I participated in the PhD Program discussion, which was an informational presentation about transitioning from grad school, and what a PhD program consists of (more specifically, for an economics program). This relates to International Affairs, because getting a PhD can make people more influential in their career. This increase in influence can lead to more worldwide impact in the future, especially with programs such as economics, business, or international studies.
We learned about creating personal statements in our applications, the importance of figuring out where we generally want to move towards as far as field specification goes, and the importance of research. Research is a very important thing to highlight in your application for a PhD program, and research is a huge aspect of the PhD program after one completes their first year. I learned, shockingly, that it’s okay once I get into the program to not be dead set on a program specialization. It is, however, important to have a general idea of where you want to go to move forward in your degree. The first year is a lot of work with fundamental education on your field, and the rest of your years will revolve around “field courses” (ex: in your second year, choose two classes that specialize in the field you wanna do) and projects/research. I was interested to find out about GREs, which I had no idea existed, and about the fact that most classes will be half-semester classes. She talked about half-semester classes being stressful due to a huge workload being put on her in a short amount of time, and she spoke about the GREs resembling a more difficult version of an ACT. I was also interested to find out Ivy schools aren’t always the way to go for PhD programs, but I obviously would have researched into this regardless come time for applying. My key takeaway was that PhD programs are a lot more stressful than I had anticipated, but are nevertheless an exciting aspect of learning and getting ahead in your future career. As an IA Scholar, I’m aware that hard work is rewarded with a successful future, but as of right now I am not sure how far I want to go into my post-high school education. This was, however, really helpful in developing a clearer picture of my future, and I’m happy that I decided to look into this presentation.