How do I decide on a biology grad school program?
My name is Kelly and I am new to this community. I am very interested in going to grad school next fall for biology, but only after recently reading "Getting What You Came For" did I realize how behind I am! (He suggests researching and contacting potential advisors a year and a half before APPLYING... I've got about a month and a half at best and I'm panicking). I've taken a couple years off to teach biology at the high school level and I would love to teach at the college level or really do anything with biology research, hence the need for a Ph.D.
But here's the catch: I love biology because it is so generalized (it is amazing to be able to study EVERYTHING around you), but getting a Ph.D. intrinsically means choosing a very narrow subfield and specializing within that. In college, I took lots of classes that I enjoyed, mostly in the plant sciences but I also really enjoyed genetics and human biology. As far as research goes, I really enjoy the process, but at my small college, I had to take the research opportunities available which were not particularly related to biology or enthralling enough for me to dedicate years of my life to it. I really like environmental issues and botanical studies, but I also really loved my hospital research project where I was able to design my own study and work directly with patients, not to mention the short term bird banding project I was involved with. That leaves me liking animal, plant, human, and environmental biology (both nationally and internationally), but not so much the cellular level stuff. Basically I want to make a difference in people's lives with biology, and I'd like to have human contact while doing my life's work (hence the thought of being a professor).
Which brings me to the question, how do I do this? How do a majority of grad students come in knowing that their life goal is to research the mating rituals of Indonesian lizards during times of stress or something equally obscure? I feel as though I am paralyzed knowing that if I choose the wrong specialty, I am doomed to be stuck in that field forever.
So, wise livejournalers, how can I narrow down what subfields I want to apply to and how can I do this quickly? (reading every biological abstract published in the last 10 years is no longer an option). Is is too late in the game for me to be thinking about applying this year and does that even sound like a good idea? Thank you so much for reading this and thanks for your advice in advance! It IS appreciated!
bonus points if anyone has the name of a discipline, department, or school that I should look in to based on my description above :)
But here's the catch: I love biology because it is so generalized (it is amazing to be able to study EVERYTHING around you), but getting a Ph.D. intrinsically means choosing a very narrow subfield and specializing within that. In college, I took lots of classes that I enjoyed, mostly in the plant sciences but I also really enjoyed genetics and human biology. As far as research goes, I really enjoy the process, but at my small college, I had to take the research opportunities available which were not particularly related to biology or enthralling enough for me to dedicate years of my life to it. I really like environmental issues and botanical studies, but I also really loved my hospital research project where I was able to design my own study and work directly with patients, not to mention the short term bird banding project I was involved with. That leaves me liking animal, plant, human, and environmental biology (both nationally and internationally), but not so much the cellular level stuff. Basically I want to make a difference in people's lives with biology, and I'd like to have human contact while doing my life's work (hence the thought of being a professor).
Which brings me to the question, how do I do this? How do a majority of grad students come in knowing that their life goal is to research the mating rituals of Indonesian lizards during times of stress or something equally obscure? I feel as though I am paralyzed knowing that if I choose the wrong specialty, I am doomed to be stuck in that field forever.
So, wise livejournalers, how can I narrow down what subfields I want to apply to and how can I do this quickly? (reading every biological abstract published in the last 10 years is no longer an option). Is is too late in the game for me to be thinking about applying this year and does that even sound like a good idea? Thank you so much for reading this and thanks for your advice in advance! It IS appreciated!
bonus points if anyone has the name of a discipline, department, or school that I should look in to based on my description above :)