<p>I am a 33 year old telecoms professional with 8 years experience and a undergrad degree in pure mathematics (w/ a computer science minor). My GPA was low (~2.7) but recently scored 1400 on the GRE, and my SAT was 1320 (i think, that was in 94-95). Practically, having graduated in 2000, I now have access to 1 academic reference only.</p>
<p>I am thinking to change career paths from the corporate executive path I’m on now to a more research-based field in the natural sciences, biology, ecology & oceanography are attractive to me at this stage of my thinking.</p>
<p>I am planning to apply for a doctoral program in my still-to-be-chosen field, but have found that my weak academic record is limiting my options, so I’m thinking to apply to an undergrad school or to a community college as way to take what transitional preparatory courses i need, develop relationships with professor who can provide me the needed academic references and to refine my choice of specialization at the doctoral level</p>
<p>Any advise or insight would be appreciated, especially with regard to the validity of my plan to improve my academic standing. Also if community colleges will give me the needed grounding to submit a strong application to doctoral programs. Any experience from others who have gone back to school in attempt to change their career paths would be encouraging to hear.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance</p>
<p>The problem with taking courses at a community college versus a university is that you won’t have the opportunity to do research unless you look at outside sources. Research is a major part in graduate school admissions. I would suggest you take courses at a university close to home, one that can provide you with the research experience in the field of your choice. Your research advisors should be able to provide you with strong letters of recommendation. I’m not so sure recommendation letters community college teachers would be appropriate for graduate school admission (especially if they don’t have a phd and/or don’t do research). </p>
<p>Might I also suggest you consider bioinformatics? With your computer science and math background, you might find this area of biology to be a happy medium between the life/natural and computational sciences. There are also other “informatic” and life/natural science cross breeds.</p>
<p>My son graduated from Duke University with a BA in Cultural Anthropology and a minor in Earth & Ocean Sciences. (And a very strong GPA) After working for a year (in the film business) he has decided he definitely wants to pursue a career in earth & ocean science. The problem is that he doesn’t have all the science pre-requisites he needs to get into a competitive program like Scripps Institute. He’s living with us in southern California and UCLA and USC say they do not have postbac programs for anyone other than students who want a pre-med program. I’ve been on a number of schools’ websites and it appears that postdoc programs other than for pre-med are rare. He wants to go to a university so that he can do some research and get good recommendations from university professors so community college is out. Does he have to actually enroll in a 4-year undergraduate program?</p>
<p>^post bacc not post doc. </p>
<p>To original poster: why would you take on a 33 year old telecom professional as a graduate student? I would suggest that this person could provide a unique outlook that might be missing from the rest of the cohort. However, that wouldn’t compensate for having no experience in the field and a somewhat arbitrary and mysterious motivation. I suggest you take some courses from a university in this area you want to do a graduate degree in and secure yourself a research project in biology, ecology, science or whatever it is that you finally decide on. Courses would showcase your ability to perform in a manner not reflected by your college GPA and a project would give some explanation for why you might want to start a grad program. The project is what you would talk about during interviews and provide you an ‘in’ when speaking with potential faculty mentors at graduate programs. Best of luck.</p>
<p>mtbiker,</p>
<p>If he can be admitted as a transfer student that is probably the way to go. He doesn’t have to complete a full second degree in order to apply to grad school, but admission into the university will make it possible for him to take the classes that he needs before his next step. He has to create his own equivalent of the post-bac premed. Back in the last century I did just this when I changed fields from archeology to soil science.</p>
<p>thanks all for the input…it has highlighted 2 interesting areas for me</p>
<p>firstly, the advantages a university would provide over a community college. I was planning to “guarantee” admissions with a community college (for student visa issuance) and then concurrently enroll in a university with a open university program or as a non-degree student in an institution with faculty who can speak to my ability to preform research. Ultimately, I am trying to circumvent the need to apply to a research institution (undergrad or grad) with my weak record but still be accepted somewhere to issue the student visa. Does this sound reasonable?</p>
<p>secondly, the need to clarify my motivations…basically I am an enthusiastic diver and having been diving in the red sea for 10-15 years, it amazes me how unstudied the red sea is, and how much its suffering from the touristic development sprouting up like fungus all along the coastline. Having put in many years of unfulfilling work in telecoms and have reached a point in my life where i can afford to go back to school, where i can entertain the idea of being a research scientist…</p>
<p>belevitt offered the idea of securing a research project which would illustrate my motivation and provide an “in” to talk about during interviews and what not…I am unclear about who offers such research projects and how would I with my divergent academic background have access? Would such a project be initiated by a research university where i would be enrolled in undergrad, pre-req courses? Are there stand alone research projects?
There are a number of underfunded, loosely-organized volunteer groups in the red sea who do things like monitoring for conservation, would those count??</p>
<p>thanks again for all the input</p>
<p>The volunteer groups by the Red Sea would probably be personally fulfilling to work with and might introduce you to some likeminded people but that isn’t research. The way that undergraduates typically get a research project in the following ways: 1) they speak to a faculty member that is currently doing research of interest to them and ask to work on a project in their lab/group. This method gives you more freedom in choosing a project to work on but probably only pays you in course credit. 2) apply for undergraduate research assistant jobs found on the university hr website and hope to end up in a lab you like. In this approach, you will get paid but you will have little choice over your project. I chose the latter but if I were in your situation, I would speak to a professor with a project in mind. For ideas about who to speak to and what kind of work is being done, check the literature. Journals like Science, Nature, Journal of Ecology, Journal of Experimental Marine Biology, and so on would be good places to start. Professor’s personal pages on university websites would be another great place to start.</p>
<p>happymomof1 - another person with a Soil Science degree? I wonder if we are the only ones on this forum…</p>
<p>kcChuck - You’ve received some good advice. Here’s what I have to say:</p>
<p>Take some post-bac coursework and pursue a project in the field that interests you (e.g., Oceanography & Coastal Science) and see if it is what you are looking for. If it is, then apply to Grad School. GPA is currently low, but your GRE scores are very good - I’m sure you’ll get conditional admission to a MS program somwhere, but funding may be difficult to obtain. Though if you do well at this stage, I’d say you have a good chance of getting an assistantship in a Ph.D program.</p>
<p>With your math/computer science training, you have a great background to perform ecosystem modeling.</p>