Grad Student Life for the Go-Getter
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One year ago, Sarah Allen heard the inevitable words that strike a mixture of fear and excitement in the heart of an overworked undergrad: “Three classes and you’re graduated.”
Photo from Facebook courtesy of Sarah Allen
An Editing, Writing, and Media major at Florida State University, Sarah had little idea what to do next. She sat across from her adviser and panicked for a few seconds, then regained her composure and asked the question of a go-getter: “What do I need to do to get into graduate school?”
In case you’re wondering, there’s a lot – the GRE, applications, a personal statement, letters of recommendation, maybe a resume. With impressive ambition Sarah went home that September day and registered for the GRE, scheduled to take place one week from that day.
Even though she was enrolled in five classes, she managed to take the two free practice tests, head into the test a week later, and come out with a good score. The only problem? It all happened so fast she hadn’t even picked out a Master’s program yet.
In the true fashion of an organized student, she made a long list of the programs she was interested in. And in the true fashion of a confused daughter needing life advice, she went to her dad.
“He told me to cross off the degrees I couldn’t see myself going to work for every day,” she said. “It made sense, you know? Don’t choose a program you can’t see yourself ten years down the road enjoying.”
She narrowed it down to three: English Rhetoric, her first love, Business Administration, her second love and her minor, and International Affairs, spurred by her life-long passion for travel. Next step: Ask questions.
After hearing from students in the program, program advisers, and graduates, she decided on International Affairs. Things continued to happen quickly; she turned in her application early with an extra letter of recommendation and a resume for the graduate assistantship and waited.
One month later, she got into the program. Three months later, she got the assistantship. Her reasons for choosing the program started to become real to her.
“I grew up traveling and experiencing other cultures and by the time I turned 18 I had been to (most for a month or longer) nine different countries,” she said. “I could completely see myself living in another country or constantly traveling.”
And as the reasons became real, the certainty started to wane; International Affairs is more than a way to quench wanderlust.
“The more I learn about what I thought I wanted to do the less I’m sure I want to do it,” she said. “I may still go for that MBA and slip into the business world (instead of government or nonprofit organizations) for the culmination of my career.”
Would she drop out of this program and pursue an MBA then? It was a silly question.
“Oh I’ll definitely finish, nothing wrong with two Master’s!” she said. “We actually just had an internal review panel talk to us about the program and so all the things people are concerned about within the program are now being looked into. But I will tell you FSU’s International Affairs Master’s program is the best in Florida. And honestly I’ll probably go for the MBA because I am interested in the business side of International Affairs. I also may go on to PhD school. It’s all up in the air right now….”
As if that wasn’t enough, Sarah is getting one more thing under her belt.
“There is also an Emergency Management certification that I am aiming towards that joins well with my Master’s program,” she said. “Pretty awesome!”
Since she gave up her first love, English, to pursue International Affairs, it begs the question whether she misses it.
“I do miss it, but I looked into the upper level program and it went in a direction I didn’t necessarily care for,” she said. “I would have been very limited with that program; however I would have been teaching my own class which would have been awesome (and I miss that) but I prefer more flexibility.”
She gets a little dose of teaching by being a Teaching Assistant for Dr. Whitney Bendeck, the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the International Affairs program.
“I love her! She is so sweet and incredibly helpful and always dresses so cute!” Sarah said.
Sarah feels that having great professors certainly makes the program more bearable.
“They are the reason I am able to stick out all the reading and mountains of work I have to do,” she said. “The actual three-hour class is awesome. It’s more discussion based so we are always engaged and learning from not just the professor but also the diverse students in our class. We have many foreign students; I personally know some from Germany, Morocco, Cuba, Aruba, China, and I’m always finding out more!”
Engaging classes? Check. But how’s the homework?
“Three hundred pages of dry hardcore reading about history, theory or country briefs is brutal,” she said. “Especially since this is my first exposure to a lot of this (those who flowed into the program already have a base of theory, history and knowledge on the diverse topics). But because I’m wanting to live in this field it is all interesting and that eases the burden some.”
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