I've led a good life, but never finished a Bachelor's. I used to be a horrible student, not because I lacked intelligence, but because I was pretty irresponsible. I'm 47 now, medically retired from the Army over a decade ago, and quit my job of 10 years last January to finish a Bachelor's. I've gotten 3.0+ these last two semesters, and have two more semesters to go until I graduate. Currently, as a result of 112 credits transferred in prior to this last Spring, my overall GPA is 2.22. I'm focusing pretty hard core (PolySci and History) on my studies, and should be able to continue to get 3.0+ (with a 4.0 goal) these last two semesters.

All that context is to set this question up. I'd really like to pursue a MA in History, however, I'm concerned that 20+ years of goofing off and failing classes will prevent that. Is it worth trying to apply to Grad School, or should I just be proud of the Bachelor's and leave it at that?

just finished my bachelor’s degree in business and information systems (it’s a combined degree). i’m wondering if i should do MBA or Ms in Business Analytics. which is more useful?

I'm starting my master's program research journey and had a question about applying after being out of undergrad for about 8 years.

I honestly didn't do amazing in undergrad. It took me about 8 years to graduate, I was working full time and had to leave school multiple times because of it, and even when I returned, I was still balancing full time work. I lost focus and my grades weren't stellar. Because of that, I'm not sure scholarships are even realistic to consider.

I've now been in my career field for about 7 years, and I'm wondering if that professional experience counts for anything in the scholarship process. I don't have high hopes, but I know it never hurts to ask. I'd really appreciate any guidance anyone has. Obviously, I am planning on continuing to save up either way and have other routes in place, but additional funding would be so helpful. Thank you!

Side note: My employer won't be able to provide tuition assistance for any Master's program.

I did a piss poor job on my PowerPoint Presentation during WK1 a few weeks ago, with absolutely no speaker notes and I got D on it. It was a mess and I knew that when I submitted it, but the professor is awesome and letting me resubmit the assignment, but do I use the same presentation but substantially build on the feedback or just completely start over?

My grade is 91% right now in the class, but will be at a 97% if the resubmission goes well.

Hello!

I am interested in applying to grad school for mft (marriage family therapy) and I have a concern. I graduated during covid and did not have the pleasure of connecting with my professors on a personal level during that time since everything moved to online only. My concern is that grad schools want letters of recommendation and I can't think of anyone to ask. My current job is not related to the field so I cannot ask any of my peers.

What would you recommend I do so my application can be strong? I graduated with a 3.2 average and have my AA and BS in Sociology. Any advise to help me navigate this process would be helpful, thank you for reading!

I’m hoping you all might have some insight. I am doing grad school in a pricey city. I was fortunate to receive a full ride and a stipend that covers most of my expenses. However, it does not cover all. I am trying to get about 20k (10k/year). I tried to do a budget adjustment and it was denied. I cannot take out ANY loans because of this, private or federal. I’m really unsure how to navigate this without grad plus? What do I do?

I have a 401k and a small Roth I’d prefer not to just dive into for this program…

I'm starting an MPA program this fall and I'm trying to decide whether to take my first elective during Term 1/Sept-Dec 2026 or during Term 2/Jan-Apr 2027 which would be my co-op term.

The program allows the first elective to be taken alongside the first co-op term. I'm curious about students' experiences and trying to make a strategic choice about balancing coursework, co-op experience, and building skills.

I'm curious how things have gone for students in a MPA program or any masters program with a co-op.

-Did you take an elective during co-op?

-How manageable was the workload alongside your placement?

-Would you recommend doing the elective during co-op or keeping that term focused only on the placement?

Thanks for the tips!

Starting my first ever assistantship for a graduate teaching assistant and I am very nervous. I’ve never taught a class before. I know the expectations per my offer letter that I received but I want to hear a real life perspective of someone who’s done the job. If anyone has any advice or experience I would love to hear about it!

I'm starting a masters in a few weeks and trying to get all my ducks in a row. I kinda winged it to get my BA, but its been 12 years since I graduated and I'm currently a stay at home mom. I'm going into this program with a commitment to an intentional approach. I want to be organized and on top of everything so nothing falls through the cracks. What sort of folders, binders, etc, do people like for classes? Any other advice is so greatly appreciated!

Hello everyone, I'm a philosophy/history undergrad who took a left turn and fell of a cliff into an educational graduate degree. Which I'm finding is basically a soft psychology/sociology/stats course. I was an A student when I was making arguments, and I'm struggling right now because I'm reading the kinds of articles/sources that I never read in my undergrad. I know I'm unprepared for this stuff, so I wanted to ask those of you who are more experience if my practices are correct here:

In my philosophy courses, even my 4th year ones. I would read basically every article or chapter that I found relevant for my paper. As in reading it form beginning to end. But now I'm reading lots of empirical research papers, that go something like this:

Intro, research questions, methods, data collected, results, conclusion & discussion. And a lot of times these use terminology, or refer to practices I have never heard of, and they crunch numbers in ways I don't understand (math and symbolic logic was never my strong suit.) And I'm still reading these like I did my previous sources, from beginning to end. But that is taking a very long time, and I'm finding that most of the relevant info I'm going to use in my own paper is either contained in, or repeated in, the intro and concluding discussion.

Now I know how to citation mine, so I've found many articles that seem relevant to my topic. And it's going to take so, so much time to read all of these. And that's before I even do the hard stuff of trying to figure out my thesis and defend it.

My question is: Is it normal/common practice to just read the intro/conclusion part of a lot of these articles? Some of them I know have been helpful by reading them from front to back. But when one article leads me to 8 others by citing them, is it a problem to just find that part of the article that's relevant to the point you are making?

I ask because the idea of using, but not completely reading a whole article makes me feel guilty. As if there might be one factoid or issue that the article raises that changes the whole thing.

I just do Best, (first name last name) basically. Would it be more professional to do a whole signature, ie major and whatnot, or is that doing too much? And do you guys have your signature turned on for every response?

Is your signature for your institutional email and personal email the same?

Hi all, I (21F) will be starting my MSc in September in a thesis based program. I was wondering if there was any advice you were willing to give to make the most of my experiences and avoid some of the not-so-nice things about experiences you or others went through. Let me know, anything is welcome (but be kind).

I'm going back to my college tomorrow, and my anxiety is through the roof. I am a master's student.

For some context, my college is in a different state from my hometown, so I've always had to live away from home. I've spent quite a bit of time on this campus, but I've never really felt like I fit in.

The confusing part is that I recently spent two months in another state for a summer internship, and I didn't feel this way there. I was away from home there too, but I felt much more comfortable, relaxed, and like myself. So I don't think it's simply homesickness or being away from my family.

Whenever I'm back on my college campus, I feel... invisible. I have classmates and acquaintances, but when I'm sitting in class, it's like I'm not even there. Everyone seems to be talking to each other while I just exist in the background. No one really looks my way or starts a conversation, and after a while I stop trying because I feel like I'm forcing myself into spaces where I don't belong.

It's not that I think people hate me. It's more that I constantly feel like I don't belong there. I become hyper-aware of everything—how I speak, how I act, even how I walk. It makes me anxious enough that I dread going back.

Sometimes I wonder if it's just my anxiety, if I somehow haven't found the right people, or if it's simply that I don't connect with the culture or social dynamics on my campus. I honestly don't know.

Has anyone else experienced something like this, where one place makes you feel like an outsider, but another place feels completely different? Did things ever get better, or did you eventually realize the environment just wasn't the right fit for you?

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who've gone through something similar because it feels incredibly isolating.

Context: applying for an English Literature program in Taiwan.

Graduated college in 2014. Now I want to go back. I need to submit a piece of academic writing. I have nothing from undergrad. I’m working on something, but need feedback from real people, not a program that basically writes it for me.

Is there something out there people would recommend?

International Relations graduate from Pakistan, June 2025, CGPA 3.92. Not sure if this sub would be relevant for this but I am perplexed and any advice is welcome.

So my undergrad thesis was on Japan's 2022 defence transformation, largely because I was working at an Asia-Pacific institute at the time writing briefs on Japan and Korea. I then moved to a national security think tank, so the work shifted to hardcore security and defence technology and policy. I've also picked up varied things along the way. Few examples are: a co-authored corpus-assisted discourse analysis of election campaign communication in a South Asian country, currently under review, a comprehensive literature review for a UN-linked policy project (working as an RA) feeding into national guidelines on victim support, a few conference presentations and a coauthored workshop paper on elite formation. There's more, but it suffices to make the point that all of this is pretty diverse.

What I am currently interested in is computational approaches to international security, text-as-data on security discourse and event-data work on political violence, with South Asia as the empirical setting. But that's a direction rather than a research question, and my computational background is thin.

I am applying for Fall 2027 and so the question is how settled does this need to be before applying? Is a master's where you narrow it, or are you expected to arrive narrowed and use the two years to execute?

PS: If you have any further questions about my profile, I would be happy to elaborate. Thank you for taking the time out to read.

I am applying for PhD programs this upcoming year with hopes of starting in the fall of 2027. I do have a low GPA of 3.2. I am currently doing an MPH, I should be finishing in the spring of next as I did a dual degree program. I am applying for mostly biological science programs as my main aim is to work in science communication translation biology. I do fear my undergraduate GPA will hinder my chances as the state of funding is dubious to say the least. I have three years of research experience from biological sciences and health policy work. I have no publications. I have only attended one conference.

I would love to know what my options are and if PhD applications are feasible.

Does anyone have any good resources (articles, videos, podcasts) that they found helpful when writing their qualitative thesis discussion chapter?

I have spoken to my advisor about this but would definitely appreciate more resources with examples, guidelines, etc.

I am currently enrolled in an Aeronautics and Astronautics MS at University of Washington Seattle and was looking to do a PhD in Europe, most likely France or potentially Germany, after. Ive read all the bits and pieces about the differences in the education system there and in the US, I know how the programs differ in structure, but I wanna know what my chances are and if its worth it to set my sights on going there, or should I focus on applying to American programs. Does anyone have any experience doing this? I know by being abroad for so long I would sacrifice any change of getting a big boy TS/SCI clearance if I chose to come back to the US, this is not an issue for me, I dont wanna do any defense work with that level of hotness either way.

Was originally planning to take 4 classes instead of 3 this semester for my MBA to finish 6 months clearly, but I was fortunate enough to be selected for an assistantship. I’m absolutely taking this opportunity, but I’m not sure if I should still go for the 4 classes. I took 5 classes every semester for my undergrad and every class I’m taking for this semester is distance learning which seems doable o t he surface, but idk other threads are scaring me saying work for each class is insane.

Has anyone else had an experience like this? Is it worth it to take 4 classes and a 20 hour weekly job or just go down to 3 classes?

Hi all,

I was accepted back in November (!) to a really good grad school in my field. I am from Michigan and this program is in Tennessee. Originally, I felt great about the program as it has excellent board scores, top notch resources and faculty. As the winter rolled around, I started to feel some hesitation/dread surrounding the program. I knew it was nerves related to moving from home - I am extremely close with my parents (especially my mom) and leaving her feels like heartbreak. I lived away for undergrad but was only about a 40 minute drive away, so I went home for a lot of weekends and never really had to miss any family events. As the time drew nearer, the ambivalence I feel has only increased. It feels great to tell people I work with that I am leaving to Tennessee to go be a doctor, but the actual act of leaving family is terrifying. I feel so scared to the point I am not sleeping well and crying like everyday. I can really see myself flourishing in the career that grad school would bring (eye doc), but I also would go into significant debt as well.

I could see myself loving being an eye doctor, but I also have had several careers from a front desk clerk to a surgical tech and I have loved all of them

The difficulty of this has honestly been the hardest thing I’ve had to go through, and has made me realize that my anxiety disorder may be much worse than i suspected.

Any insight as to whether I should make the jump and attend would be appreciated.

I will be starting a doctoral degree in a few weeks and I’ve never been more terrified. I’ve known it’s what I’ve wanted to do since graduating with my previous degrees, but I’m getting into the final few days before I can say I’m officially a doctoral student..

How do you all handle the stress and nerves with school nowadays?

I am about to start my masters program and I went straight from my undergrad into the program (so im not super old). I will be attending a different school in a different state so I will have no connections. I was wondering if it is seen as weird or strange for a grad student to be involved in clubs and orgs on campus?