Staying focused: The beginning of a long journey

Hey Readers!

Perhaps you are wondering why it's been so long since the last post. Well, the problem with trying to learn about grad schools is that it is very time consuming. Also, it requires something very great from all of us: staying focused. That's why, this post will be about how to stay focused on your goal.

My mind is very flustered at the moment. Nothing is going on, and yet I find it hard to advance in my research of schools. I almost want to call up the schools in advance and ask them my chances of getting into their schools. I want to find out more about the schools I am looking at, especially the ones that I feel I have almost no chance of getting into, but think would provide me with the best experience. Graduate school is a dreadfully scary topic to consider. However, for many of us, graduate school is the only option if we want to really advance with the field we love, or at least, the field in which we are most comfortable.

Perhaps you wonder what sorts of things will help keep you focused. I am sorry, but I cannot really tell you exactly what to do. However, I do have a list of things I am sure may be useful!

Step One: Make a Chart, Make a Chart, Make a CHART!!!

Hey readers!

So I'm not sure how long it has been since my first post. Maybe it's only been a few days, I can't remember. Anyway, I have been fiddling around with this blog and have been trying to find a functional layout that makes the blog both inviting and useful for readers. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave comments. I'm sure there's a widget I can add to the blog for comments and suggestions as a free flowing thing. That being said, on to my recent activities.

In our last entry, I discussed how I was feeling about the whole grad school thing and the different factors that came into my mind. I mentioned how I had to question not only myself, but the schools I was looking at and pretty much general statistics. Today, it finally hit me on how to make this a lot simpler to consider. Many of us college students are famous for our ability to run on 4-hours of sleep and attend to five complex tasks at once. Of course, this may also suggest that some college students may not be particularly awesome multitaskers (don't worry, we are), but that these college students may simply be very scatterbrained! It's very easy to get sidetracked when you are a busy college student. For myself, it was just dealing with multiple extracurriculars, maintaining a decent gpa, and trying to receive the social aspect of the college experience; but these things could become overwhelming and made making more focused decisions difficult.

While looking at all of these graduate schools, I had to narrow down so many things, and I didn't know where I was going with it all. I knew what the big picture was that I wanted, but I can't just apply to every school in the country that offers an accredited MSW degree! Too expensive and too risky. So, to overcome this, I did the only thing I knew to do: I made a chart.

Getting Started

Hey Readers--

So this is the first post for my hopefully most active blog. So I have decided that the best thing for me to do right now for my future is to go to graduate school. As of yet no one else in my family has gone to grad school. I will admit that apparently my uncle by marriage has a Masters in some thing or other, but I don't know what that is. Alas, he is also just my uncle by marriage and is likely three times my age so, I don't know how well his experience compares to what mine will be.

If you're thinking about grad school, I suggest that before you get start taking tests and buying preparatory books you figure out what exactly graduate school means. Not until a few weeks ago I considered graduate school to be on par with undergrad, only differing in the exams I had to take in order to get in and having a greater level of specificity in terms of education. Now, however, I realize that grad school is not just that. Or rather, these two differences must not be taken lightly! If you had problems picking the right major for undergrad, then you might want to take more time in thinking about graduate school. There are many things I have to consider now that I am thinking about grad school. These things include, but may not be limited to:

• Where in the USA do I want to spend the next two or three years of my life?


• What is the difference between an MSW, a PhD in Psychology, and a PsyD?


• How can I fund a graduate school education while simultaneously pulling myself out of undergraduate debt?

These are just a few of the things I am thinking about right now. There are a lot of things I have to do in order to get into grad school, and I have about 6 months to get it all together unless I want to take a break (which is something I am not keen on doing). Here's what you should know about my experiences so far so you can understand where I am coming from:

Vampy Went to College

• I will graduate from UNC-CH with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology in May '11.


• My GPA is poop.


• I got 72% of the questions right on my diagnostic PSYC GRE exam thing (see resources for more details).


• I have never held a job in the "real" world.


• I have two years of experience as a secretary, one year experience as a retailer, and a cumulative 2.5 years of experience as a writer (I get paid for none of this, however).


• Drug free/alcohol free = brain cells intact

As you may see, I have an interesting set of pluses and minuses.

However does one have secretarial and retailing experience without having had a job?

I hear you cry. College is place where you pay to work, pay to learn how to work, and then cannot find work that will pay you for what you know later down the line unless you have (1) connections or (2) luck and charm. But the third thing we all have that may be the answer to all of our whining:

DETERMINATION!!!

Updates on degree information later in the week! Don't forget to check the bottom of the page for resources and tips!

~Vampy