The Statement of Purpose

Graduate program applications generally require you submit a generic application form of some sort, your university transcript(s), GRE scores*, a CV, letters of reference (these should go directly from the letter writer to the university), and a statement of purpose. The SOP is important both for its content and for how well you express yourself.

In general, your statement of purpose (SOP) is a 1-2 page typed description that addresses three areas: (1) Your educational experiences and how they have led to your interest in graduate study in the geological sciences; (2) a description of any scientific research you have conducted (be specific and include field experience, lab/analytical work, a summary of your findings); and (3) a description of your research interests for graduate school and your career goals. A well-crafted statement of purpose is specific about what you want to study and the geology faculty member(s) you are interested in working with. Do your research about the faculty and department to which you are applying and tailor each of your SOPs to that faculty member/department. You do not need to know exactly which one faculty member you want to work with - it's OK to include two or three names (maximum) if they are working in related/complementary fields (but don't include, for example, a geophysicist, a geomorphologist, and a hydrologist - that would demonstrate that you have no idea what you want...). Nor do you need to know exactly which project you want to work on - be as specific as possible about your interests ("extensional terranes", "metamorphic core complexes", "ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism") and certainly include a description of how your research experience has prepared you to tackle your proposed research. Look through the websites of potential graduate advisors to see which projects are active. You can also search the National Science Foundation website to look for active research grants for those prospective advisors (although not all research funding comes through the NSF, that is a major source of funding in the Earth sciences).

This web site and this link have good descriptions of the basics of the SOP (even though these are intended for graduate programs in psychology) and some things to avoid. Whatever you do, don't start your SOP off with the all-too-common "I have loved geology since I was just a kid starting out with my first rock collection" sort of statement. Gag me. Just start with your college experience, or perhaps one notable trip you took where you learned about geology. Be matter of fact, as specific as possible, concise, and use the SOP as a place to elaborate on things only briefly included in your CV (like your research experience) or to discuss things that don't appear elsewhere in your application and that are relevant to your application (e.g., if you need to explain poor GRE scores or a D in a chemistry class in your freshman year). Stay positive and don't make excuses.

Spell check, proofread, and have someone else read your statement and give you feedback before submitting it (a grad student, a faculty advisor, swap SOPs with other students). The rest of your academic record can't be changed at this stage, and you can't control what your letter writers say, but you CAN write an excellent SOP.

*GRE scores are no longer required to apply to the MS program in Geosciences at SF State.

The CV

You need a basic CV as you progress through your career as a scientist: to apply for fellowships and grants, graduate school, internships, etc. Read through this thorough description of a basic science CV by Richard Reis in The Chronicle of Higher Education and see several resources on How to Craft a Winning Résumé on the Science Careers (AAAS) web site. Once you have all your basic info down, you should take particular care to 1) proofread your CV for typos, 2) make sure it is formatted simply so that it is easy to find critical information (e.g., year(s) of your degree(s)), 3) avoid excessive wordiness (less is more - don't use complete sentences to describe your skills, instead use bullets), and 4) keep it to a maximum of 1 or 2 pages unless you already have a PhD and can justify a longer CV (i.e., have you used an 11 pt. font, played with the page margins and spacing? Have you already removed all items related to your high school record? hobbies? and anything else that isn't DIRECTLY related to your career as a scientist?). In early versions of your CV, err on the side of INCLUDING small awards or presentations (a scholarship from the local gem and mineral society, a poster competition in your College of Science, etc.). Include other languages you speak, specialized lab techniques you have experience with, specialized software you use (no, we don't want to see that you've mastered MS Word).

Things that SHOULD NOT be included in your CV: a photo of yourself, your birth date or age, your marital status, an exhaustive list of your college courses, your hobbies (unless you happen to have an Olympic medal or some other very notable "hobby" that will make your CV stand out but perhaps work that into your Honors and Awards section).

Finally, look at CVs of other academics for formatting ideas and ideas for what to include in your CV. I happen to like the way my CV is formatted (I don't overuse bullets, but instead use more bold type, italics, underlining, and creative spacing to make the information easy to find. You should include the dollar amounts of any awards/scholarships in your CV). Then have someone (an advisor or graduate student) look at your draft CV before you send it off. Send your CV as a .pdf file and not an MS Word file to avoid software problems.

Before you submit an application for a PhD program....

After you take the GRE* and after you've chosen a few graduate programs to apply to (see my previous posts here and here), you should take a few steps to make the initial contact with potential future graduate advisors. First, do your research about the faculty member online and maybe read a recent paper or two of theirs. Then draft a professional e-mail to introduce yourself and enquire whether a faculty member anticipates taking any new graduate students for the next academic year. A generic e-mail (from your university e-mail account) might read like this: Dear Prof. X, My name is Jane Doe and I will complete my B.S. in Geology at San Francisco State University in May 2011. I hope to begin PhD research next fall and I am very interested in your research on Interesting Topic Y that I read about in your X et al. (2010) paper in Important Journal of Research. I completed a research project on A and B with Prof. Z at SF State and believe I am well-prepared to start research on Interesting Topic Y at Prestigious University. Do you anticipate taking any new PhD students next fall? I would like to discuss any opportunities you might have to join your research group. I see that you have a poster with Unknown Person [the first author on the poster that you're referring to] on Wednesday morning of the AGU meeting in San Francisco - if you plan to be at the poster that Wednesday morning, may we schedule a time to meet briefly? I am attaching my CV for your reference. Many thanks for your consideration. Best Regards, Humble Student Because the process of applying to graduate programs starts in the fall term, you have two opportunities to make further contact with potential graduate advisors (particularly if their university is too distant to justify a road trip for a casual visit): at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America meeting (in October or November) and the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (in December). For my students who always attend the AGU meeting in San Francisco, I recommend checking to see if the faculty member is presenting a talk or poster at which you might introduce yourself, hear about their research, and ask intelligent questions: Search the Fall Meeting program for their last name. If you get zero search results back, you can still ask whether they will be at the AGU meeting in San Francisco, and might be able to meet - they might be planning on being a "conference tourist" (i.e., attending but not presenting) or, if not, you get bonus points by showing that you will attend that meeting. You should certainly invite a potential advisor to visit your poster if you're presenting one - be sure to include the details of your poster (i.e., T32E-47) and when you plan to be at your poster (your poster stays up all day, but you will only likely be present for 2-4 hours). If you are an M.S. student writing this e-mail, you should include a few more details about your interest in the faculty member's research and certainly more details about your research experience (tailor it to the specific faculty member: field work, lab/analytical techniques, a one-liner about the preliminary results of your research). Then proofread your e-mail: Fix typos, check the spelling of the faculty member's name, etc. I would add a "signature" at the bottom of your e-mail that has your name and contact information (kind of like a business card): Jane Doe M.S. Candidate Department of Geosciences San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA 94132 Tel: 415-555-5555 (cell phone is OK) Fax: 415-555-5556 E-mail: jdoe@sfsu.edu Home page: http://online.sfsu.edu/~jdoe If you are going to send several of these e-mails, MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE that you have used the correct name of the faculty member, the correct topic of their research that interests you, and the correct name of their university before clicking 'Send'. It's very easy to change the Dear Prof. X part, and forget to make similar changes to the body of the e-mail. Don't embarass yourself. Then, depending on the response you get, you plan your meeting with him/her at AGU (dress nicely [smart casual, no tie needed], bring a copy of your CV, read the abstract of their poster/talk in advance, etc.), or you reply "Thank you very much! I plan to submit my application to Prestigious University in the next few weeks. Regards, Humble Student". If they say 'no thanks', still take the time to thank them for their response. Whatever you write back, don't just reply "thx", but format your e-mail professionally similar to the first. The whole point of this is to introduce yourself to a potential future PhD advisor so that your application stands out from the rest (or so that you don't waste time and money applying) and so that they remember communicating with you, or meeting you, in a positive light.

*GRE scores are no longer required in applications to the graduate program in Earth & Climate Sciences

Choosing a PhD advisor

A recent blog thread prompted me to read an article by Bruce Alberts, Editor-in-Chief of Science "On Becoming a Scientist" and post some thought on choosing a PhD advisor here.

He starts: “The exact project pursued for a Ph.D. degree is not nearly as important as finding the best place for learning how to push forward the frontier of knowledge as an independent investigator.” How true. Some advice summarized from the article:

1) Choose a research group led by a person with high scientific and ethical standards. Have they published frequently and in prestigious journals? Do they have NSF-supported research projects? Search for their name on the NSF awards web site;

2) Find an advisor who will pay close attention to your development as a scientist (a small research group is perhaps better than a large group in which your interests can get lost). Talk to current students in that group and discover whether they have had conversations with their advisor about their future career. Have they been encouraged to present their research at conferences, write papers and grant proposals? Are there multiple faculty doing research in related fields? That could create a supportive community of faculty and grad students in which you might thrive. Are there regular departmental seminars on topics of interest to you by visiting scientists? Does the research group meet regularly to discuss research progress, etc.? The upshot: is there a community that will provide an intellectually-stimulating and supportive environment?;

3) Choose an advisor that will provide you with enough guidance to prevent you from wasting time on nonproductive pursuits, while giving you the freedom to innovate and learn from your own mistakes. How hands-on or hands-off is s/he as an advisor? Is there a chance that you might become enslaved as the mass spec repair dude during your PhD or will you get lots of hands-on experience in the lab while you're doing your research and walk away 5 years later with important skills;

4) Choose your research project well (this is a tricky one as it's hard to see the forest for the trees when you're fresh out of your undergraduate studies): “ambitious enough to be important and exciting, innovative enough to make unique contributions likely, and nevertheless have a good chance of producing valuable results”. Have this conversation with your advisor when you're choosing your project.

5) The choice of a postdoctoral research group is the place to establish yourself with your long-term career in mind – you should choose a lab where you can acquire skills that complement those you already have.

6) Finally, I'll add that you should consider whether the faculty member is near retirement or whether they are just starting to grow their research program (what year did they get their PhD and do some math) - are they actively doing exciting research? have they published recently? do they have active grants through NSF? Some mid- or late-career faculty might drift into administrative roles that take them away from their research. Very new/young faculty might be sinking all of their time into starting up a new lab or teaching brand new courses and not have much time for advising, they might not have external grant funding yet to support their research, or their research groups might be nonexistent or very small (perhaps not the most supportive environment). At the same time, very new/young faculty might feel more energized by their research and still have a fire in their belly that could lead you down exciting research roads (at the very least, if they are pre-tenure [Assistant Professors in their first 6 years of their positions] they will still have to work very hard to be productive...).

There is an awful lot of luck, knowing the right people, and being in the right place at the right time in becoming a successful scientist. You can control who you know - your research mentors. Choose well.

Applying to PhD programs, part I

Thinking about applying to a PhD program? There is more to consider than just the interesting research being done at a given university. A successful PhD requires:

1) A great research problem - you're going to be working on and thinking about this research for (probably) 5 years. Do your research online and see which universities have geology departments with faculty doing research in your field of interest...is it one faculty member or several? do they have laboratory/analytical facilities to carry out some of this research?;

2) A graduate advisor you can work with for 5 years - are your expectations for how hands-on or hands-off you want your research advisor to be in line with their advising style? Do your personalities mesh? Talk to a potential advisor's students to get a better understanding...;

3) A place you'd like to live. This goes beyond just geography - yes, it does matter whether the university is in an urban or rural setting, on the east or west coast, or whether it's hot and muggy in the summer or covered in snow in the winter (which do you prefer?), but consider the culture in the department you're applying to (is there a big group of students working on similar problems to yours that you might be able to look to for support? do you like them? are people in the department friendly? are doors wide open in the hallways? are there frequent seminars with interesting outside speakers?);

4) Money. No not just the stipend you're likely to be offered. Money to actually get the research done. You can live on Ramen noodles, but you can't get field work and lab work done without research funding. You can ask a potential advisor about this if you are invited to visit campus, but you can also do a little homework to find out if the advisor has any active grants with the National Science Foundation or at least whether they have a history of grant funding.

Don't get your mind set on one or two grad schools you think you'd like...do some searching on the web to see which universities have faculty working on projects that interest you and try to keep an open mind - A big name university might not be the best fit for you (and no, I'm not suggesting you couldn't get in...).

Look for Part II when I'll give advice on how to approach a potential graduate advisor with things to do before, during, and after actually sending in your application.

Also, continue to consider whether graduate school is right for you - research requires a very different set of skills than taking college courses and it's not a good fit for everyone...

Field camp is a really good thing

Field camp has become less commonly required for geology majors in the last ~10 years. That's a bad thing. In our department, we offer students a choice of either completing a field camp course with another university or completing a research project as part of a senior thesis. I believe most undergraduate geology students should take field camp, and that the undergraduate education in geology is incomplete without it. Field camp is excellent preparation for graduate school, for geotechnical jobs that require field experience, and a minimum of 5 semester units is required to qualify for the exams to become a Professional Geologist in California. Here are lists of over 100 field courses and field camps offered across North America and a few outside the US (even a couple in the southern hemisphere for those who want a winter field camp between November and February). Students in our department have attended – and gave rave reviews on – several of the field camps given through the South Dakota School of Mines & Techonology (specifically Hawaii, Montana, Iceland, Turkey, Morocco & France). 

Choosing a field camp & what to expect

This post has links to articles giving advice on how to choose a field camp and articles discussing what to expect at field camp. When choosing a field camp at another institution, consider finding a group of friends that might want to go with you so that you can apply together. That way, when you're starting out you already know at least a few people. However, one of the comments I hear frequently from students on their return is how great it was to meet students from so many different places. 

Field camp isn't cheap

Please see this post that points you to a few resources that might help. You can reduce the cost by 1) attending field camp at your home institution so that you don't have to cover the cost of tuition at another university; 2) attend a field camp close to home to reduce the amount of travel needed to simply get to the field camp site; 3) attend a field camp in which you're actually expected to camp in tents (many offer cabins or other accommodations that increase the total cost); or 4) choose a field camp in a location that you can find cheap air tickets to/from.

Piled Higher and Deeper

Grad school getting you down? Is your advisor too demanding? Do you need to seek solace in others who share your situation? Check out Piled Higher and Deeper, a grad student comic strip.