I think his confidence and his charisma was infectious and it led to us, you know, playing better as a team. You wouldn't think he ever doubted anything. He doesn't show that. If he does, none of us know it, or no one would know it. And just from my experience just playing ball with him, he is the most super talented person you would ever meet. He doesn't even need to try and it just comes. And everybody on the team, any team I've ever played with him, they love him. He also had this confidence about him that we could be going against the best team or the worst team and he had the belief that he always thought he was the best player. Whether he was or not, he believed that and I think that made him a great player. You know, he believed that he was never going to make an error. He believed that he was going to go 4 for 4 and that I think would make any athlete better than they are and that made him a really good baseball player. And I think that anyone that meets Anthony that actually has the opportunity to sit down and hang out or stand up and hang out with Anthony, they're falling in love with him. There really is no way not to unless you can't handle a strong personality which he is. Like I said, I met him on a field and then we hung out one night and we were like best friends after that. He was the best man in my wedding. That's how good of a friend we became. He ended up being the best man in my wedding. You can't say much more about a person than that. It's that important in my life. One year we were playing. We were down a few runs and he was up ahead of me. He was I think batting third and I was batting fourth. And there was runners at second and third and we were down two runs and we needed those runs to tie up the game. And all year he'd been knocking in the RBIs ahead of me and I went up to him and said, get the job done and of course he went up first pitch and hit a double into the gap, knocked in the two runs and tied up the game. And that pretty much was the culmination of his whole college baseball career was every time we needed that hit he got the job done.


The Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project CERAP has filed a lawsuit against President Mohamed Abahiri asking the courts to declare illegal and unconstitutional the plan by the administration to track, intercept and monitor WhatsApp messages, phone calls and text messages of Nigerians and other people. The group says the move is an arbitrary interference by the administration into respect for family and private life, the home and correspondence. It also fails to meet the requirements of legality, necessity and proportionality. Joining us to discuss this and break it down is Kala Walee Uluwadari, he's the Deputy Director of CERAP. Thank you very much Kala Walee for joining us. Thank you very much, I'm happy to be here. Yes, a lot of people may not necessarily be able to come to terms with this story because it seems a bit far-fetched. It's something that you would hear on the news abroad that maybe the FBI or the Secret Service is listening in on calls and of course that would cost some form of opera. But for an Nigerian government to be openly trying to listen in on messages and phone calls and many would say it's an invasion of privacy. But you have come out to say it's illegal. There's certain light on this for us because we already know that we cannot have access to Twitter except we use VPNs, that's a bypass. So here we are talking about WhatsApp. Thank you very much. We call it a lawful because it fails to pass the test of legality and to put it in proper context. Four of the 1999 constitution guarantees Nigerian's certain rights. Principal among which based on the topic on that discussion is a freedom to privacy and private family life in the section 37 of the constitution. And section 39 also guarantees Nigerians the freedom of expression that is to communicate and vote to receive information. And the law recognizes that these rights of course are not absolute which is why section 45 provides for certain instances that those rights can be derogated from. And that that's the principle that what is called a three part test of whether such actions would be that they are legal, whether they are proportional or whether at all they can be said to be necessary. So in this instance, there is no law presently in Nigeria that allows any of the law enforcement agencies or any other agency for that matter to monitor the WhatsApp conversations of Nigerians. And it's basically just to eavesdrop on phone calls and SMSs and other things that would go on private forms of private individuals, which is why we say it's unlawful. And if at all there was to be any law, that law still has to conform to the rights granted on the constitution. And of course the constitution being the supreme law of the land if any law conflicts with the constitution, that is what the law says. That law will deploy to the extent of its inconsistency. But even as it is, there is no law that within the government have told us or told Nigerians that the monitoring, call it the proposed monitoring, I don't know whether it's been done presently, it's asking or will take place. As much as I applaud Sarah because I think Sarah has been doing a lot in terms of non-governmental organisations and civil society, there's a lot more work, a lot more burden that just Sarah can carry. As much as I'm praising you, I want to also ask, where is the right of the Nigerian when as much as we say the constitution is supreme? Well, you go to a police station and they say that bail is free. We have a right to free bail, but that doesn't happen. So where is the average Nigerians right? We also have a right to protest. Where is that right today? Because we're unable to protest. And you've seen the stories coming from the federal government, the National Executive Council urging people not to protest on a day where people were killed at a certain toll gate here in Lagos. Where is that right of the average Nigerian when Twitter was banned? We have freedom to associate and free speech. Where is that right in all of this? Because they've been able to successfully put a gag order of sorts or put a stop to some of these things. What will stop them from going ahead with WhatsApp if they're indeed thinking about it? Thank you very much. Which is why we have to go to courts in the system. And it's quite sad that we have agencies of government abridged in law time and again with impunity. And that itself is encouraging, although it's citizens to break the laws. The laws are very clear. And I dare say that we are where we are in Nigeria presently. Not because we don't have laws. Of course, laws just like everywhere, they are not perfect. They're a walk in progress. And they're true of social engineering. But it is that will that is lacking in Nigeria. That is the will. I call it the school will if you will. To enforce those laws. So as part of the laws, as part of the rights guarantee in Nigeria is the freedom of association and the freedom to express yourself, which includes the freedom to protest whether in real times on the street or whether on social media or by whatever means. And so when these rights are being restrained by their state power or individuals, it is a breach of those laws. And you asked me about how would be the remedy. The remedy is what a therapist do presently. To approach the courts, to ventilate your grievances and to ensure that the courts give you your day in court and that those rights will be enforced by the court, which is why you see the way the fundamental rights enforcement procedure rules. That is why it is called enforcement procedure. So it is taken for granted that the rights exist as codified in chapter four. And then you approach the courts whenever you think those rights, that they are being breached, they are, they have been breached or they are likely to be breached. And others said that government can appeal, appealing to citizens not to protest, is still within the rights of governments or their own freedom of expression. And the citizens also hold the rights to disregard that appeal. But what will be a breach of the right is for either the police or any law enforcement agencies to use force to prevent people or dispass people from exercise their fundamental rights. But that should not be, and if that happens naturally, the lawful means of enforcing that right is to approach the courts and not do self-help. Talking about the courts, approaching the courts, I know of so many suits that Sarah, again, I applaud Sarah because you keep doing the job. You're in the news every day. You're asking the government to make this known I always remember a particular case where I think it was in 2015, if I'm not mistaken, if not further back in 2014, but I think it's 2015, where Sarah had asked political parties to make their finances known. As we speak, I'm still sure that that case is still pending in court and there are other arrays of issues that are still pending in court. But then we also know that the judiciary in Nigeria has a lot of question marks as it is today. Can we trust the courts to give the avid Nigerian the justice that he or she deserves and reinforce that right that we all have that have been trampled upon by our elites and of course the people who lead us? Yes, the judiciary has its own problems, not necessarily peculia as to the circumstances but possibly the nature of the problems. It does have any kind of government. But those problems should not prevent the average citizen from approaching the courts. Of course, the problems, they make the wheel of progress of justice a tonne ever so slowly. But we still know that provision for any individual to make the latest grievances, which is why section six of the constitution empowers the judiciary to be the final arbiter even up to the Supreme Court to determine issues of rights, obligations between either citizens or between citizens and government and even between government themselves, which is why you see for instance, states have to go to the courts to enforce their rights and to VAT for instance. The court remains the only bad ones. But isn't that expedited because it was a war between politicians like mines? If it was us versus the government, would it be that fast? Would it be that quick? The response that they got, would they have gotten it as quick as they got it? It is a question we've asked ourselves even though our lawyers have also asked themselves, yeah, Sarah, it is unfortunate that we'll see possible cases or stages of self-nature that take precedence away from enforcement of fundamental rights. Not if we will, at least fundamental rights or the preparation of that can lead to a larger problem. But that is what we see. It should not be. And that's also from our guests too. We've also, you and I live in this country and we've seen so many cases of disregard to the rule of law, court orders, they pick and choose which one to obey and which one's not to obey. Even if the courts were to favor the avid Nigerian, which should be the case, what's the guarantee that the Bahá'í-led administration, which we all know has been stuck in its ways and does what it wants to do? Can we be guaranteed in any way that there will be an obedience to that court order if it does come down to that? I think the spokesman for the administration will be in a better position to answer that. That's why this administration But based on precedence. This ancient, to disobey orders of court, but as law of any citizens, we have no other option but to rely on those courts as the only avenue to ventilate our grievances, which is why we continue in this, what are called needless advocacy, but more or less still the nonetheless important to ensure that the government obeys the order of courts. Not if we will that judiciary is part of governments. It's just an arm of government that gives judgment. Say it doesn't do anyone any good, not even the president or any member of this administration to disobey orders of court. We will continue to advocate it nonetheless to ensure that these orders are obeyed. I'm curious. We're all talking about the reactions from Sarah, but as a Nigerian, as a legal practitioner, why would you think government would want to listen in on the cause of the average Nigerian person? Knowing that, I mean, for Twitter, not every Nigerian uses Twitter. Not everyone who's in the country is tech savvy to use Twitter. But then WhatsApp seems to be the most accessible for almost every Nigerian. And I'm wondering, as we speak, why do you think the government is so eager to do this? Again, it's a two-pronged question. If they're successful in bringing down Twitter and now they're going after WhatsApp, what's going to be next? As to the rationale behind the government's transition to monitor WhatsApp conversations. And again, I'll use the right word, it's if-strapping. That's what it is. Listening into other people's private conversations without their permission. It's not only the breach of the law, but just its flagrant abuse of power and not mentioning the huge amount of funds being voted for this. That's about four billionaires in the 2020 project. There is no law that allows this. And we believe that every Nigerian must not only condemn this, but also take like a service to resist these. But we should continue to defend our rights to privacy and our right to freedom of expression. I really don't see a way forward. I really don't see any rationale for this. Even in law of fact, the national security being such a big war, if I can call it that, to throw around, to defend this on lawful actions of government cannot stand. Government is yet to justify this, whether it's necessary or proportional to the issues or the risks that they are led that we face by stropping into people's conversations. And the last data shows that more than 90 million Nigerians are subject to WhatsApp. And what would be the rationale over the framework for even this, what is to be listened to? Who determines whose conversations to be listened to? Who determines the use of such private data? It's nothing more than the frigates. It's an ill wind of global warming, no good, ultimately. Well, Kolaulai Uluwadare is the Deputy Director for CERAP. And we want to appreciate you for speaking with us tonight. Thank you very much. All right. Well, on that note, we'll take a short break to listen to the opinions of Nigerians to the federal government's plan to monitor WhatsApp. And when we return, I'll say my good-bye. Yeah, I think on this WhatsApp call of the thing, I think the Nigerian government is going too far. We have other challenges in the country where I think the government should pay more attention. By the time you start monitoring WhatsApp calls, that means you are infringing on the people's freedom of speech, which is enshrined in our own constitution. You know, in this case, where is the citizens' freedom? By the time you start monitoring their... So you can't have your personal life anymore just because somebody's running government. It's not supposed to be so. It's not supposed to be so at all. I think if they continue in this pattern, there will be a time the people will revolt. And they will revolt to a point where the government will not be able to contain them. I feel so bad because it's my privacy. So government monitoring my privacy is not to make any sense. And again, it's not something of exceeding something. It is my privacy. It is my home. And it is not their own problem. Anything concerning message, it is for me. So I don't feel that they need to monitor anything concerning me. Do you want to know my opinion on that? Yeah, I'm listening. Just your own opinion. Okay. First, I don't think it is right. WhatsApp and my privacy is my privacy. So I don't think anybody needs to intrude into my privacy. I have a phone. I do businesses on WhatsApp. I make conversation. I make money on WhatsApp. So why then do you have to monitor how I make my money? It's crazy. Or does it mean you have to get to a point whereby they are going to just take technology away from us? It's not possible. This is a modern age. We don't need to go back. Everything in civilization has taken place. It's undoable. Nobody can do that. Not even the president in this nation can do that. It's a private change, you know what I'm saying? It's my privacy. I can chat with my loved ones, my friends abroad, whom anywhere, you know what I'm saying? So nobody has the right. I think one of the sons has said it already that... I think 24 years ago, I said it already that Fedagomin has no right. It's our right. Well, it is our right and we're hoping that those rights will continuously be protected. I am Mary Anacorn thanking you for being part of the programme tonight. See you tomorrow.


Great. So good afternoon everybody and welcome to the kickoff of the fall OITE going to graduate school series. Today is really focused on things to think about in choosing where to apply. I'll talk a little bit about the actual application and then I'll tell you what's coming up this fall to help you through the process. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Sharon Milgram. I'm the director of the NIH office of intramural training and education. I also direct the NIH graduate partnerships program and I've spent many, many years at UNC Chapel Hill directing graduate program there. So I'm going to talk to you today and try to give you an insider take on graduate school admissions. Also here today and someone that I hope you'll interact with also through this process is Dr. Pat Sokoloff who is the OITE deputy director. Pat will be leading the workshop on writing personal statements and then Pat and I will be available to meet with you and talk with you about your application process and about getting ready for interviews and everything that you want to talk about surrounding this process. Just to give me an idea of the audience, how many of you are applying now this fall? Okay, so most everyone but not everyone. How many of you are applying to PhD programs in biomedical sciences? PhD programs in psychology, farm D, MPH? Anything that I haven't mentioned? Okay, so I'll direct my comments largely towards PhD programs. Farm D doesn't have that much that's different so I think it will be fine. MPH programs have a little bit that might be different. If you want a focused seminar on applying to public health programs there is a video cast on our website and all you need to do is go there and that's training.nih.gov. Go to prior events and do a search. The other thing before we get started housekeeping notes is this workshop today is going to be taped or is being taped so I'll ask if you have questions that you get up and go to the mic. Okay, if you don't I'll remind you to do that. If you are watching in Baltimore, Frederick or Montana or outside the NIH and you want to ask a question my email address is right there and Pat has my blackberry and she'll ask questions on behalf of people who are not here. Please if you're sitting in the audience don't email Pat your question. Just get up and ask it yourself. This is one of my I think lots of you know me and know that I do a lot of different workshops on campus. This is one of my favorite series to participate in because our post backs do so well in graduate school admissions. You typically get prepared. You take it seriously. You think it through carefully. You put a lot of energy into your applications. You make a great impression when you go out and interview and you come back to NIH and make us really proud by all the offers that you get and all the exciting decisions that you get to make. So that is the purpose of this workshop to give you just a little bit more of an edge in the process to get you a little bit more ready to point out the mistakes that people can make so that a couple years from now when I look in the alumni database I'm going to see each of you at the graduate school you want to be at doing the kinds of things that you want to do. So please take advantage. I only have 17 or 18 slides. We have lots of time. Please ask questions. Please follow up with us and I'll actually give you some instructions on how to do that. We really want to engage you in the process and we really want to see you do extremely well. So any application process to graduate school and it really doesn't matter what the discipline is really should begin with these three questions. The first one is why am I doing this? Why graduate school? Is there something else that I could do that would take shorter that would be easier that wouldn't require as much sacrifice? Am I doing this for myself or am I doing this because a teacher pushed me or because my parents think I should or my favorite aunt has been telling me all along you're smart you're good in science you should go to graduate school. Okay to decide to go for someone else is a terrible mistake that sometimes students make. So I have sat in my office with first year graduate students who are coming to tell me that really they got it wrong and they'd like to gracefully withdraw early in the process and almost every time when I asked what happened who who was behind this decision you know they admit I wasn't sure but people were pushing and encouraging and I decided to see if it felt right or good. I would encourage you if you're feeling pushed by other people to step away from that input for just a little while and make sure you yourself can answer the question why. You also need to ask yourself where do I see myself in the future and by that I don't mean you have to know exactly the job that you want to have okay because you're in a time of exploration a time of learning hopefully lots of you will change your minds you'll you'll take a class that excites you or have an experience that ignites your imagination then you'll change so I don't mean by this you have to know exactly the job you're looking for what I mean is you have to have some sense of where you're heading if you see yourself engaged in education you need to pick a graduate program that helps you develop teaching skills if you see yourself as a psychologist doing research but also treating patients you have to pick a graduate program that will prepare you for that if you're very entrepreneurial and you see yourself either running a company working in a company really becoming an entrepreneur in science you want to find a graduate program that will give you some opportunities to experience the industry side of things so you need to have some idea where you see yourself in the future I would say that's not quite as important a question as why do I want to go but I think that it helps people crystallize their decisions and finally the third question is what kind of graduate school experience will I need to reach these goals okay what do I want to do during graduate school to to head me in the right direction so obviously a big part of graduate school is pretty standard school by school right you find a mentor you join a lab you do research if you're doing non-bench research you find that research group that has research in your area you join them you do research but there are elements of the graduate school experience that are different school to school and you want to make sure to pick an experience that supports you okay that fits your personality and most importantly that will help you reach the goals that you talked about in question number two so I think this is really important I think it's so important that what I would like all of you to do is to go home today after the workshop and spend just a little bit of time you don't need a book you don't need to to spend a long time putting together a long essay but if you go ahead and answer these three questions and put them into the body of an email and send them to me and in the subject put graduate school okay then I will take a look at them print all of them out and enter everyone who submits an answer into a raffle to win a free book if I get lots and lots of people there'll be two free books okay so you can increase your chances of winning by making sure your friends send one in as well I need to have them by tonight at 9 p.m. okay doesn't have to be long all right you might want to sit down later and think about it some more all right but anyone who emails by 9 p.m. tonight is in the raffle once you answer these questions once you feel really confident okay I know why I know sort of where I'm heading enough to start talking about programs you want to start thinking about different options I don't need to spend a lot of time here because based on the composition of the audience I think we don't need to discuss every bullet in depth but there are a variety of programs out there from doctoral programs not only PhD but farm D Psi D etc these programs generally have a research element to them although the amount of research will differ in a Psi D versus a PhD program in psychology when you're thinking about PhD programs in the sciences in computational biology and cell biology and genetics and microbiology etc you want to think about three different ones interdisciplinary programs which allow you to choose coursework and educational experiences from a variety of different graduate programs there are umbrella programs which allow you to spend your first year or so typically just your first year exploring courses and labs in different departments and then choose a department at the end of the year or you could go directly into a program or department that is discipline specific some schools use interdisciplinary and umbrella interchangeably okay so the language that you're looking for for these broader opportunities to explore widely are typically interdisciplinary or umbrella some students often say I know that I want to do microbiology so what is the benefit of me doing an umbrella program or a more interdisciplinary program and I'll answer that here for all of you by saying that science really has no boundaries anymore so in the in your career you will likely meander through a variety of disciplines answers to questions will lead to new questions that will take you in different directions and so exploring in graduate school a little bit broadly and going through an exercise to to broaden yourself can be positive regardless of where you're heading for some of you say I know I'm interested in cancer biology or I know I'm interested in some element of virology but maybe it's at the cellular level maybe it's about the pathogen maybe it's at the genomic level you might find scientists in various graduate programs doing work that interests you so the benefit then of an interdisciplinary or an umbrella program is that you have access to all of them so I would advise you when you pick a school to not only look at departmental based programs but to look at the broader ones I imagine eventually I'll have to take this slide and modify it because many schools have gone to only offering interdisciplinary or umbrella programs all right so you'll you'll want to make sure you understand the difference if you are interested in an MD PhD program appreciate that there are two types that you'll want to be looking for one are mstp funded mstp is medical scientist training program that is an NIH grant program that evaluates MD PhD programs and funds really stellar programs mstp funding means that outside educators outside scientists outside physician scientists came looked at the program met with the students said this is really an outstanding place for students to be and the NIH then chooses to provide some funding however there are tremendous number of outstanding ways to get an MD PhD at programs that do not have an mstp so you don't have to limit your options to mstp programs if you're interested in MD PhD programs there's a great video cast on our website if you just go under prior events and search MD PhD it'll come up Masters of Public Health is an area here at NIH when I talked to postbex that's really clearly growing my first year doing the workshop there were a couple people in MP interest in MPH is and every year it seems to go higher and higher I would encourage you if you're interested in the public health elements of a microbiology career to look both at PhDs in microbiology but also look at public health schools whether that be an MPH or a PhD in public health there's a great website what is public health org that has a lot of useful resources and I talked already a little bit about our video as well so check out that website and check out our video okay once you know what kind of program you're going to apply for you want to ask yourself probably the other really key question question number four okay after the three I talked to and that is am I ready okay so the first question is am I prepared academically and that doesn't mean did I finish college and have good grades okay because by definition everyone in this room has done that it means am I ready for the discipline where I'm heading so for example a post back that I have been talking to has a really solid foundation in in biology and biochemistry but has become completely enamored by computational biology so academic preparation at the very basic general level yes academic preparation with the right coursework in computational biology maybe not all right so two questions here did I do well in what I've done already which will convince people to take a look and have I done the right things the reason it's so valuable to ask that one now not when a department comes back and says in general you look like a good applicant but the reason to ask yourself this now is that you can still take a course or you can write in your essay that you're aware that you need to get experience and some didactic information in this field and here's how you're going to do it okay although the winter will be very very busy and it will be difficult I think to both interview and take an FAS course you may decide to be really academically ready for the programs I want it's worth trying to make that sacrifice so think about academic preparation both broadly and very specific in the direction that you're heading the second thing is do I have research skills can I talk about my research am I ready to move to a more independent level of research which is what's required to be successful in graduate school I don't think you have to ask yourself do I know a particular technique because going to graduate school is means going to learn those techniques but you want to ask yourself can I talk broadly about research techniques when I go on interviews and people talk about the work that they're doing will I have a good general understanding of the techniques involved okay if I am going to make a very strong argument about wanting to do a particular kind of science is that base is that based in some understanding of the research strategies people use all right I think sometimes post-bacs get wrapped up in asking themselves can I talk about my own research and that's one sub part of asking do I have good research skills because to get in you're going to have to both write about your research and then go and talk of it like you really know what you're doing all right but also think a little more broadly okay beyond that focus that I have am I developing a broader base if you're not start going to some Wednesday afternoon lecture series outside your field okay go to a journal club one of them coordinated by the postdocs through OITE or one coordinated by your institute or one within your lab branch start paying attention to other people's work other people's approaches different model systems okay you want to ask about your problem solving skills how do I how do I respond when nothing is working okay how do I figure out a new technique all right have I come up with a good framework that works for me all right and if not now would be a good time to step out of your comfort zone in lab and try to develop some problem solving skills many first-year graduate students who struggle in courses don't struggle because they're they're lacking the academic preparation they struggle because they can't read the papers fast enough and with enough understanding okay so if you're not reading papers and pushing yourself now to comprehend them now's the time and I would say read papers in your field directly relevant and then go outside a little bit and make sure you can read a paper outside your field do you get lost in the details do you only read the summary and say oh I got it without critically looking at the details can you come up with strategies to read a little faster okay when you sit and talk with people about papers are you willing to challenge the work graduate students are expected to challenge the work that they read they're expected to come to class ready to critique a paper not just say figure one says this figure two says this figure three says this and students will tell often will tell us I needed more help in reading papers than I thought communication skills from day one you will be speaking in front of your peers speaking in front of your faculty speaking in front of other scientists at your university and eventually you will be writing okay in this regard being here at NIH is a big advantage the basic science writing course that we offer is open to post-bacs and although the paper writing course is not open for post-bacs without permission if you have data and you're ready to write a paper you just need to email the course coordinator Sean Mullen and you can also be admitted into basic science writing I mean into writing and publishing a scientific paper don't leave the NIH without developing your writing skills if you haven't given a seminar yet make sure you give one in your research group maybe at your institute retreat you'll present a poster at post-bac poster day look for opportunities to improve your communication skills my funniest story from my first year in graduate school was the terrible job I did in our graduate student seminar program and it's funny now because I got through it but at the time it was pretty traumatic and your communication skills will help you make a good first impression so when first year students get up and give their first summary of their research plans everyone is making a judgment okay and great slides and some poise and a good job of communicating goes a long way so if I was gonna tell you which one on this list was most critical and I won't really do that because I think they're all critical but if you push me against the wall I think I would actually say communication skills are really a stress for first-year graduate students graduate school will be stressful so if you are time management skills and your stress management skills are not finally develop develop them okay figure out how you will juggle multiple requirements in school multiple requirements in lab and still have a life albeit maybe a smaller life than you wish think about what you're gonna do when things get very stressful make sure that you're developing interpersonal skills am I ready to be assertive with a new with a new rotation advisor am I ready to stand up in front of a committee and defend my ideas am I ready to become a leader within the student group organizing activities okay and all of those I think add up to one final question and that is do I really want to make the sacrifices that are required or would there be a better time to do that later am I mature enough now to really go ahead and do this you do not want graduate school to be a protracted negative experience and in all honesty it is for some people all right you have a lot of power to go in prepared so that it's not all right so after you spend some time in the rest of this list it's worth thinking about so am I really ready and if you're not there's lots of other useful things to do finally I put this on the list because I think life does intrude and that is can I do this financially graduate students who start graduate school with financial stress need to be prepared to know how they will deal with that a lot of schools won't let you work a lot of schools will strongly advise you against it and if they don't strongly advise you against it they really should it's a full-time plus job all right so you're going to need to live on a budget and you need to be ready financially to be able to do that some of you will look at some of these things on the list and say check got it feel good about it you might look at something on the list and say oh I better do some work please feel free to come by and talk with any of us talk with your PIs get feedback from the postdocs and graduate students that you're working around what can I do to improve my communication skills do you think I'm being critical enough am I being independent should I stop asking you for so much guidance should I ask for more guidance all right look at each thing on this list consider where you are consider what you can do to get even more ready if you are ready all right my guess is you'll think as you get moved through the process of other things that should be on this list and feel free to email me I modified it a little bit based on some input from some students that left about a year actually maybe now already two years ago so it's been a while questions about that general am I ready am I where I need to be I don't think that I need to talk about this a lot especially because all of you are here now as a post back but I left it in because occasionally a post back tells me that they'd really like a little bit more time and there are other options of things to do particularly working as a technician either here at NIH or somewhere else but they take some lead time all right so if you're interested in that if your answer to some of these earlier slides it all adds up to I'd really like a little bit more time to be certain or I am certain but I don't think I have the academic preparation I needed come talk to us early enough to get to get a useful positive job when you make the next step so with that introduction I'm going to assume since nobody got up and left that most of you have answered I'm ready to go all right you might think about a little bit and refine that but you're ready to go so let's think a little bit about what to consider in looking at a graduate program okay anybody want to just all repeat back for you so you don't need to go up to the mic what are some things as you're trying to pick programs that you're considering location what else what the faculty are actually doing right better be something you're excited about right lots of some things you're excited about what else the climate the morale is it a does it feel like a good place or like a tense place funding am I going to be supported right what else so I think you hit on some big and important ones I'm going to hit on a couple other big important ones for you and I tried to put them within a structure there is no implied importance by being on slide one or slide two by being at the top of the slide or the bottom of the slide okay absolutely no implied importance the first thing actually before I start the list I want to say one other thing some of this you can't learn up front by surfing the web and talking to people and I acknowledge that and I'll try to point out which ones you really have to wait and evaluate once you get there but this is my overall list not just a list for deciding whether to apply alright the program focus on teaching and mentoring of graduate students so my summary for this bullet is good in science does not always translate to good in science education okay and there are programs that pride themselves on paying a lot of attention to the training and mentoring of students and there are programs that say we'll bring in a bunch of bright people and they'll figure it out okay there are programs that have coordinated activities to help you further develop your communication skills your writing skills your job seeking skills your leadership and management skills okay so you want to look for that okay there are programs that have strong leadership and oversight of the graduate process programs that are making sure students have committee meetings on regular basis making sure that students have access to the information they need to integrate into the department and into the community and into the university there are programs with directors that every student knows when the going gets tough I can go see him okay and there are programs with absentee directors or less engaged directors okay I think that in general program focus on teaching and mentoring can almost be summarized and add up to attention to controlling time to degree and by that I don't mean are there rigid rules that push you out I mean is there a whole mechanism in place to promote your orderly movement through the program so the half time to degree in PhD programs nationally is too long okay and we all I think acknowledge that in the education community we don't all have strong agreement on how to correct that but I think it's safe to say that one way to promote timely completion of a PhD is to really provide the students with leadership guidance and information along the way and so you'll want to think about whether the program provides provides that at all more details to think about but very important as well is the structure of the program okay do they pay stipends do they pay give fellowships do you need to teach in return for your funding is the funding guaranteed is the funding on a competitive basis is it enough to live on how many years will I be funded okay whether you do rotations or need to pick a research advisor right up front lots of biomedical graduate programs now require rotations not only encourage but require neuroscience programs often have rotations but some psychology programs do not biomedical engineering programs you'll find some that do some that don't all right and you'll want to know and people will make strong arguments on both sides rotations are good they let you experience a lab be sure you like it they let you broaden your horizons some people say a whole year of rotations adds time right if you got into a lab and got started maybe we shorten the time so you want to know what the school's policies are you want to know if people view the rotation experience positively how it works how long the rotations are etc programs vary tremendously in both the amount of their coursework and whether the coursework is required or tailored to each student okay so you will find programs where all first-year students take a common core curriculum and you will find programs out there where every student sets their own curriculum okay you'll find programs where there are no course requirements and programs that have extensive course requirements and again for each of you you'll make your own judgment on what you're looking for and what you think is best for you you just don't want to be surprised once you get there wait a minute I I didn't I wasn't expecting this rigid curriculum how can I get out of it well you can't everyone takes this right this you can find on the web but you can also learn a tremendous amount about it by talking with the students it's useful to know what the qualifying exam process is like will you be writing a grant okay which is a nice real world experience for figuring out if you're moving along in your program will you be taking an exam what is the time frame of it what happens when students don't do well what does the program do to help students do well all right so you want to know a little bit about that and finally something that comes up very very often when students are coming down to making decisions is teaching requirements and not only whether there are required teaching but whether there are teaching opportunities and training in teaching or pedagogy training so remember that first slide where do you see yourself if you see yourself in a job that requires teaching you don't want to go to a graduate program that says oh we don't want our students to waste their time teaching get get in lab that's most important because you're going to go up for jobs and some of the people will have a lot of teaching experience if teaching is important to you you want to know that the teaching experiences are positive ones not that you're sitting at the back of the room grading bubble exams I guess we don't use people anymore to grade bubble exams but grading short answer exams you want to make sure that you're going to get feedback on your teaching style you want to make sure that in general the department and the mentors value students taking time away from their research group to teach all right so I think this one both whether there's a requirement or not and what the opportunities are like and what the view of teaching is our ones that are often important jobs are not a guarantee okay each and every one of us who moves through graduate school needs guidance and career services you want to know if it's available okay if there are workshops and career guidance programs available rest assured that the program advertises it on their website because schools are very proud of the resources that they've put together in that regard so if you don't see anything about career guidance if you don't see anything about our professional development office or professional development workshops they probably don't happen on any regular basis that said sometimes they're coordinated outside the department okay so if you go to a department's web page you won't find it all right so you'll need to look a little deeply at the university and make sure that you get a sense of the resources somebody said I want to know whether the students are happy or not program climate morale and student satisfaction varies widely from program to program much to my surprise it also varies widely within the same university between programs okay so it isn't just a university culture that sets the tone for students it's actually that programs culture that sets the tone okay so this is not something that you can learn easily off of the website but you can really explore that in person and I think it is really best explored in person other things to consider are the diversity of the students faculty and broader community if you are interested in particular activities are they available on your campus students almost never like being the only the only gay student the only black student the only Muslim student people want to feel part of a community and so you'll want to check out the surrounding environment the diversity of the students whether diversity is something you seek because of your unique characteristics or something you seek because we all live in a big diverse world and the more we interact the better off will be I think it's both reasons for exploring diversity are really important and and very valid you want to know about the career goals and outcomes of past and current students okay if all of the students who've left have left unenergized and not moved on to good positions you're not likely to break the mold okay if the majority of students leave for outstanding positions whether that be postdoctoral positions or employment depending on the discipline you'll want to know that do lots of the students go on to various career paths okay or is there only one valued career path and finally somebody talked about location I was really pleased often I have to pull that out of people but I I think it matters a lot I think it's also something you can give on okay so you don't like snow but the best graduate program is up in the northeast well you can get a big fancy fluffy downcoat and figure it out all right so it's something you can compromise on but you might as well think about what matters to me okay and and where would I prefer to live and at least look there carefully location I think becomes even more important if you're moving with a partner and a family okay particularly if you have kids you know it needs to be a positive experience for everyone in my time at both UNC and here I've seen an increasing number of graduate students moving with young children or children on the younger side and I have really noticed that if they find a good supportive place for their family to land it makes the whole experience much more positive if you are also thinking about distance from your family I'll make one comment so some of us would like to live close to our families some of us would like to live not so close to our families it's worth thinking about if you are used to getting a lot of support from your family or you provide a lot of support to your family or to siblings cousins etc and you are very far away and it's very hard to get home that can add an element of stress again that might not be the first thing on your list in fact each of you will have to look at all of these things and decide which ones matter to you I think it's important to at least consider distance from family and distance from things that are important to me any questions about those kinds of topics in terms of picking a program sure go ahead thanks well you can just yell it out and I'll repeat it so the question is on that topic their program focus on teaching and mentoring what can we see on a website to give us a sense that there's some focus I'm really for one thing I would say the quality of the website are their resources are their links are their announcements of funding opportunities is it integrated into the university so that there's a link to the counseling center a link to intramural sports that says they've thought about the community and the students in terms of things surrounding scientific development you know are there and some some websites aren't as complete so you'll have to wait and see but sometimes you'll see lots of lists of student funding you know we're proud of these students who've won these awards here's our upcoming symposium on a particular scientific topic and the students are hosting these speakers so you'll see signs that they have put attention into an experience beyond the research in addition you might see very detailed explanation of requirements this is what we recommend for first year students this is the second year student experience that means someone has sat down and said or typically some ones a committee has sat down and said what is a good experience for a graduate student okay so in this case I think the absence of information is very telling right does that help okay I think though that that this is one that you also really get a sense of on a visit not only during not only on the web so all of these things seem important but I actually and I put them first not because I think they trump this but because I think we tend to overlook all of them to focus on this slide so I decided to order it the other way okay so you can be nurtured and taken care of and people can pay attention to your progress and there can be workshops and there can be a great community but ultimately your success relies on your ability to do good science and to be mentored through the research experience okay so you also want to look at the quality of the department and the quality of the institution okay and by this I mean what's their funding record okay our most faculty well funded okay our most faculty publishing in really good journals okay not just not just numbers but quality as well okay one other funding element to think about is one students don't know as much about I want to talk about a little bit our training grants so remember at the beginning I talked a little bit about MSTP programs and said if a university has an MSTP it means an outside committee of educators came and evaluated the program said this is a good program in fact it's one of the best programs let's give it some money there are training grants in many many areas of biomedical science there are and computational sciences and physical sciences as well okay so there are training programs awarded to institutions and those are called institutional training grants some people will use the language institutional T32 okay that's the number the NIH uses in the award mechanism when a program has a institutional training grant in cancer biology or in molecular medicine or translational medicine or cell biology pharmacology genomics computational biology nutrition you name it that means outside experts in education and science in that area came looked at the program and said it's a good one all right so if you have an opportunity to go to a school that has a lot of training grants you can assume a lot about the quality of training there okay in addition to institutional training grants there are what are called individual training grants and that's a student writing a grant themselves okay and getting it and that also reflects very positively schools advertise their training grants okay when you go on your interviews when you go on the website you'll see the training grants that are there okay and it's generally a positive thing to get a training grant I talked a little bit about publications I'll say one other thing look at the faculty publications but then also look for student publications all right if they publish the list of students on the website if you can see students on the website you can do this even before you go if not once you go you'll meet some students ask them are you publishing are you writing the paper are you first author are you getting help to publish is has this been a positive part of your graduate experience another way to evaluate quality is awards okay have students or faculty won prestigious awards okay there aren't that many out there so of everything on this list I would say it's not the most important but it's worth noting and paying attention to I've you got a question so the question is do schools tend to have requirements for students to publish so some PhD programs actually have a requirement for a certain number of papers in order for a student to get their degree some schools do not because some because they don't want to put that bird in that you have to publish although we all agree that to be successful in a PhD program in the sciences it's important to publish so I would say yes some have requirements some do not although often it's a joint decision between the student and the mentor to publish the paper it is a sign a positive sign about the program if the student says they did a lot of the writing got a lot of feedback a lot of help in some areas some PhD programs typically in the humanities and in the social sciences students often publish alone but in the biomedical sciences students typically publish with their mentors and other people in the research group okay other questions about this if you want to get a sense of people's grants I gave you a website but this is only NIH grants so depending on your discipline you might want to know about NSF grants department of defense grants agriculture department grants and so you'll need to do a little bit of digging on websites to find that one thing to keep in mind when you look at grant databases is that sometimes an investigator has funds that but they're not the head of the grant or the principal investigator on the grant so they might not show up that said you can assume if in general a department is funded well by looking at this list you can assume that many in faculty are funded but you cannot assume that all of them are so you'll still have to do your homework as you pick mentors about whether those individuals have funding and whether those individuals have the resources to support you okay so good institution you're convinced this is a good institution it's quality it has funding the students are moving forward it really is I feel like I'm heading in the right direction now you have to drill down to your own interests and one thing that I would say and I'm gonna go all the way to the bottom of the slide is that institutions and departments have strengths in some areas but not in all areas so if you have a broad interest in science you're gonna be okay at many institutions but if you know that there is a particular model system a particular disease process a particular biological problem that you want to work in you need to look more carefully that that model system that disease process you know that that biological area is there okay like I want to do nanotechnology well schools are all developing programs in nanobiology nanotechnology but not all schools have yet I had a student tell me they wanted to do metabolomics and lots of schools they looked at didn't have anything in metabolomics right so you're gonna have to look much more carefully when you're looking in a narrow field if you are going to a program where you can do rotations what you want is a good eight plus faculty whose work seems exciting to you do not go to a school because there's one or two people whose work really excites you he or she might get a job somewhere else he or she might not have money he or she might not be a very good mentor okay so it may seem perfect on the website but not so perfect when you actually ask if you can work there or actually try it out and find out that you don't like it if you are applying to a program where you have to pick your advisor upfront that really changes things and obviously you don't need 8 to 10 to choose from you need a smaller number of people willing to engage with you at the outset of the process in that case you'll want to focus much much more on individual faculty before you consider some of these other broader elements all right so depending on the program and depending whether there's rotations you'll change a little the energy that you're gonna put into different areas all right questions about evaluating the quality looking for what you want making sure that that the quality in your area is there so the question was what about proximity to other institutions and they could actually even be academic right to do two universities have a lot of collaborations or industry or a research institution that's close by a lot of schools with pride announce opportunities for students to rotate and do dissertation work off campus okay and the NIH graduate partnerships program is a real example of that where universities allow students to work here at NIH but you can find many examples Brown University for example will allow students to go to the marine biology labs there are universities with industry connections that allow students to do industry rotations I think that that can be a very very big plus and if you are interested in an industry career it is worth exploring whether there are programs that have those connections I don't know for many of you if you would put that as number one on your list but sometimes access to a very unique resource down the road is a is a real plus so that's a great thing to point out I'm sorry I didn't even talk about that so the question was to please elaborate on this last point the ratio of senior to junior faculty so that tells you something about the where the department is if everyone is tenure track but not tenure yet that has some inherent risks of how people's careers will develop that said it also has some real inherent strengths that working with young investigators who are still at the bench still remember you know life as a graduate student is really a plus as well so I don't actually mean you want to place with a lot of senior people because junior people are a risk I also don't mean you want to place with a lot of junior people because senior people are a risk it's just that a the ratio tells you will there be a lot of turnover is their stability if everyone is senior have they reached a point in their career where they're less interested in mentoring etc okay good question anything else all right so you have all these factors lots and lots of post-bacs show up in my office with a spreadsheet you know where they list the different factors and the things that matter to them some have geographically very much restricted themselves some for family purposes some because of partners some are going to search together with a partner and so they're looking in places where there are multiple schools some don't even have location on there they're looking all over some have an absolute requirement for teaching opportunities some say not that important to me some say I need a great proteomics facility some say I need access to patient populations in autism you each will have your own spreadsheet but I hope you will make one all right so that you can find the right schools apply to the right schools and eventually go to the right school so to learn about schools and programs what are you going to do start with your mentors okay and by that I mean not only the PI of your lab I mean the graduate students the postdocs mentors from undergrad mentors that you've met across campus okay talk to a lot of people one warning we all talk warmly or many of us at least talk warmly of the school we went to okay we went there let me tell you about it you should go there okay that can be great to hear someone's enthusiasm for a program but it doesn't make the program right for you all right in addition many individuals know about one area of the country but not another all right if you're looking for science in a particular discipline you can say do you have any colleagues on the west coast what schools would you recommend all right talk to people talk to a lot of people the NIH alumni database has a lot of postdocs who've graduated and went on to school so you can go to the alumni database and search for schools one thing I'll tell you is the database needs a little bit of work that's happening right now but hasn't happened yet so if you can't find what you're looking for just come back and check again in a week or so I think it will be probably all fixed within a week surf the web this is a great time to just go to a school's website go to the program's website hit on links let me see the faculty list let me see oh there's a list of students and where they've ended up here's workshops that they have here's information on funding opportunities at that school so surf the web if there's a undergraduate meeting the council for undergraduate research the annual biomedical research conference for minority students a meeting that in your discipline American Society for Cell Biology has a lot of information on graduate student opportunities the biophysical society try to go to a meeting I know that can be hard if the meeting is far away I know post-bacs are not always at the top of the list for PIs to pay but if the meeting is close by maybe you can figure out a way to get there you can contact people at schools that that catch your interest you can email the program directors you can email administrators you can email students or you can email individual faculty members okay some people do a lot of this in advance I happen to not be a big fan of that I think it can take a lot of time and until you have a better sense of the school I don't know that you need to be hearing from individual faculty about a slot in their research group other people differ with me on that and think it's a great idea that you get a sense of research groups that might excite you so you'll decide for yourself and if you're going to contact people send very clean crisp well-written emails okay don't be unprepared likewise if you're going to be near a school go visit but only if you're prepared all right a bad impression during a pre-interview is still a bad impression and someone will remember it all right finally one thing I would encourage you not to do is do not use US news and World Report rankings okay they're interesting it can be a fun article to read but it is a very incomplete story about what's going on in graduate education people you communicate with I listed all of these already I want to make one point for all of you to keep in mind in some graduate programs the director of recruiting is the director of the program all right and in other graduate programs the director of recruiting does recruiting gets you in and hands you off to a program director and that's fine both models work it's really doesn't make any difference to you but what does matter to you is if there's a director of recruiting you want to make sure to meet the director of the program when you visit the campus okay if you're going to write individual faculty and individual students appreciate that people are very busy but no one is more warm and engaging than during the application and interview process right so if you're not getting responses when you're a prospective student don't expect that suddenly you will get responses when you show up there as a graduate student all right so don't expect everyone to respond tomorrow with the most warm friendly engaging email but pay attention to whether you're getting responses or not okay so that's all I have to say about actually picking schools I'm going to transition a little bit to talking about applications and what I'd like to do is if there are any questions throw them out there right now all right if not let's all stretch our legs for five minutes and then we will come back and go through the second half of the talk yeah give me a warning when I got yeah I have a five o'clock meeting so I need to be really on time so maybe at 22 okay any questions anybody thought about while they were outside yes so the question was your I'm gonna because we're not catching on tape so I'll cut you off and then if I don't get it right you'll tell me the question is how our ways besides asking students to get a sense of how engaged faculty members are in mentoring and in reality that's a really hard thing to tell on a website it's almost an impossible thing to tell on a website so you can look at their publication record and do they have students on papers you can look at whether their students go out to meetings and they go together and they introduce students you know you can look at a lot of things but those are not reflected on a website so so the most important thing to keep in mind with that is a go and talk to people and get a sense when you're on campus about the relationships but most importantly take that if you go to a program that allows rotations take that opportunity very seriously so a lot of times students choose it rotations and they aren't attuned enough to the mentoring going on they aren't attuned enough to the environment that's around them they're focused a you're running between classes and other things and working in the lab so you're scattered in a lot of direction so it's easy to ignore the environment around you but be you also tend to get focused and am I going to get a piece of data another piece of data is that going to add up to something exciting and you don't pay attention to are there easy and regular interactions is lab meeting a positive but critical environment and so it's really something that you can't tell so much on the website my thought in just making that comment is it tells you about the life and health of a department that they're both bringing up young people who are developing and that there's a senior base okay and that really all all you want is a program that has a mix of people at every step along the way okay so the question the question is how important is it to choose a lab where they already have had where they have students right then so so obviously if you can talk to people who've left the lab particularly graduate students who've moved on right in a positive way to the next step you can learn a lot about what life can be like for a graduate student there all right but that would preclude ever going with the brand new faculty member whose work really excites you and the reality is that that can be a really remarkable experience and so I think you want to get a sense of of people in their interactions with you if they have students you want to take those students away from the lab have coffee and ask hard questions direct questions to get a sense of things you want to contact people who have left the lab if you can okay but ultimately you're going to have to go with some gut feeling if there isn't a long history there all right that's where I think rotations are such a gift to students as much as I there's a pull there because finishing quickly is is important too so I think short rotations are better than ones that go on a long long long time but you know you can pick someone who doesn't have much of a mentoring record and if you have a very positive experience and they're really engaged in the department and it's clear they want to learn about how to bring your graduate students successfully through then it can be a real winning experience okay I think the first group of students that joined my lab still have these great memories of unpacking things together and our first meeting and our first paper and our first you know sort of our first everything that you don't you know it's nice to you don't always get to experience that setting up a lab so there are real pluses to junior faculty members all right all right so let's transition a little bit to preparing a strong application all right I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because you're going to write a lot about this in your statements and Pat's going to address personal statements coming up soon but I wanted to give you some questions and prompts to work with as you're thinking about yourself and as you're thinking about this process whether it be for writing your statement or whether it be because you're going to go on interviews and people are going to say so tell me about yourself why should we accept you I just wanted to give you some questions that people tell me are very very that can sometimes trump them but are also very useful for preparing for the process okay I want to stress after you go through all of these which are all about me okay I I I here's how I got prepared that you want to take one minute step outside of yourself and think about the school why that school and why that program okay and it never ceases to amaze me I have interviewed so many people for graduates go never ceases to amaze me when that trips someone up because it's such an obvious question that that you're going to get so you want to think a lot about yourself okay you want to think a lot about why that school and program and you're going to reflect that in your emails to people you're going to reflect this in your statement you're going to reflect it while you're networking and socializing at the interview you're going to reflect the answers to these questions actually informal interviews okay so we won't go one by one but as you write your personal statement and in that workshop you will go much more in depth all right so let me give you a picture of us okay so what's an admissions committee look like so I have seen admissions committee as small as five people and admissions committee as large as 15 members okay they are typically a combination of junior faculty and more senior faculty they involve sometimes but not all the time a student okay in fact I would say more often than not there is no student but there are some that have so I want to throw that out there they are chaired by you the program director or a director of admissions and they have assistance from an administrative person who is often the contact person or face of the program I want to remind you that your interactions with the administrative person should be as respectful and cordial as your interactions with the director of the program okay because they often have been on the committee a long time and people will turn to them and say we're not sure about this one what it how's your interaction been okay the applications are read in advance and typically discussed at a meeting okay so people are going to make a judgment about you on paper and then they're going to go to a meeting and they're going to decide who to invite who to offer admissions to who doesn't fit who doesn't meet criteria etc some but not all graduate programs use rolling admissions so this is in there to say if you can get your application in early and a program uses rolling admissions good for you rolling admissions means they start reading applications right at the you know right after the deadline or even some before and they keep evaluating them the whole way so what I noticed when I was directing the one of the committees was we were much more likely early on to give someone the benefit of the doubt well we still have room for 60 more people to interview let's just meet this guy all right we're not sure but let's meet him but towards the end when most of the positions are full it got a little bit hard harder to get an offer so if you can be early early on you know in the process the better that does not mean you have to frantically run around tomorrow and submit now is too early okay way too early all right no one's going to be looking or most people are not going to be looking one other point I want to make is that these committees vote often okay there are some democratic process but there is also some element of discretion of the program director all right so if you have a flaw in your application all right it is worth discussing it with the program director it is worth putting it in your essay it's worth pursuing it with the program director okay because sometimes he or she has some discretion to help people understand that all right so you're writing to everyone but if there are issues you want to bring them up if you can with the program director okay what are we looking for academic record standardized test scores research experience research statement and recommendation letters okay if you are applying for a program that has some clinical certification element to it we're looking for that clinical experience as well every member of a search committee will order this list differently so some think standardized test scores mean a lot some people think they don't mean as much some are very forgiving of a bad semester of grades thinking oh you know that was due to something going on in his or her personal life some admissions committee members are not forgiving all right some read the personal statement and find every grammatical mistake and count them up some skim the research statement and say this sounds good I liked it we're all different okay and so you can't assume one thing here matters more than another all right you need to start working on letters of recommendation now so I wanted to bring it up right up up front almost always three but occasionally students have come back and told me there was a fourth required online systems are a little less flexible all right so if you put in three people and someone doesn't deliver for you there's no way to have another person replace them unless you go in and change your online application so you want to go and talk to people now make sure they know about the deadlines and then you want to stay on top of them and make sure that you submit on time so I write a fair number of letters of recommendation and I've noticed two kinds of personalities all right there are people who hound me every day all right I get an email every day I just want to remind you of this deadline I just want to remind you and every day might be an exaggeration but I I would say they are very assertive in making sure their letter gets in some ask for a letter and then I never hear from them again okay so out of sight out of mind and then I get embarrassingly close to the deadline or miss the deadline and have to apologize you do not want to be a person who doesn't follow up at all because you may not get a letter in on time but you also don't want to be the student who's hounding someone every day all right so some regular contact if you ask three months in advance a reminder at two months and then at one month would be appropriate but then it's starting to get serious and a reminder each week would be okay if it's five days before the deadline or a week before the deadline and you're not getting a response back from that person that's when you want to consider is there someone else I can ask you don't want to consider is there someone else on the last day all right you want to ask far in advance okay and you want to make sure you're going to get good letters so you want to ask from mentors and teachers who know you well notice I'm screaming at you all right that's capital letters all right I meant to use capital letters all right not from personal or family friends it does not matter if they claim to know you in a more professional way all right not if you can help it not from non-educational employers okay that doesn't hold if the work is highly relevant okay so if you work if you're applying to a clinical psychology program and you worked at on a abuse hotline that's highly relevant so that would be an appropriate letter all right you will absolutely need to explain why you don't have a letter from your post-bac mentor and or a mentor that you did significant undergraduate research with so if you're sitting here thinking oh that's a problem we didn't get along things didn't go so well please make an appointment and come and talk with us about it we can strategize we can figure out solutions early enough that you can line up the letters that you need and resolve those issues some students will email me and ask for a letter and I'll say sure I'm happy to do it and they don't follow up by sending me an updated CV or resume it's much easier to write a letter for someone if I have their statement and they're and a reminder of what they've accomplished okay obviously if it's in you know someone in my lab I don't need those reminders quite as much but if you've left and you're going back to an undergraduate professor someone you did summer research give them the reminder that they need okay so you want to make sure to follow up if someone says yes with with some information that will help them write it sometimes I'll say yes and someone says great put it in an envelope and send it to me all right and there are some p.i.'s who will do that but many of us will not don't take it in a negative way just say great I'll send you the list and in fact I would suggest that you not ask for the letter the majority of them now are submitted online anyway you cannot submit them on your own behalf only we can submit them using the password that the university sends us so I would tell you to not worry about that contact people they just get their agreement follow up with them send them the material and let them worry about it online if your p.i. or a teacher says sure I'll write you a letter you write it for me and then I'll make changes that would be a great time to make an appointment with Pat or I and we can help you put some things on paper that become the the meat of a letter another strategy for that is to go to the postdoc or grad student in your lab and say could you do me a favor and just write a little bit about me that I can give to Dr. So and So to help her him write the letter all right that stresses people out so I always like to mention it it happens a fair amount at every level not only graduate school letters a recommendation but even beyond questions about getting letters always lots I should start the workshop with recommendation letters and we'd have lots of discussion good the question is is it okay to use non-science based professors and I would say if you have to it's okay but you should try not to okay you want to ask people who know you well okay so working in their lab going taking a class with them that had a paper based discussion based research based element to it is much better than a non-science faculty member okay but if somebody who knows you really really well is not a scientist and they feel that they can address your ability to perform in a science graduate program then I would say it's worth thinking about all right other questions no you great okay so that's a great question happens to a lot of people so I just started three weeks ago now what do I do so what I would say is anyway you need to sit down and talk about your time here right you got to set expectations and get a sense of what you're going to do in that meeting you would want to share that my goal is to go to graduate school and I'm going to apply this year I appreciate that you don't know me well enough yet but would you be open to writing a letter in a couple of months because the letters do not have to get in super early okay that could get in on the last day most schools give a grace period for faculty like me who can't pay attention to deadlines so they don't you don't need that letter now what you need is a commitment for them to consider it okay and I think you'll be fine many many post backs have worked it out that way occasionally a mentor has said it's just not long enough and they've gone to undergraduate mentors okay question in the back okay so the question is if you don't work with the PI you work with a post doc what should you do and it'll be interesting I would imagine lots of people have a different opinion than me I think that having a letter from the head of the lab is really valuable and if your post doc can provide input to the head of the lab and they can either jointly submit the letter or your PI can say the post back who supervises Shane tells me this and this it's really more valuable I also think you should use every opportunity possible to make a good impression which means if you're at a joint lab meeting together you don't want to be at the back of the room you know catching up on on your sleep you want to try to build on those small opportunities to make a good impression I would also be somewhat assertive and ask for a meeting to talk about your career goals so that they are aware that a letter for graduate school would help a lot all right some people I think would say get the letter from the post doc who can really go on in with superlatives and talk about you if I think there's something to be said for a senior scientist saying I've had lots of post backs and here's here's where he fits so going out of your way to try to get it is worth it that said plenty of post backs have done fine with letters from staff scientists and post docs okay so if that's what you get that's fine also okay you and then you so would it be appropriate to get a letter from both depending on who else you have that might be a really good idea but it's also a fine idea to cosine them so I typically get text from the post doc or staff scientist and then we co submit the letter because I know my post backs in a much more formal context I'm not seeing them in lab as much as I wish I was and so every lab will do it different again if you ask far and get letters from the best people you had a question right same question wow excellent go ahead so I uh I don't think it's a great strategy to ask people to give you a letter out the door so a lot of us are queasy about doing that um in part to protect you that that I write a letter for graduate school that's different than if you change your goals and want to do something else some people are just not comfortable handing the letters to the student so you might someone might be willing to do it but in general it's dated a year back and that's not very useful so what I would recommend is that you leave that six months after you've left or three months you send an update a little while after that you send another update and then in your next update you say as you know I'll be applying to graduate school so I have written letters for people who left my lab 10 years ago now when I can't write a letter is when they haven't kept in touch at all and I can barely remember who they are and you might think how could you not remember me but if you have five or six undergraduates a year and someone doesn't keep in touch you're not likely to remember them and in general the ones you remember it's not for good things so you want to keep in touch a little bit like the warning letter about you don't want to keep in touch so much that they feel like you haven't left and you're stalking them but you don't want to wait until you need the letter and then say hey don't forget me I need the letter okay so keep in touch is there a number that's too many to ask for one p.i. so actually to be honest the schools want you to personalize why this school they don't care if the recommender addresses that school or not okay so in all honesty those of us who write a lot of letters say I am writing to recommend so-and-so for admission to your school we don't even put the name of the school in everyone is aware that writing letters can become a burden and the the schools aren't wishing for personalization okay now there might be a time when personalization would really help a particular program I have a post back who's going to apply to a computational program and some that are not computational and I think I'm going to write a slightly different letter for the more computational programs so there are times when some personalization would help if you are a good honest solid post back who's contributing to the lab your mentor will be delighted and now that there are computers this is just not that hard okay so so you don't want to apply to 20 schools 20 is too many because you can accommodate them okay trust me you can't go on that many interviews so although md phd I typically do tell people to do quite a number but phd eight to ten is even a lot it's not too many okay there was one more so that's a that's one where you know going back to that list where I said people will reorder it I'll tell you that in committees I've served on the name can sway some people and some are totally unimpressed they'll say well he's too busy to really know the student or she writes that for everyone you know I think you want people who general genuinely know you and beyond that I wouldn't worry if you know a very influential person in your field but you know them very tangentially and very superficially they can't write you a good letter so them writing a letter isn't a big help all right I wouldn't worry get people who know you who can talk about your passions who can talk about your strengths who can point out what some of your weaknesses are and how you've tried to fix them and you will be fine okay if it turns out to be your postdoc you're going to be fine okay if it turns out to be teachers from undergraduate because your PI says you haven't been here long enough you're still going to be fine one thing I would say if you went to a very small liberal arts college that people might not know about it does not help if the instructor in the instructor if the letter writer says although you may not have heard of us we have a very active undergraduate research program all of our students write a research based honors project okay so sometimes giving a little information about the program goes a long way okay the goal of your written application is to get an interview and I have seen people with meticulous grades fall flat because they don't have a good essay and they didn't get their letters in okay so pay attention to all of that if the goal is to get an interview missing deadlines and asking for an extension is a poor way to make a good impression we occasionally overlook it but why okay if you know you're going to apply it's online you know that the computer sometimes misbehaves don't wait till 1150 to hit submit when something's due at midnight all right start early anyway it's a benefit right to get it done with and move on but definitely if you don't start early at least don't wait till last minute you can apply to too many schools but you can also apply to two few schools it depends a little bit on the program okay clinical psychology typically takes a higher number of schools than then phd programs in the biosciences that said your record determines the right number of schools for you all right so there is no magic number what i can tell you is you will be exhausted if you go on 10 to 12 interviews and you will be rather unpopular with your lab when you're out so much it's a pretty exhausting process so don't have too many low low on your list safety schools and don't make it all these high reach schools and then you're disappointed at the end of the year okay and finally i think this is a stressful process for everyone even for really strong students it's still something you haven't experienced before it's something done in a backdrop of intensity in the lab so just because you're applying doesn't mean that everyone in your research group leaves you alone so waiting till the last minute and not getting help and guidance really adds to the stress i have seen students just thrive during this process they learn a lot about themselves they develop some real confidence they meet fun people that will be colleagues for life so i still am in touch with some people that i interviewed for graduate school with okay this is can be a remarkably fun and exciting time but it can be a stressful one so reach out to mentors folks in the oite folks in your training office in your institute folks in your branch get advice from a lot of people go back to your undergraduate mentors get their feedback and advice and do whatever you can to minimize your stress go ahead question so that can be really a difficult thing to determine because some of it is based on numbers but some of it is based on publications and research experiences so really the best way to judge that is to talk to people who have broad knowledge of graduate programs the other thing those of you who are a year here a year in advance you're going to apply next year this summer will be as every summer the graduate and professional school fair and my feedback from the exhibitors is they're pretty honest with students about whether they have a good shot or not you can email a school and get a sense you know ask them for an evaluation of your record talk to people who went there you can go in the alumni database maybe you'll find someone that's already there what people are loathe to tell you is an absolute cutoff okay no one will say less than this GPA or GREs know because we all look at the entire package all right so if the GRE subject test is recommended not required what to do that's the question so i think it depends if in general the rest of your application is very strong and your general GREs and your GPA are very strong i say don't risk it okay if however you have a blemish in your record okay by you know a lower GPA or GREs that you're a little disappointed with sometimes that a good score on the subject test can balance that out and so i think you have to make that decision a little bit knowing yourself and how you're going to do so i would take a subject test under the most realistic conditions you can see how you do on it factor in everything else in your record and then decide all right if it says strongly recommended just white out strongly recommended and put in required and take it okay strongly recommended means go ahead all right so on that website that i gave here is a lot of career information on our video cast is career information as well as getting into graduate school information you'll find a lot of resources much of what i said really applies a couple of differences so public health has an international element and they are often looking for students with a significant amount of leadership experience and international experience obviously languages can make a big difference uh to schools of public health depending on what area you're interested in so there are a few differences well really it's just things i didn't stress that i would stress if i was talking to someone interested in public health but a lot of what i said applies and that website and that video i think will both really enhance this okay uh we will have a workshop on writing personal statements for graduate school in building 50 on october 5th from noon to 1 30 that pat sokoloff will be leading and uh both pat and i are more than happy to talk with you about reach schools about things in your application about picking schools about how to um attack this process in fact i would say we both enjoy these meetings quite a bit pat was the associate dean at marylander assistant associate she was the associate dean of the graduate school in maryland and i have been on admissions committees both uh at u n c chapel hill and here uh at nih so we will share our experience we will also try uh to share with you uh you know what is sort of good general strategy and what is our opinion okay it's very very important to distinguish someone's own individual opinion from from the rest of the advice that you get will try to be as uh available as possible but it gets a little bit chaotic at this time of the year and so this is if you want to talk about graduate school this is what you need to do okay that's barbara ward b is barbara ward barbara in my office okay you email barbara put in the subject line graduate school okay and tell her you would like to have a meeting to talk about your graduate school applications if there's something important in there i'm interested in x discipline you know tell us whatever you want and then barbara and i and pat will work to get you scheduled uh with one of us as quickly as possible the career center is available debbie has contacts at graduate schools all over the place so if you're looking for a student or a faculty member somewhere uh an email to debbie can go a long way the alumni database it's not quite ready but i still think it will be helpful for you and we can go in the back end and find information if you can't find it your p is many of them went to graduate school the postdocs and grad students uh have experiences to share with you what i would say is enjoy this process but treat it really seriously because landing in the right graduate school can launch your career and landing in the wrong place can really uh be a drain so we want you to choose wisely this is the beginning of that process we'll have a workshop on interviewing in november and then we will actually give you all a break to go and interview and this year we're going to add a workshop on actually getting there and making the transition and succeeding one last thing there is a video cast on our website which is a panel of deans uh of schools uh outside of the programs not gpp programs talking about strategies for interviewing etc so use the online resources if you are in baltimore fredrick rocky mountain labs uh north carolina watching on video uh we will meet with you by phone i will be actually traveling quite a bit to uh most of those campuses so please also email and ask for appointments uh either phone or in person will work uh likewise if you came here from twinbrook or executive plaza uh and you would prefer not to come and would like to meet by phone pat and i are happy to do that as well so pat do i have time for a few more questions or okay i have time for two more questions if there are any all right your questions tell me you're ready okay these were good questions all right so go out and kick butt good luck you could shut off right before the kick butt would be okay i almost didn't say it see i debated not saying it