If you are in an undergraduate research program, such as your university’s honors college, at some point you likely need to identify a research mentor. It is a huge commitment for you, because if you are doing a thesis, you will be spending about a year of your life reading, writing, and researching for this one paper. But keep in mind it’s also a big commitment on the part of the faculty member. I love mentoring undergraduate students on research projects, but I end up spending significant time across 9-12 months when I do so, so I only commit to it if I think it will be a good fit.
 
How do you identify an undergraduate research mentor? Here are some things to consider.
 

• What are your research interests? Think about your general interests, and what you might want to spend a year reading and writing about.
• Visit your department’s faculty research page. Read about the different faculty’s research interests, and see who is doing research that interests you.
• Ask around. Are there other students who are doing research this year? Perhaps you’re a junior and you know some seniors working on honors theses this year. Ask them for advice on whom to work with.
• Talk to your honors (or other) adviser. If you chat to them about your research interests, it may help you to narrow down whom you might work with. 
• Keep in mind that some faculty require that you work on their research projects at least one semester BEFORE you begin your independent research project like a thesis. Therefore, even if you do not plan to graduate in the next couple of semesters, you should consider getting involved in research earlier. I’ve previously discussed other reasons you should get involved in research.
• Once you have identified one or more potential research mentors, you will need to email them. This email is very important because it is the professor's first impression of you. Please consider my advice when sending this particular email, and also when sending emails more generally:
  
  1. The greeting.
  You cannot go wrong by starting the email "Dear Dr. Smith" (well, unless you're writing to Dr. Jones; obviously you need to put in the faculty member's correct name). Some faculty are comfortable with being addressed more casually, but others are not. But no one will be offended if you're too formal, and someone could easily be offended by being too casual. Don't risk it with "Dear Firstname," "Hey," "Hi Firstname" or launching right into the message. You might think that “Hey professor” or “Hi professor” sounds respectful, but how would you feel if your professor emailed you with the greeting “Hey student”? The important thing to remember: Most faculty were students and professionals in a time before texting, Instagram, Snapchat, and yes, even Facebook (and for many of us, before email), and are used to more formality in writing. Avoid Mr./Ms./Mrs./Miss. They are almost never appropriate.
  
  2. Briefly introduce yourself, and why you're writing.
  
  3. Make it clear that you've done your homework before sending the email. Say something about the work of the person you're emailing, such as "I am very interested in your research on how interactions with parents relate to adolescents' mental health."
  
  4. Don't assume that someone will immediately agree to be your research mentor. Most of the time, faculty will want to meet you in person, talk more about your interests, and see if it's a good fit.
  

 
5. Don’t assume that the professor can meet with you in the next few days. Or at one specific time that would be most convenient to you. Ask about general availability to meet, and be flexible about when you can meet.

6. You may also have to be flexible if you have very specific interests, and no one in the department studies that topic. If you email someone and start by saying "I want to do a research paper on sexual predators on social media" and that's pretty far from the professor's own research, s/he may be less responsive than if you describe general interests in social media, or sexuality, and then meet with him/her to discuss it further. Remember, too, that your research paper does not have to be on exactly what you want to do for the next 10 years. You will gain extensive experience and knowledge by working with your research mentor, so be open to other ideas as well so that the mentor relationship can benefit you both.

7. Reread and spellcheck your email! Demonstrate in your first communication that you are a careful and serious student who writes well.
 
These steps will not guarantee that the person you ask will say no. But they will increase your likelihood of a positive response, and make a good impression in the process.
 
“How to identify and secure an undergraduate research mentor first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on November 13, 2018.”

Finding articles can be challenging, but sometimes it's even harder to know what to do with them once you find them. How do you go from a 10-page dense article to a few lines in your own literature review or introduction to a study? Although I’ve previously written about what those brief summaries should look like in introductions, today I’m going to provide advice on how to read, make sense of, and summarize for yourself, the content of the articles you find.

Reading the article
Make sure you fully understand the major sections of the article, which generally have an hourglass shape:

a. Introduction. In this section, the authors are describing past work, and how their study fits into past work. When you are writing your own literature review, if you are reading a paper by Brown and Jones, and they cite work by Smith, you should not summarize the authors' summary of Smith and then cite Brown and Jones. If Smith sounds relevant to the paper you're writing, track down Smith and read it directly. When you are reading a journal article for your own literature review, you can use the introduction to find other articles, but you shouldn’t use their summaries of past work for your summary. What eventually will go into your literature review or introduction will focus on the authors’ findings. But, including their conceptual framing and theoretical perspective in your summary for yourself is often helpful.

b. Methods. A description of the sample, procedures, and measures. This section is very useful for fully understanding what the authors did, although you’re unlikely to write much about it in your literature review.

c. Results. An explanation of the statistics performed, and what the authors found. This section is important for learning the main findings of the article. However, many articles use very complicated statistics, and sometimes a reader can get lost in those details. Don't worry if you can't understand everything they did. Focus instead on their explanation of what they found.

d. Discussion. In this section, authors summarize their findings, interpret their findings, link their findings back to the literature, and discuss limitations, future directions, and implications. The summaries in the discussion can be particularly useful if you had trouble following the details in the results section.
 
e. References: This section is very useful for tracking down articles the authors refer to, that are relevant to your own work.

Summarizing the articles
When I write a literature review, I find it helpful to summarize each article for myself in the same way, in one document, so that I can then work with my summaries, rather than the articles. I provide myself enough information so that I don't frequently need to go back to the article. When I do this, I make sure to PUT THINGS IN MY OWN WORDS so I can work from the summaries and know that I am using my words, not the authors'. This point is critical for avoiding unintentional plagiarism. If you think, I’ll just copy and paste, and change it later, when you come back to it a couple of months later, you may not remember you haven’t already put it in your own words.
I also want to make sure I have enough detail about the methods so I can easily write it into my paper e.g., I need to know if it was only female participants, only one ethnic group, what age the participants were, etc. Here's an example of one I did:

Once you have summarized all of your articles, you can then write your own literature review, using your article summaries. I like to start by creating an outline of the full literature review, so that as I add each article to my paper, I can make sure it goes in the correct place. This technique also helps me realize if there are sections of my paper where I have too few articles and need to find more.
 
Having these summaries makes the transition to writing the actual paper so much more straightforward, and saves you time in the long run. And I’m all about efficiency in any way possible.

“How to read and summarize research articles first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on November 6, 2018.”

When did you master the successful journal article search? During the course of their undergraduate studies, many students have to write a course paper that involves finding primary sources such as journal articles, particularly during junior and senior year. Undergraduate honors students almost always need primary sources for writing their thesis. Graduate students obviously also need to hunt down journal articles for course papers, comprehensive exams, and theses/dissertations throughout their time in graduate school (and after), though some begin graduate school already having developed strong skills in this area.
 
I’ve learned over time that the preparation students receive from their instructor in advance of having to track down articles varies widely. Some instructors fully prepare students for this task, particularly in honors seminars. Others, particularly by graduate school, expect students to know how to perform a successful literature review. So, my advice on how to do an effective literature search may be useful for students toward the second half of their undergraduate career, or early in their graduate career.
 

• Starting with a textbook: If you’re early in the process – let’s say, trying to narrow down a topic for a review paper for a course or your thesis, looking at your textbook for that course, or other courses, can be useful. Textbook writers spend a lot of time tracking down articles on a huge range of topics.  You can see what articles the textbook cites, and track down those original sources. For instance, if you're interested in sexual behavior, you can look in the sexual behavior section of your adolescent development textbook and track down the papers that the textbook author cited.
• Review articles: In many areas of research, someone (or multiple someones) has published review articles or meta-analyses. Review articles can be very useful because they summarize a fair bit of past work. However, there is a lot of information in one paper, so you will have to spend a lot more time reading it than an empirical article that summarizes only one study. To find review articles, you can check the titles of articles during your searches for ones that include “meta-analysis" or "review" in the title. The reference list of the review article will help you find other relevant articles (though they obviously will be older than the review article). You can also look at some specific journals that carry review articles, including Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Review, Human Development, and Developmental Review. 
• Searching in databases: Use Psychinfo, Google scholar, or other journal database to find articles on a specific topic. Learning to choose the right search terms can take time. You may need to spend a fair bit of time practicing and trying out a range of different terms before you find the right articles. If a search gives you < 10 articles, you need broader search terms. If it gives you > 1000 articles, you probably need narrower terms. If you’re using google scholar, using quotation marks can be really important. Let’s use an example. We recently wrote a paper on long-distance relationships. Here are some things I could try:
  • LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS: Without quotation marks, there are 4,740,000 results. Obviously that won’t work. Though, when I look at the first page, it is clear that they are likely some of the most relevant ones.
    

• Snowballing: If an article you read cites another article to make a specific point relevant to your interests, look it up. Researchers use this approach a lot.
• Forward searches: This technique is one of my favorites, because to me it feels like detective work. In psychinfo and google scholar, you can find all the articles that cite a specific article. So, if you find a great article on your topic, you can find all the articles published subsequently that refer to the great article. Some may not be relevant to your topic, but many likely will be.
• Don’t stop at first page of results: When you do a search, go beyond the first page. I have had students come to me with a reference list where everything was published in the past 2 years, and some are only tangentially related to their topic. The student often then tells me that s/he couldn't find anything more relevant. But often the issue is that the student didn't look through enough of the results in his/her search. When I do a search, I generally look through every article that comes up. That's why you want your search to be specific enough that it produces < 1000. The most recent research may be great, and you want to include the most recent research, but if you're not going more than 2 years back, you're likely excluding a lot of other great research.

Finding the right articles is a critical step to an effective literature review, and will save you so much time later when you are actually trying to summarize others’ work or relate it to your own.  
 
“Good journal article searching habits first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 30, 2018.”

Why you should do a research project as an undergraduate
 
There are a few different reasons why someone might get involved in a research project as an undergraduate student. First, a few students in social science fields (e.g., HDFS, psychology, sociology) already have an inherent interest in research. They seek out involvement in a research project because they are excited about research and scientific inquiry and want to get involved. Second, students in the honors program usually are required to get involved in research at some point, leading up to the experience of doing an honors thesis. These students seek out involvement on a research project because someone told them to. Third, some students want to go to doctoral programs and know that getting involved in research as an undergraduate student is important for their grad school applications. So, they get involved in research to check that box off on their “things to do to get into grad school list.”
 
Even if none of these three reasons apply to you, however, you should seriously consider getting involved in a research project with a faculty member. Often students do so in their junior year, though if you have time to do it as a sophomore, it may open more opportunities.

What do you do on a research project?  Obviously, student research activities can vary dramatically depending on the field, topic, and stage of research. But, these are common activities:

• Attend meetings where faculty and students talk about research ideas, plan research studies, and talk about research findings and papers they are writing
• Help with data collection, with activities such as administering surveys, participating in experiments (e.g., performing tests on babies; helping participants with fMRI), calling and/or scheduling participants
• Help with data entry and data cleaning
• Code data, e.g., watch videotapes, listen to audiotapes, or watch live to rate participants on different behaviors or characteristics
• Find research articles on specific topics

 
Why should you participate in a research project if you’re not in the honors program and you’re not thinking about doctoral programs? Or if one of these things is true for you, but you’re not yet a senior?

• Get to learn more about how to do research, and a particular research project

• Get to know a specific mentor. At large universities, you may not have many opportunities to talk to faculty, even in your major. When you apply for graduate school or jobs, it can be challenging to find faculty to write you letters of recommendation. But, if you participate on a research project your mentor will get to know you well and will most likely be willing to write a letter for you.
• If you are planning to do a thesis, starting research earlier in the program gives you a chance to make sure a particular project/mentor is a good fit before committing to a yearlong project like a thesis.
• If you're planning to go straight to graduate school, you will be applying in Fall of your senior year. If you wait until senior year to get involved in a research project, your mentor will only know you for a couple of months before you ask him/her to write a letter. If you start sophomore or junior year, s/he will know you much better.
• Participating on a research project often opens up many other opportunities. You may have opportunities to apply for funding in the summer to continue your research. You may get to present your research at an undergraduate (or even local/national) research conference, increasing your networking opportunities and building up your resume.

In the 26 years since I started graduate school, I’ve supervised about 200 undergraduate students in research projects, as many as 24 in one semester. Some of these students went onto doctoral programs and are now professors. Others went onto masters programs to end up as social workers, academic advisors, or sex therapists. Others went into careers that have nothing to do with HDFS and perhaps not research, such as public relations, insurance, or lawyer. During grad school, one of my students started the project saying he wanted to go to a doctoral program in psychology. About a year after he graduated, he sent me a letter saying that watching me as a grad student helped him realize that was not what he wanted to do in life – and he was now a prison guard (yes, we made many jokes about how watching grad student Eva made him turn to an easier life – prison guard). That’s okay – better to realize your preferences sooner than later. Through the years I have gotten to know some of these students well, and have enjoyed watching their lives on social media, and even occasionally attending their wedding. Once, when I was on sabbatical and without childcare, a former undergraduate research assistant, who had become a professor, even offered to hang out with my children so my husband and I could both go to back to school night! 

Your involvement on a research project is often critical to the faculty member or graduate student’s completion of that research project. But it also can be critical to you in multiple ways – figuring out what you want to do career-wise, making connections that will help you later, and getting an enriching experience outside of the classroom.

“Why you should do a research project first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 23, 2018.”

Last week I described different types of graduate programs if you want to be a clinician/counselor/therapist of some kind. This week I want to address the issue of choosing a specific graduate program once you know the general type of program you want.

First, think realistically about what limiting factors you might have in choosing your graduate program. Can you move anywhere in the country, or do you have geographic limitations (e.g., want to be within three hours’ drive of your family; have a partner who has to find work in a specific city; prefer to live in a big city or a small town; know you want to settle in CT forever)? If you have no geographic limitations you will have more possibilities for finding an ideal fit, but it doesn't make sense to look at programs that fall outside of your expectations of where you will live if you do have geographic limitations. If you are interested in programs that are very competitive (like clinical PhD programs, for instance), you might want to consider a broader geographic search. Perhaps you and your partner can live a couple of hours apart for a couple of years. In addition, think of your financial limitations. Do you have parental or other money to support your time in school, or will you have to take out loans? If you're going into a career like social work, you are unlikely to have a huge salary right after graduation, so considering the cost and what you can afford in loans after you finish is important. Programs can vary greatly. For 2018-2019, full time MSW tuition at NYU is $46,266; at Southern Connecticut State it is $12,143 in state, $24,487 out of state. Over the two-year degree that could be a difference of $60,000.

Once you have a sense of the type of program you want and any limiting factors you may have, you can start to research specific programs. Obviously, the Internet is a great source for finding out about programs (picture me, in 1991, sending letters to 30 psychology PhD programs, and then waiting for them to send me brochures about each program, and having those brochures take over my bedroom in piles of Yes/No/Maybe, and you'll start to realize what a truly great resource the internet is for this task!). There are different places you can look. US News & World Report ranks some types of programs, and so it can be a useful place to look. Let’s say I know I’m staying in North Carolina, and I’m interested in an MSW. It gives me 12 MSW programs in North Carolina. gradshools.com can sometimes be helpful. You can narrow your search down by discipline (e.g., social work), and then, if you'd like, state and/or city. If you're not interested in an online degree, make sure to check "campus" as one of the options. It is very important to note, though, that universities have to pay to advertise on gradshools.com, so you will not find every program there. Also note that there are a lot of other websites that compile graduate school information, and they may or may not charge to be listed – just be a bit careful when you are searching, as the listing could be incomplete or the information inaccurate. When I did the North Carolina MSW search on gradschools.com, I came up with only 5 programs.

You can also visit the websites of professional organizations. For instance, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy has a directory of training programs that lists US and Canadian programs.

Another option is a general google search. For instance, "graduate school North Carolina social work." When you do so, you will get a lot of different websites like gradschools.com, that try to compile lists of programs. You will also get a lot of ads for online programs.

But if you scroll down enough, you will also find specific programs.

 For instance, when I did this search, I found North Carolina Central University, which was not listed on gradschools.com.

When you look at specific programs, read their website carefully, and look for some of the following components (what you look for is going to vary by what kind of program you're considering):

• How do they describe their philosophy? What is their mission statement?
• What areas of specialization/emphasis do they describe, if any?
• What type of careers do they describe their graduates going into?
• How research focused is the program?
• Do they provide any information about the ranking of the program?
• Are they accredited?
• What courses do they offer? Do these courses match your interests?

For instance, back at NCCU, their mission statement includes: " The mission of the Department of Social Work is to prepare students to promote social and economic justice by engaging in problem solving efforts and offering direct and macro interventions with individuals, communities and organizations… The graduate program places special emphasis on preparing students to develop, deliver and evaluate services either for youth involved or at-risk of being involved in the juvenile justice system or with families involved with child and family services agencies." That may be great if you plan to practice in settings with at risk youth or family service agencies, but less so if your long term goal is private practice with adults. You can learn a lot about a program’s focus in their mission statement.  Over at the University of Pittsburgh site, I found information about skill concentrations, where they describe emphases in Direct Practice or Community, Organization, and Social Action. Some programs may only focus on one or the other, which you can learn pretty quickly by reading their website. They also offer a certificate in gerontology so if you're interested in aging, it could be a better program than MSW programs that don't offer such specialization.

Also consider talking to people you know. Talk to your professors, people where you work, other students. You may find someone who knows someone at a specific program, or knows about a specific program. Firsthand experience can provide information you may not find on a web site.

Throughout this process, the important thing will be finding the program that's right for you. Be realistic about your qualifications. If you don't have the highest GPA, consider programs that are not the highest ranked programs. If you're not certain whether you want to do community work or private practice, or work with children or adults, make sure you select a program that trains in both.

Also, be careful to determine the licensing regulations and requirements. Different types of degrees have different licensing requirements, and sometimes they're state specific. Some states have sharing rights for licenses, others do not. Consider these issues carefully when you decide where you want to train, and where you want to live afterward.

The better idea you have of what you want when you start this process, the easier it will be to narrow down your choices. That said, even if you start out with little sense of how to narrow things down, reading about all of the different programs will likely help you figure out what you do and don’t want in a program. Just like reading all those hard copy brochures in 1991 helped me – and you’ll harm fewer trees in the process.
 
“How to choose a graduate program first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 16, 2018.”

For individuals considering graduate school (after taking a couple years off, of course), figuring out what kind of program to attend can be challenging. I know that among HDFS majors, we often have a huge range of interests, including medicine, law, education, physical therapy, rehabilitation, speech therapy, human resources, other business areas, and research-oriented PhD programs. Today, I want to talk about a specific set of programs -- degrees that can lead to some form of clinical work. There are a lot of different ways that you can become a clinician and/or therapist, and it can be confusing to sort out the similarities and differences. Here are a few things to keep in mind about the different programs:
 

• PhD in Clinical Psychology: Often when people think about being a clinician, they think that this degree is the one they need. With a PhD in clinical psychology, you can become a licensed psychologist, and during graduate school you get many hours toward licensing. Clinical psychology PhD programs tend to be very research focused. They are based on the scientist-practitioner model. You need to be involved in research throughout your time in grad school, you need to complete a research-based master’s thesis, and a research-based dissertation. You complete a one-year full time clinical internship as part of your degree, as well as other clinical training and clinical hours throughout your program. With a PhD in clinical psychology, you can also move into a research or academic career, including a position as a professor. An advantage of these programs over others is that you can often get a stipend and tuition coverage to support your time in graduate school. A disadvantage is that these programs tend to be some of the most competitive (I know of programs that receive 600 applications for 10 slots). If you are not interested in research and having your career involve research, you should seriously consider a different type of program.
• PsyD in Clinical Psychology: A PsyD is also a doctorate, but is less focused on research, following a practitioner-scholar model. These programs tend to take a bit less time than PhD programs, and focus more heavily on clinical training. You also complete a one-year full time clinical internship. For students not interested in research, PsyD programs are a more efficient way to get a doctorate. These programs are generally less competitive than PhD programs, and therefore easier to get into. However, there are few opportunities for fellowships/funding, so if you have to take out loans, you could end up graduating with a lot of debt.
• MSW (Masters of Social work). There are a number of different types of MSW degrees. If you want to be a clinician, you need to make sure you attend the correct program (I'll discuss this issue in more detail in a subsequent post). MSW degrees can lead to a number of different careers. With a clinical MSW you can become a therapist, but other MSW degrees include medical social work, psychiatric social work, school social work, or jobs in hospitals, criminal settings, administrative positions, etc. MSWs generally take 2 years, and require some supervision hours after graduation. There is some variation by state in how to become licensed with an MSW. These obviously take less time than doctorates. Because they are professional degrees, funding is generally not available.
• Masters or PhD in Counseling Psychology: Most counseling psychology programs are through colleges of education. Often, degrees in counseling psychology lead to school-based work, such as becoming a guidance counselor. However, some counseling psychology programs can lead to family counseling. PhD programs often have opportunities for funding, though perhaps not at the same rate as clinical psychology programs. There is a lot of variation between programs. Like a clinical psychology doctorate, if you go for a PhD, there will be much more research focus.
• Masters or PhD in Counselor Education: These programs often train you to be a professional counselor in a school or community based setting, and like counseling psychology, often are within a college of education. Training can lead to a number of different foci, including being a school counselor, a career counselor in higher education, a clinical and mental health counselor, or rehabilitation counseling. These programs often have somewhat less focus on research than counseling psychology.
• Masters or PhD in MFT/CFT (Marriage/Couple and family therapy): A masters in family therapy can lead to a career as a therapist, generally at the family level. MFT's can work in many different settings, including social services, mental health centers, schools, and private practice. There is more variability with MFT degrees across states than with some other degrees, so you want to be clear on where you are training, and where you want to be afterward (to some extent, this is true with any of the degrees listed here). As with other degrees, the focus on research will be higher at the PhD than at the master’s level.

 
There are obviously a lot of other subtler differences between different types of programs. There is also great variability across universities in different programs for the same degree. I'll address this issue more in the future.

Trying to figure out future plans can be both exciting and intimidating. Make sure you give yourself enough time so that it's more the former and less the latter.
 
“Graduate programs in clinical work first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 9, 2018.”

Although in this blog I frequently focus on advice for graduate students and early career professionals, I have occasionally written posts aimed at undergraduate students. And some of my advice aimed at graduate students – for instance, advice on writing – is applicable to undergraduate students as well. Before I was department head at UConn or graduate program director at Penn State, I had several roles at Penn State relevant to career and grad school advice for undergraduate students: chair of graduate admissions committee; director of life span developmental science program (a research-oriented undergraduate track for non-honors students); undergraduate director. So, for the next few weeks, my posts once a week will focus on advice to undergraduate students, particularly (though not limited to) students in HDFS and related fields like psychology and sociology.
 
Have you ever been to career counseling? Have you even been to their website? At UConn, we have the Center for Career Development, and I’m often surprised how little students take advantage of the services there.

Of course, if you are you a senior and planning to graduate in December, May, or August, you should get yourself there asap. But if you are a sophomore or junior (maybe even freshman) who is not yet sure what to do when you graduate, now is the time to start reading about careers and talking to career counselors. You don’t have to figure out your career early during college – exploring majors and careers is great. But as with many things, the sooner you figure out what you want to do after you graduate, the better you can tailor your college experiences to have the strongest record possible to obtain that job or get into that graduate program.

It's never too soon to start thinking about your future career.
 
Previously I discussed why you should consider not going straight to graduate school after you graduate. I think there were even a couple of parents angry at me when their kids decided to take my advice (sorry moms and dads!).

It’s possible you know exactly what you want to do when you graduate, and have started on a steady path toward that goal. Good for you!

But if not, don't worry. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was a junior (or even by graduation). At graduation, my best idea was that I wanted to go into advertising or market research. Some of us take more time to figure out our career paths. That’s totally fine.
 
You may have talked to your academic adviser, and/or your faculty adviser about what you want to do. That’s great. Faculty advisers are often great for advice on going to doctoral programs, because… that’s what we did! But also know that on most college campuses, there are people who literally have degrees in how to help people figure out their careers. It makes sense to also get advice from them.
 
Did you know that many people around the country who are not students pay career counselors a lot of money for their services? While you’re a student, you can access these services for free.
 
First, you can check out their online resources, which at UConn include:

• How to develop a career plan
• Career and major exploration
• Diversity and inclusion resources
• Resources on writing resumes and cover letters,  interviewing, and the job search
• List of internship sites and suggestions on how to find others  

 
There is a wealth of information available without ever leaving the comfort of your computer screen.
 
But, I highly encourage you to make an appointment (link for UConn students) and talk to someone in the Center for Career Development. Actually, you don’t even have to leave your computer screen to do so – you can do it by Skype (though I still encourage you to walk over there and meet with someone face-to-face). Why meet with a career counselor?

Career counselors can help you:

• Decide on a major
• Take assessments to identify your strengths and interests
• Learn about resources for researching career options
• Explore and choose a career plan
• Plan your time in college wisely to set yourself up for a great career
• Learn about internships
• Research job vacancies, alumni contacts, and job leads
• Develop your resume and cover letter
• Practice interviewing skills

So, even if you know exactly what you want to do, career counselors can help you finalize your job application materials and practice interviewing for your dream job.
 
I recommend that you consider visiting the Center for Career Development, or your university’s career counseling center soon, whatever part of the career planning process you are in.

Planning for the future is an exciting part of the college experience, and the more you plan for it, the less overwhelmed you're likely to feel.
 
“Why you should go to career counseling first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 2, 2018.”

As the semester wraps up, I wanted to say a few words about effective studying.

A New York Times article did a great job of summarizing research on studying, and why some traditional advice may actually be incorrect

Four more tips that you may find useful over the next 2 weeks:

• Retrieval is a potent learning event. Recognition is not. This is the #1 thing I learned from my graduate course on memory (and I still remember, more than 20 years later). If you just look at a fact or definition over and over, or keep reading it, you are unlikely to learn it well. If you actually make yourself remember it without looking at it (e.g., cover up the definition and produce it from memory), you are improving your ability to remember it at a much greater rate.
• Use review questions. Many professors provide review questions, at least in undergraduate courses. Don't just skim them. Make yourself answer them to be certain you truly know the answers. If your professor doesn't provide review questions, go through the textbook and your notes and write your own.
• If you didn't do well on an earlier exam or quiz, ask to meet with the professor to go over it. Even if the material on the next quiz/exam does not overlap at all, seeing the questions you got wrong, and understanding why, will help you approach the next exam. Maybe you struggle more with multiple choice problems and you can talk through strategies for answering them. Maybe you forget to read the full question. Maybe you have trouble recalling material. You won't know until you see your past performance.
• Take breaks, please! Yes, you have limited time left before your exams. Of course you want to do well. But you will be more functional if you take occasional breaks to eat, stretch, sleep, etc. Don't just eat while you study -- take 15 minutes to eat and chat with a friend or watch a bit of TV. Have a dance party. Stretch every hour. Make sure you get enough rest. Really, these things will help you be able to study better, and think better the day of the exam.

 
“The post Effective study habits first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on December 8, 2015"

(Note: Most of my blog writing has been geared to graduate students, but I’m starting a new series geared toward undergraduate students thinking about graduate school).
 
Maybe you know exactly what you want to do after you finish your education. You want to be a clinical social worker. A doctor. A lawyer. An elementary school teacher. A chef. An underwater basket weaver. You love going to classes, reading textbooks and articles, and writing papers. You do not feel at all burnt out by being a student. You don't want to waste one second between today and the moment you start the job you've dreamed about since you were 5 and wrapped a toy stethoscope around your neck. Fine, then. Go to grad school immediately after graduation.

But if you are at all uncertain about what you want to do. If you are feeling tired of attending classes and studying. If you are feeling burnt out by being a student, and the idea of evenings to read novels, or time to travel, or doing something completely different seems appealing, then please consider taking some time off.

Here's why.

You have your whole life to work. Seriously. Many students are around 22 when they graduate. That means that best case scenario, you have more than 40 years left before retirement. You've spent the last 16+ years in school. Even if you decide to take 6 years to get a PhD, that still leaves you 35+ years left to work. Today, you may feel burnt out by classes and studying. In 2 or 5 years, it may seem new and exciting again. Why not break up the schooling with a few years of work?

Graduate school is generally expensive. There are some research-oriented PhD programs where you can be supported with an assistantship, though depending on the stipend amount and the local cost of living, you may still need loans. Otherwise, graduate school is going to involve little to no income, and spending a lot of money. Why do that unless you're absolutely certain it's what you want to do? I know many people who started (or finished) graduate school, only to discover it was not the best choice for them. Most of those people took no time off after graduation. Give yourself some time to figure out what you want to do. If you're not certain, you might as well earn money, rather than spend it, while you figure it out.

What kind of job should you find after graduation if you don't go straight to graduate school?

Option 1: Find a job relevant to what you think you want to do. If you're interested in social work, find a job in human services. Interested in law school, work as a legal assistant. Think you want to be a professor? Get a job as a research assistant. This experience will help you determine if you really want to spend the rest of your life in this type of career. And, you will improve your chances to get into graduate school if you have relevant work experience, plus letters of recommendation from people who REALLY know you. You will have more time to prepare for the GREs because you will not be studying for other things. And you're earning money, rather than spending it, figuring out what you want to do. I chose this option. I worked for two years as a research assistant before starting a PhD program, and I'm certain that my work experience and letters of recommendation helped me get into UCLA. Plus in my life, I've never read more novels than I did those two years, because it's the only time in my life from kindergarten through today that I didn't have homework.

Option 2:
first, a tangent.
I have a PhD. I have been a professor for 12 1/2 years. I have a husband and two kids. If I woke up tomorrow and announced that I wanted to take a year off and be an au pair in Europe, well, people would think I was strange, and I'd probably get sued for child support.

But if you are 22, and you do not have to worry about supporting other people, then you can take off to Europe and be an au pair for a year. Or work on a cruise ship. Teach for America, even if it's not your ultimate goal to be a teacher. Join the Peace Corps. Join Americorps. There are many options of interesting things to do that may not be exactly what you want to do for the rest of your life, but may give you unique experiences that will be more difficult in later phases of your life.

You may be thinking: But if I don't go to graduate school right away, I'll never go. So what? If you finish college and find a job that you like, for which you don't need a graduate degree, more power to you. No need for graduate school. If after 1 or 5 or 10 years you decide you want a different job, or that you need more training, you will be motivated to return. And you will have a very fresh perspective on it.

You may be thinking: How can I tell my parents I want to take time off? They will be mad. Your parents want you to be happy. And not broke. If you explain to them clearly why you are making this decision, they should understand. You can even tell them I suggested it. You would not be the first to do so. In fact, when I was Adviser for the HDFS Life Span Developmental Sciences option, multiple students went to their parents and said, my adviser said I should take time off. Everyone survived.

Two final things. First, as I said at the start, taking time off before grad school is not the correct decision for everyone. But it is an under-considered decision because students sometimes become set on what they think is the "correct" path and have trouble considering alternatives. So please, consider your alternatives.

Second, I recognize that not everyone graduates at 22. There are students who are returning adult students, students who have already worked or raised a family before coming for an undergraduate education. Some of these suggestions may be less relevant for you if you already have spent a number of years in the workforce or have other constraints that make time between schooling less ideal.

My main point, though, is that graduate school isn’t right for everyone, and if you’re not yet sure what you want to do, it’s definitely not right for you now.
 
“The post, Maybe you shouldn’t go to grad school… yet, first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on December 2, 2015.”