Extra Credit: Grad School Meeting
Graduate school is something I have not given a lot of thought about; yet this past Thanksgiving my family, in typical family holiday style, were asking and probing about my plans for post-graduation so this presentation could not have come at a better time.
I recently just declared my major as Journalism and Media Studies within the School of Communication and Information. It was pleasing to see that one of the first parts of the presentation was a review of secondary education within Rutgers, which included the School of Communication and Information's graduate program. It is nice to know I have the option available to obtain my Masters right here at Rutgers. The presentation made me aware at how quickly graduate education was gaining in popularity in recent years, making me give deeper consideration as to how beneficial a Masters degree would be for my future career.
One worry that has held me back from even taking a deeper look into graduate school is the financial aspect. I currently have loans to support the payments for my undergraduate tuition, and pay for my off campus housing by myself through a 65 hour a week summer job. A big majority of the presentation was focused on the financial aspect of graduate school (and especially on the new bill concerning tax on tuition remission). The talk about the financial support from universities for different types of Masters/Ph.D. programs was insightful, as financial support for subjects like the humanities and social sciences were much lower than that of the others. There was a more opportunity than I was expecting within the academic community for graduate students, in the form of part time lecturers and teaching assistants. It is eye opening to me now because quite a few of the courses I have taken in my short time here at Rutgers have had teaching assistants and part time lecturers. However, overall the presentation's data did show that the skew of our university's funding is unfair in terms of secondary education. The funds that need to be allocated to graduate school to make it possible for students to graduate with a Masters or even a Ph.D. are currently not; a case that is concerning for many of the passionate attendees of the lecture, especially as the new bill could be passed as early as next week, making it even harder financially on students. Overall, I found that the presentation gave me a base understanding of what I needed to know about graduate school. I felt as though within the hour and a half we only brushed the surface of the topic. Funding is never going to be ideal and finding a happy medium can only be the result of hours and hours of discussion, planning and action.
Overall I felt as though the presentation was very helpful. It was hard for me to connect with some of the information, as a lot of focus was on Ph.D. level education which I believe to be outside of my personal scope. Nevertheless, I learned plenty and am glad I got the opportunity to experience the lecture.
I recently just declared my major as Journalism and Media Studies within the School of Communication and Information. It was pleasing to see that one of the first parts of the presentation was a review of secondary education within Rutgers, which included the School of Communication and Information's graduate program. It is nice to know I have the option available to obtain my Masters right here at Rutgers. The presentation made me aware at how quickly graduate education was gaining in popularity in recent years, making me give deeper consideration as to how beneficial a Masters degree would be for my future career.
One worry that has held me back from even taking a deeper look into graduate school is the financial aspect. I currently have loans to support the payments for my undergraduate tuition, and pay for my off campus housing by myself through a 65 hour a week summer job. A big majority of the presentation was focused on the financial aspect of graduate school (and especially on the new bill concerning tax on tuition remission). The talk about the financial support from universities for different types of Masters/Ph.D. programs was insightful, as financial support for subjects like the humanities and social sciences were much lower than that of the others. There was a more opportunity than I was expecting within the academic community for graduate students, in the form of part time lecturers and teaching assistants. It is eye opening to me now because quite a few of the courses I have taken in my short time here at Rutgers have had teaching assistants and part time lecturers. However, overall the presentation's data did show that the skew of our university's funding is unfair in terms of secondary education. The funds that need to be allocated to graduate school to make it possible for students to graduate with a Masters or even a Ph.D. are currently not; a case that is concerning for many of the passionate attendees of the lecture, especially as the new bill could be passed as early as next week, making it even harder financially on students. Overall, I found that the presentation gave me a base understanding of what I needed to know about graduate school. I felt as though within the hour and a half we only brushed the surface of the topic. Funding is never going to be ideal and finding a happy medium can only be the result of hours and hours of discussion, planning and action.
Overall I felt as though the presentation was very helpful. It was hard for me to connect with some of the information, as a lot of focus was on Ph.D. level education which I believe to be outside of my personal scope. Nevertheless, I learned plenty and am glad I got the opportunity to experience the lecture.
Glad to see that someone got the extra credit. Nicely written. I wanted most for students to hear about the personal impact of threatened taxes on grad student stipends, which would destroy graduate schools in the Liberal Arts (one of the intents of the bill). Fortunately, that does not appear in the final draft of the Tax Bill released late this week.
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