Grad School
“What’s your plan after you graduate?”
This is a question that lingers in the air during discussions amongst seniors, adding anxiety to our already-overwhelming lives every second. If you ask this question from a freshman or sophomore student, they almost always respond with “I don’t know” or “I guess we’ll see.” But as a senior, these are not the answers you want to have. It’s not bad to keep an open mind about the future, but having no idea what to do isn’t great either.
When I entered McGill, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. But I was okay with that. I thought that I would use the coming four years to figure things out and plan my life. Four years later, here I am, even more confused than my freshman self about my goals and ambitions. Personally, there’s way too many options and each of them sound exciting; making a decision would make the fact that I can’t get to experience the other possibilities real; and that’s just disheartening. It’s a classic Mr. Nobody situation.
Having had the chance to weigh out my options for the past year, I see grad school as the best fit. I’m not really at the stage to be able to make impact in my fields of interest and need to gain more knowledge and experience. So, I started scouting for potential programs that would be a good fit for me in May. I went all out; I made a spreadsheet with a list of possible schools I could apply to, their location, potential supervisors, their research, and so on. I started out with around 30 schools, but eventually was able to narrow it down to 10. It’s a pretty ambitious list, and I’d be lucky to get accepted to even one of them.
After doing (and bombing) the GRE general test, I started crafting my statement of purpose around June/July. I went through numerous drafts and got feedback from friends, professors, and McGill’s Career Planning Services, taking my statement from abominable to decent. Throughout the semester, I kept working on my statement of purpose, while contacting potential supervisors and studying for the GRE physics subject test. As the deadlines approached, I applied to the schools one by one, until there weren’t any left. By December 12th, I was done applying to grad schools.
I thought the worst part was over, but really the worst part is waiting. Now all I can do is sit here and wait to receive an email from one of the schools. To make things worse, I don’t even know when I’ll hear back from them. The timeline is January-April, and that’s just too vague. I try my best to keep occupied with other things, but sometimes I can’t prevent myself from checking my email every 15 seconds.
If you’re reading this and are in a similar situation, I stand with you in solidarity. I think it’s important to be reminded that everything will end up just fine, no matter the outcome.