<p>hi all. All the advice I've read here has been wonderful, so I'm going to give it a try. </p>
<p>I'm an uprising senior in an liberal arts college (among the top 3), majoring in biology and women and gender studies. For the first 2 years of college and even before college I thought I wanted to be a research scientist in biology. But after several internships and taking science courses I found myself doing a mediocre job (I know it's subjective to say that, but grades have to be indicative of something, the lab work is tedious and frustrating... which seems to be the norm) and my interest dwindled. I feel myself drawn to humanities more.
I'm thinking I have two options, first is to go straight to grad school, second is to take some years off working and gain some experiences.</p>
<p>for the first option, I'm considering
psychology (a bit of science and humanity)
sociology/gender studies
or back to basic science like biology or biomedicine</p>
<p>for the second option, I'm thinking
law school (although it's ultra competitive)
public administration</p>
<p>I want to stay not tooooo far from the academia in the future.</p>
<p>my Gpa is about 3.6. I studied and took the GRE once and it's 650V 770M, I plan to take it again (have to improve my verbal score, but how? I'm running out ideas... besides memorize vocabs).
I think I can get good recs
I'm doing a thesis in women and gender studies.</p>
<p>I don't have a lot of extra-curricular stuff, since I gave up on the notion of joining club on campus for the sake of resume-building. I'm in a dance club, was in mock trial for a year, was in bioinformatics project for 2 years. Spent my summers in research lab, had brief (3 weeks) volunteering experiences in non-profit organizations.</p>
<p>I've been in a confusion as to what I can do, for a while now.</p>
<p>First things first. Graduate school admission is not college admissions, it's a totally different process. I said that because you mentioned extra-curriculars the ones that you have are great and there is not an emphasis on those when applying to grad school. </p>
<p>I am mentioning graduate school because I know you would be an excellent candidate for psych. graduate school admissions to a PhD program. Your research experience will do wonders for your application ( I know it's hard to believe I had a hard time as well but research experience is one of the most important parts of your application for graduate school, GRE's at most schools arent looked at like SAT's most schools just want you to meet their minimum requirements which at the highest is a 1060 combined, the second two most important things are your letters of recs and GPA. PhD programs Usually look for a 3.3-3.5 or higher.) You should talk to professors in psych programs and look at books on psych. programs for what the averages are for their admitted classes. </p>
<p>Psych. programs are very open minded to accepting biology or your other major woman and gender studies. I'd say your in great standing at applying to a lot of high ranking grad school programs.</p>
<p>You could actually be in a better postion than other psych students because many psych. professors consider bio. harder than psych. so that gives you an edge. Try taking a few more psych. classes.</p>
<p>I don't know about law school but your in a great position for graduate schools. Look at psych. research and decide what you might want to study for graduate school.</p>
<p>eadams83, thank you so much for your advice.</p>
<p>Now I'm facing with the decision of whether I should finish my bio major or not. I'm 3 classes away from finishing it this coming year (senior year) but I'm not very thrilled about taking them. I can, but it would make my senior year tougher than I want it to be. and if I know I won't go into bio grad school... I don't know if there's any use or merit in completing the major. I was thinking I can take some psych classes instead, like stats or intro, because I've never taken a psych class before.........</p>
<p>If you apply to psych grad schools you will need certain psych courses such as stats, research design, intro and some others based on the department you apply to. You have to have some background in psychology. No self-respecting program will accept you without a background in psychology no matter what other preparation you might have. I would stick to your major and try to take as many psych courses as you can during your senior year, but expect that you might need to take additional coursework prior to applying. If you can also get some research experience within psychology that would be a big plus. Bio labs are fine but they do not prepare you for what social science research is generally about and psych grad programs want to see psych research preparation.</p>
<p>Yeah I actually agree with mol10e You should definitely join a psych lab your senior year and articulate that you've done this in your personal statement. I assumed as a bio major that you had already taken stats if not take stats for psych majors if you can.
Also can you graduate from your school without any declared major....I just assumed you had to either major in psych. or bio. but atleast finish one major. If this is not true and you can finish without majoring in bio. GO FOR THE PSYCH Courses! like mol10e said stats is important, an experimental psych. class, definitely a general psych course and a history of psych. course would be the most be the most beneficial.
To get into a psych PhD program you would need to take the subject GRE, the courses I have just previously mentioned will prepare you extremely well for the psych gre (which is basically a History of Psych. exam). You will be in great position to take the exam as long as you have these classes in your 1st semester next your.
The subject GRE is only offered in November, December, and April; I think, you should shoot for November to take it. You'll have to register a month in advance.
Basically if your serious about psych. a great way to prove it to grad school is to show them that you took psych head on by totally rearranging your schedule to make room for psych. and taking initiative!
I'm sure you will do an excellent job!
Also talk to your head of the psych department for extra advice that maybe one of us on CC is forgetting to tell you.</p>
<p>I'm actually a bio and women and gender studies (WAGS) double major, and I'm doing my thesis in WAGS. that's why I'm not sure whether I should finish my bio major, or take psych classes instead.</p>
<p>The november GRE wouldn't be too late? How about december?</p>
<p>It's great that your doing a thesis. That will be impressive to graduate schools. Take your psych classes instead!!! If your not forced to finish the Bio major you definitely want to study what you intend on going into for graduate school not something that you might never ever use again. Taking psych courses is the smarter choice.
About the subject GRE; the only reason I recommend taking it in November is because I recall when I applied to graduate school certain schools having early deadlines (earliest is November 30th that I've found) and suggesting that all GRE test would be taken before December. So, better safe than sorry, you don't want to miss out on a potential school because your scores arent in yet. The General GRE is computer based so your scores will be given to you immediately on the computer screen, and mailed later. The subject GRE is paper based so it takes about 6 weeks to recieve your scores.</p>