Grad School Acceptance: published in general VS. research in a more interesting field

Graduate School
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<p>Grad School Acceptance: published in general VS. research in a more interesting field</p>

<p>Hey all,</p>

<p>I'm a chem major and a second semester sophomore at Binghamton University. I work in an organic chemistry lab and I can probably get published if I stick with my work (I'll have 5 semesters of research by the time I graduate).</p>

<p>I was wondering if is it more important to just get published doing organic synthesis research (which I like but I'm not super passionate about), or to try and change labs and do something like materials science/energy related research.</p>

<p>When I say more important, I mean in the context of getting into competitive graduate schools. Most likely for a PhD program.</p>

<p>Thanks,
Josh</p>

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<p>and I had no idea how to tag stuff on this post, I was way under the limit of things but I was somehow had like 8 or so things over the max…</p>

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<p>I’d say there are pros and cons for each choice. If you can get published, that’s a pretty big deal and it can easily put you at the front of the pack given that you also have a good GPA and LoR. Not many applicants will have publications–the higher impact and higher author listing you can get, the better. I got into all my schools (including many top 10s) because I have a first author paper in Applied Physics Letters (this is my own estimation, however). Moreover, as long as your research is somewhat related, as chemistry is to materials science, then they won’t care too much about what the exact topic was. The main point is that you did research and know what it’s like, not what you did research on and what you discovered.</p>

<p>The other side is that if you want to do materials science/energy in grad school, it might be worth your time to get to know the field in case it turns out you don’t actually like it.</p>