Travel and Interviews and Grad School OH MY!

Hello RAs!

David here wanting to explain just a little bit about what I’ve been up to and why my graduate school interviews are sort of consuming my life right now. So first let me tell you what I’m going to graduate school for. Student Affairs and Higher Education. If you ever want to be a Kyonna, or a Jessica, or a Melissa Bemus, you have to get your masters in student affairs. Some programs are called different things, some are called, College Student Personnel, or Higher Education and Student Affairs, it really all means the same thing. So I applied to five programs, got interviews at four and am traveling to three.

When I say I am interviewing at a certain program, let me clarify that this does not mean having one interview and then returning. Student Affairs is a much more hands on process. What generally happens, emphasis on generally because it varies program to program, is that you’ll apply, that program will narrow that number down to maybe 60 people and invite them to campus for a two day experience. What you do is you get a rundown of the program, curriculum, etc. Then you have a faculty interview. Which is usually an hour long and those are tough. Then the rest of day 1 is touring campus, asking current student questions, and lots of socializing with other candidates.

Then there’s assistantships. So here is what I mean by assistantships. A Graduate Asissistant is someone who works part time, usually 20 hours a week, in a functional area of the University/College. So for example, a graduate assistant could work in the Career Center or could be an Academic Advisor. These assistantships provide some amount, (depends on each program) of credit scholarships. Could be a full 42 credit scholarship or could be a 30 credit scholarship. Again, depends on the program. And at a large university, there are usually a lot of opportunities and offices to interview with. So typically Day 2 of the interview consists of interviewing with these assistantship providers. Sometimes you interview with 9 different offices, sometimes you interview with 7. So it really depends.This is the big reason why these visits take up so much time out of my schedule. It’s not just a faculty interview, it’s like 10 interviews in two days and then multiple socials and second interviews and all that jazz. 

One of the cool parts of this job is that I do find a lot of transferable skills from my time as an RA to the time here. The same things you do now are the same things that are going to make you marketable in your next interview. Event planning... marketing... interpersonal skills... You all are putting in serious work that will pay off. 

See you soon! 

David!