclared” option.

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If you know you want to go to graduate school but feel totally clueless about what aspect of literature or history or marine ecology you want to specialize in, here’s what to do:

Consider the career outcomes.

One of the most effective ways to hone in on your subfield of study in graduate school is to think about what your career prospects would look like afterwards.

If you’re in the psychology field and you choose to explore the positive effects of technology use on cognition in young adults, you may find yourself most qualified for jobs in further research, you might become qualified to write for a psychology magazine, or you might wind up working for an organization that collects slightly used devices and donates them to students from low-income families who could use them to get into college or land a job.

You may not be able to trace every possible subject of study directly to your job possibilities after graduate school, but it’s a good thing to think about when deciding the best option for you.

Ultimately, you’re hoping that graduate school will help you land a job that’s more suited for you and more rewarding, so thinking backwards about how to obtain it can be most helpful when you’re lost on what to pursue in graduate school.

Think back to your most interested moments in lectures, assignments and office hours.

Do you remember that molecular genetics project you loved working on and got an A+ from your professor? What about that fascinating discussion on bioluminescence from that biology conference you went to last spring? The subject you explore more deeply in graduate school should be something you’re very interested in. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing steam early on and falling short on motivation to continue in your program.

Image via Pixabay

Consider the reasons you went to your sociology professor’s office hours nearly every week during Winter quarter to talk about the origins of systemic oppression. Did you go because your grade was slipping lower than you’d have liked it to? Or did you go because you genuinely found the topic interesting and wanted to hear your professor’s thoughts more in depth?

Keep track of these times where you were so engaged with what you were learning that you sought out extra opportunities to think about that subject. This practice could lead to you finding the perfect slant on cultural history to explore in graduate school or the most fascinating topic to research within pure mathematics.

Get the scoop from current and past TAs you’ve had.

TAs (Teaching Assistants) are the real deal as far as sharing graduate school knowledge and advice. They’re graduate students themselves — some of them Ph.D. students and others pursuing their Master’s degree. If you’re lost on how to find your personal graduate school focus, talk to a TA from a class most aligned with your interests in your major.

Ask if they wouldn’t mind sharing their own story with you. If you find that your TA studied the same subject you’re finding interests you the most as well, ask them how they arrived at their decision and what they hope to do with their advanced degree after completing their program. They may wind up sharing a lot more useful information than you expected!

While you’re at it, ask TAs for tips on taking the entrance exams required in grad school applications, ask for advice on writing the personal statements, and any other component of applying to grad school that has you stymied. TAs are the most helpful resources you can access specifically because they’re currently living what you’re thinking about for the future and they’ve gone through the hoops to get in successfully.

Don’t be afraid to let them know you’re unsure of what you want to study in graduate school; if the TA is in your same general field of study, they might have recommendations for you based on your personal interests that may have come through in an essay you submitted for class or from an in-class discussion you engaged in more than other students did.

It’s daunting to think that graduate school will require you to specialize in an even more refined field of study than the one you’re majoring in for college. You may be worried about locking yourself into a pathway that ultimately isn’t your thing. The truth is, although it’s substantially harder to switch subfields within your larger field, it is possible, and no graduate student has their interests 100 percent figured out either.

You can slightly alter your specialization in graduate school if you need to — it just might take a little extra work to stay on track. Use your resources while you’re still at your undergraduate university and get help from anyone you can talk to! Good luck!

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