What is graduate school?
Graduate school in STEM is continued education beyond the bachelor’s degree. While there are “professional” Master’s degrees in some disciplines that are based solely on coursework, here we are primarily discussing research degrees that combine advanced courses and original research with a faculty member. Many institutions grant two types of research graduate degrees: a Master’s degree and a Doctoral degree (PhD), while some concentrate solely on the PhD. The former takes around two years and the latter takes around six years. Both provide the opportunity for you to take courses you find interesting and conduct research with a faculty advisor, but the PhD places a heavier emphasis on research, where the expectation is that the student will make a substantial original intellectual contribution. However, the biggest difference is that all professional Master’s programs and some research Master’s programs require you to pay tuition, whereas PhD programs will actually pay you. Therefore, pursuing your PhD in STEM is equivalent to being paid to learn and conduct research! Doctoral research in STEM is often supported by research grants from government agencies (e.g., the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health), foundations, and industrial partners. That’s where the funding comes from to pay doctoral students and to provide needed equipment, supplies, computational power, etc.
What should I do as an undergraduate if I want to be prepared to go to graduate school?
Excelling in coursework is always a plus, but experience in research is a large advantage. Graduate school is all about research, so the faculty members reading your application want to be certain that if they hire you, you will be an effective researcher who can move projects forward and produce publishable results. The best way to convince faculty members of this is to conduct research as an undergraduate.
What about letters of recommendation?
Graduate schools typically require three letters of recommendation as part of the application. Try to get all your letters from faculty members who you have conducted research with; letters from faculty members whose class you took (and did well in) are good but not as valuable as letters that provide a perspective on you as a researcher. Letters from faculty members at another university where you researched over the summer (such as for an REU) are perfectly valid. Keep in mind that you want letters that can speak to your ability to be a researcher.
What about Graduate Record Examinations (GREs)?
Most graduate schools will require the regular GRE, and some the physics subject GRE. Exam dates are in the spring and in the fall. Most people take these either in the spring of their junior year or the fall of their senior year (or both). Note that there are far fewer exam dates for the physics subject GRE.
Further Information:
- A blog post from Professor Natelson at Rice giving advice on choosing a graduate school.
- This is the Graduate Student Handbook from the physics department at Rice. The section titled Academic Timeline, Procedures, and Regulations beginning on page 8 provides an in depth understanding of graduate school and the expectations associated with being a graduate student.