Insect Ecology at NDSU The Harmon Lab

How is a graduate program different than my undergraduate experience?
There are some general differences between graduate and undergraduate that can be helpful to point out, especially if you come from a background without much exposure to graduate students.

Graduate classes. Most undergraduate programs are dominated by what is done in the classroom. To oversimplify it a bit, you take a bunch of specific classes, do well in them, and then you're done. In graduate school, you still take classes, but they are usually relatively small and address things at a higher and more specialized level. However, the important thing to realize is that graduate classes are a fairly small portion of your overall graduate experience. They are still important, and hopefully help provide you with an important foundation, but are a much smaller part of your experience.

Independent research. This is where you are going to be spending the bulk of your time. The idea here is for you to design, implement, and communicate novel and independent research. If you had a capstone class or senior research experience, it's like that, but on steroids. Besides doing research for your own training, this research will also make a contribution to the scientific community. Even if you are going to graduate school to pursue a career outside of research, I still believe it is essential that you go through the entire research experience for yourself and you make that novel contribution. The skills you develop while doing the research (reading, logic, planning, writing, etc.) will be a huge part of your ability to pursue any career you choose.

Here is a list of the major questions I discuss to help you navigate through everything

What is this page? What is it for?
Important disclaimer - Not all graduate programs are the same.
What is graduate school?
Why should I go to graduate school?
How is a graduate program different than my undergraduate experience?
What does it take to succeed in graduate school?
How is graduate school paid for?
How do I get in to graduate school?