通往海外研究生院的前3步怎么走？

 

　　No one should lunge at graduate school. Getting an advanced degree can take years and can cost tens of thousands of dollars if you're not lucky enough to land a fellowship. And no one should begin planning for graduate school in October of their senior year. Putting together a good application-one that can really sell-is the product of years of careful planning and doing the right stuff to get yourself ready for graduate work in your desired field.

 

　　出名要趁早，申请研究生院同样如此啊!务必尽早做打算、尽早做准备!

 

　　How do you do this? Follow our step-by-step guide to getting ready for the graduate school of your choice:

 

　　1. Don't fixate too early. There's no point making a decision about whether to go to graduate school until you've finished about half of the courses in your major-especially the upper-division or advanced courses. Only then can you see whether you like the field enough to devote yourself full time to working in it, and whether you're good enough in it to make it your profession.

 

　　Rule of Thumb. You ought to be getting mostly A's (or at least more A's than B's) in your major area if you're seriously thinking about graduate school. At many of the better schools, only 1 in 10 applicants gets in, and it's likely that the one won't have had too many B's and C's.

 

 

　　等到真正了解专业后再决定是否有必要继续申请Master或者PhD.，但不管怎样，一个高的GPA总是没有坏处的(其实还是有的，比如学渣、学痞们都不跟你玩儿了)

 

　　2. Get the tools. Many graduate programs expect you to have certain skills by the end of your undergraduate career-perhaps the ability to read in one or more foreign languages, proficiency in statistics, or competence in some particular science. Make sure you know what's needed for your field and that you've taken the courses-even if not required for the undergraduate major-that furnish the relevant skills. Otherwise, you might have trouble getting into grad school in the first place or have to play catch-up once you get there.

 

 

　　有些专业对于学生的本科专业技能有一定要求，比如哥大的MFE就要求申请者在微积分、线性代数、概率等专业方面都能展现较高的能力，此外哥大还推荐自学书目建议申请者能在申请前自学(1.Ross: "A First Course in Probability" 2.Mood, Graybill & Boes: " " 3.Rudin: "Principles of Mathematical Analysis")

 

 

　　3. Don't overload with one professor. It's tempting to take four or five courses with one professor, especially if you like him or her and are getting good grades in his or her courses. But there's a pitfall: Exposure to too few points of view might stifle your development in the field. In any case, you'll need at least three different letters of recommendation to apply for graduate school. Cast your net too narrowly and you'll come up short, come application time.

 

　　尽量扩大自己的交流面(不要从大一到大四永远追随着一个帅教授)

 

　　希望以上介绍的通往研究生的三步可以帮助到大家，尽请期待下回介绍!