Grad School Checklist

So you want to Go to Grad School?

I recently was notified about the next group’s interview weekend, so I decided that it probably would be a good time to start a series of posts about the Graduate School Process. It’s tricky to navigate without help, and I was blessed to have my family help me out.

The first part of the series is: The Checklist

I am a huge fan of To-Do lists, and I know that it was helpful for me to make my own checklist for graduate school. So here’s what you will need.

1. A Competitive GPA

I am not saying that you need to have a 4.0. We all have that rough semester with the awful breakup or Physics. What you need is a strong GPA that reflects that you are able to understand content. Once you are in graduate school, they expect you to have a strong base to work off of when you come to class.

2. A strong GRE Score

Some people are awesome at standardized tests. I am not one of said people. Since standardized tests are rarely about the content and all about the questions, I find myself choosing the trick answer instead of what the exam wants.

I got the books and took many practice tests.

Practice makes perfect friends.

3. Recommendation Letters

If you haven’t been very nice to your professors, then you may have a bit of a problem with this one. So make sure you have had your best manners in class. More importantly, get to know your professors. Work in their labs. Serve as a TA. Do whatever you can to spend more time with your advisors.

Here’s where the science world and the business world collide.

Gettting to the next step of the graduate school application process is a lot more about who you know than you would expect. If your recommender knows a person at the school you are applying to, then your letter carries a lot more weight.

So see where your recommenders have connections, and pick schools from that list to apply to.

4. Experience

This was key for my acceptance to Notre Dame. It is one thing to have a project from your undergrad, but what schools really want to see is taking an interest beyond class requirements. Medical Schools require shadowing and volunteer work in a hospital so that the premeds can garuntee that medicine is for them.

So obviously grad schools want to be sure that you are at least interested in research, or whatever style of graduate school you are applying for.

My REU really revealed the nature of scientific research. I would highly recommend applying for these. Here’s the link: https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.jsp

5. A Good Story

By a good story, I mean that you should have a strong personal statement explaining why you want to go to Graduate School in the first place. It shouldn't just be a recap of "why I like school" or another rehashed story about finding your passion as a child. Sure, these are good things, but graduate schools want to know that you are going there for a reason. Everyone has a backstory, and your story is just as important as everyone else's. Therefore, you need to tell it as best you can.

Basically, work hard and show interest, and you will be fine. Grad school is easy to get in to if you follow the steps.

I will write more about my journey every other week or so.

Best of luck!

Starving for Love

I don’t know about y’all, but I am starving

Well, yes, I am hungry, as any grad student is, but I am not talking about food. I am talking about something we as a society are starved of.

Love.

As the times grow more and more hectic, we are all growing more and more exhausted for love.

It seems as though each person is living in a daze, constantly searching for some missing piece of themselves. We are all highly aware of the empty holes in our chest, and if we seek for some quick plug to throw in with scotch tape, hoping that that will fix the problem.

And as we attempt to understand the missing parts of our soul, we completely miss the point.

Love is not a compartmentalized substance that can only be found in one place.

Love is not just in the family

Love is not just in a relationship

Love is not something that can be defined in one simple image.

When we seek for love in one perfect image, relationship, or even a person, we start to lose sight of all the love that could be in the world. We think that maybe we should avoid people that do not fit our image because they might take away from our opportunity to be a part of the love that we are so desperate to find.

The fact is that we will never find the love we imagined

“We cannot decide to love. We cannot compel anyone to love us. There’s no secret recipe, only love itself. And we are at its mercy— there’s nothing we can do” 

~Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

And most of all: we cannot assume that love is one entity. We cannot keep thinking that we are unloved because we are from a broken home, single, or only have two or three close friends. Love, while it is beautiful and perfect in nature, cannot be contained in a small box in the back of our minds.

Love should consume our lives

Love should be seen.

Is the way a man plays with a puppy not a simple form of love? Is not the music played by a skilled musician an act of love? Is the change we put in the hand of a homeless person not an image of love?

Love is simple.

Love is kind.

Because we ignore the little acts of love in the world, we no longer recognize love in our lives.

God does not wish this for us. 

You see... God is Love. He is everywhere and in everything. He knows everything about us and everyone around us. And as such, He too is starved for us to see Him. God, as love itself, is desperately calling out to us to tell us that we are loved and needed in this world. And unlike the emotions that we control our vision of love on, God can reveal Himself by His own power and mercy.

God completes this through others

“No one has ever seen God. Yet if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is brought to perfection in us.” ~1 John 4:12

I was starved for love and God used His gift of friendship to bring my vision of love back in to the world.

Here’s my story.

I came from a family filled with nothing but love. And as I grew older and moved out of the house, I took that love for granted. The simple acts of love that made my life possible were assumed to be normal family life. 

I am still shocked that I took my daily phone calls to my mommy for granted.

Because love was easy to find, I no longer saw it as God's love in my life.

You see, I started to only care about romantic love. I would love so many people in the simple ways, and yet I thought that this love was not really love. I thought it was just taking care of people, a chore, a bore. I thought that because the boy that I had the most love in the world for didn’t love me back that I would be unlovable for a long time.

Then I was forced to be loved by a new friend.

This friend did not know that he loved me at all. In fact, by my scope of love, he would not have even considered loving me, for his heart was already owned by someone else.

Still, he found a way to love me as a human being. He took the time to get to know me, to get me to talk, to get me to share my life with him. And as time passed, I started to accept his friendship. 

I started to accept the simple love he gave me for simply being a person.

A ripple effect on my life ensued

The longer I knew this boy, the more I started to see love outside of the romantic scope. I started to see the silent love of the humble servants surrounding me. I started to appreciate my phone calls home more. I started to see that love was something that could not be contained in compartments.

For the first time in months, I wasn't "hungry" anymore.

Because I was no longer starved for love, I was able to see where love was needed, a skill learned from my new friend. As a Christian, my friend saw the need for love that every person saved by Jesus Christ has the capability to use. 

It certainly was not easy, but he found a way to become a friend and influence my life in a way that he may never know about.

I am sure that I was not the kind of friend he would have made normally.

And yet he did anyways.

And through that act alone, my capability to love others returned.

It amazes me how people respond to the love that I can share as a friend. People are so starved for love that when I do something simple, like give them a compliment, they seem to be completely amazed. Sometimes boys even think I am interested in them because I bothered to get to know them...

It's not their fault: they just can't see love in a simple way anymore.

We cannot continue to keep changing the way that love is seen. If we keep ignoring the little signs of love in the world, the loneliness that has filled the world around us will only grow louder.

“Sometimes loneliness makes the loudest noise.” ~Aaron Ben-Ze’ev

We have to start taking the time to love other people as God intended. It is not easy to love people outside of our comfort zone. Being kind to those who make us uncomfortable, have different values, made mistakes, or simply do not know how to love very well…these are the ways that we can feed the starving souls that surround us.

Love is not all romantic or familial, but by being able to love others simply it may be possible for romantic and familial love to be recognized.

Mommy, I just wanted to thank you so much for loving me, even when I took it for granted. Team Newton, I could not be more blessed to be part of such a loving family. Y'all taught me what love looked like, and I am honored to be a member of the most amazing family I have ever known.

Dear Readers, I urge you to call your parents and tell them you love them. Then I urge you to think of a person that you could have loved better this week, and then maybe take the opportunity to let love grow a little more in this world.

And pray for me as I search for love in this world and attempt to bring it back.

I love you all.

God Bless.

The Little Things

I discover most of my life lessons from within the lab. As I am becoming more aquianted with my space, I will integrate more of these stories. Some of these stories will be from undergrad, and some of them will be from graduate school.

Today it’s all about graduate school.

I have been a graduate student for exactly one month now, and I already feel very much at home at Notre Dame. Yes, I did spend a summer here already, but there is something different about being a graduate student and knowing that I will be here for the next five to seven years that changes my entire perspective of how acclimated I feel to this space.

It took a little bit of thought, but I believe I know why it was so easy for me to make this transition

This is the first installment of my “Lab Lessons.”

“We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. 

The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life: a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community.” 

~Paul Bloom

Every person should be able to feel acclimated, important, and useful. 

Each transition in life requires a certain level of adjustment so that the person may find their value wherever they are. It may be a new job, new relationship, new dorm, or a new home, but the need to find purpose is shared throughout all types of transitions.

In order to find our purpose, we must be able to perform the tasks that God intended for us in that space. We need to be able to fulfill our vocation, even if it is only for a brief amount of time, such as a summer internship.

The key to growing in a new space is growing from the foundation laid out by the established community. Therefore, it is necessary for the community that we are part of finds a way to be able to include the newest member. If anything, we have to provide a sturdy place for them to take off and a soft place to land. 

We have to provide the little things that they need.

If we are the newest member, we must find a way to accept their gifts and grow with the community, not fight against it. It takes some learning, and it takes some patience, but it is indeed possible to find what we are searching for.

I know I did.

I am insanely extroverted. While I do talk quite a bit, I actually just need people to be around me in order to feel complete. At first I did not know anyone on campus, and I felt quite lonely. Sure, I had a few familiar faces, but I would not call anyone my friend.

One week, the other graduate student left on Paternity leave, and I was completely alone in “The Big Kid Room”.

It killed me, but I did not want to leave my desk.

I had no clue what I was doing.

Then my undergrads, or minions as my advisor calls them, started to walk out of “the kids’ room,” to talk to me. One by one, they started to bring their notebooks and computers out to the main room of the lab. We even got lunch a few times.

These kids (who aren’t even a year younger than me) chose to come and be my friend on their own. I was accepted in to the community, and I started to feel like a contributing member. It made a significant difference in my overall energy level and happiness. Going to the lab to read journals all day did not feel as meaningless, and I had stories to tell my roommate when I came home.

It was a small set of small acts, but these acts were a great contribution to my ability to grow within the community. By getting to know the undergrads, I was able to see the foundation that our lab was built upon.

I could take off 

However, I believe that there are other ways to give a person comfort and strength.

Most people think that in order to bring someone in that we have to be willing to go out and have a conversation with them. They think that it is an extrovert’s job to truly help someone acclimate. After all, the only methods shown on TV shows and movies are those of the stranger who comes up to talk to the lonely main character.

Small unspoken acts

Doing the little things that help someone move forward, in whatever way they need, is a huge step in their transition. If they have the tools to work with, then it is possible for them to make a contribution. By being able to give back, the newest member is able to find worth.

Give them a way to complete their task.

Find something that you can do to help them and do it without being asked.

“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit” Ronald Reagan

The other graduate student in my lab is the epitome of introverted service. He hates socializing, or at least that’s what he tells everyone else, and as such, he finds a way to contribute to the worth of everyone in the lab on his own time.

Buffers are remade, centrifuges are fixed, and cell lines are made on the side “just in case we mess up.” 

If someone needs to use his bench, he will let them. If someone has a question, he will answer it. If there is any confusion in the lab, he will at least try to help clear it up.

It is amazing how easy it is to get work done when there is someone around that is willing to do everything and anything to contribute to the common good. In this case, the older grad student recognizes the needs of everyone else, and he makes sure to help them. Thanks to his hard work, I was able to jump right back in to my experiments like I had been there for the past year.

Because God designed me to be a scientist, I found my value in my simple sub cloning experiments again.

Had the other grad student not been around, it may have been more difficult for me to find these ease so quickly again.

When a person who gives back in the little ways disappears, their absence is felt.

The lab struggled a little bit trying to find its way back in to the groove when the other grad student went on paternity leave.

However, because we recognized the need to do the little things, the lab team has started to take on these tasks without being asked. We check on CO2 tanks, make our own media, and we clean the benches from time to time.

When he comes in nowadays, there is a certain peace to the lab.

While we all are friendly and are great, there is something about the quiet contributors to society that we may never fully understand.

I will admit that it is in these introverted people, the people that know the needs of others without having to talk to them to find them, are some of the most important people in society. Their servant leadership is highly important to our society. 

Thanks to the efforts of both the extroverts and introverts in my lab, I have started to see more and more of God’s will for me in this space. 

I know that I am meant to be a mentor and rolemodel

I know that I am capable of performing experiments and troubleshooting when things go wrong.

I know that I belong in the space God gave me.

There are still many questions on my mind, and there are still many things that I have yet to learn, but I believe that by doing the little things, such as going out of my way to let someone in, or finding the needs of each person around me, that I may be able to do more of God’s will each and every day.

The Divided States of Confusion

I am not one to publicly voice my opinion on situations such as these. However, the social media outcry and the media bias on both sides has reached a point that I feel as though I must speak my mind.

Violence is everywhere.

And it is not as we have been told.

But I’ll get to that.

Why is it that nearly every other week we are presented with a story about a violent shooting from either a hurting person or a policeman? Or why do we have to hear about yet another soldier’s life being taken because of terrorist attacks halfway around the globe? 

More importantly…

Why is it that the greatest country in the world is starting to mimic the nations we are trying to aid?

We are not just mimicing them by an increase in violence. The reason why the United States of America are starting to look more like “The Divided States of Confusion” is because we have changed our values. Where we once held firm in our beliefs and customs we now step back to allow other opinions and our more animalistic desires take over.

And now our most fundamental rights are being questioned completely:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

Three very clear issues are seen between modern society and the Declaration of Independence.Yes, it is true that our nation was founded by white men. Yes it is true that there are some disparities amongst the races. I have no problem admitting that. I have no problem accepting that we all need to be more inclusive and understanding.

1. All Men are Created Equal

However, we are not a fruit salad.

We are- or rather were- “The Great Melting Pot.”

What do I mean by that? What I mean is that we can’t just throw ourselves in to some heterogenous mix and say that it is neccessary to stay that way. Because America has the blessing of having so many unique people within its borders, we have the opportunity to celebrate the uniqueness of each person. However, we do not do that. In fact, we make it very clear to distinguish between one another, as if it is neccssary to say “Oh yes, that is Sally, she’s white, and Josh over there is black. Both cool people. Just different.” 

By saying this, we are acting more like a fruit salad.

And it is killing our nation.

No one eats a fruit salad with everything mixed together. If anything, we choose to eat some fruit first and others later, and some we never eat.

One major issue that i have seen is that now that we are focusing so much on race that we are no longer looking at the facts. We look at qualitative results, facts that only have to do with our vision, instead of looking at statistics that reveal the real issues.

Here is a startling fact: 

Caucasians are the vicitms of the majority of violence.

Now, I am not too proud to say that many violent crimes that affect my minority brothers and sisters may not be reported, and that truly is a tragedy.

What I am saying is that these victims shown above are not put on media. No one mourns them, nor are they immortalized with a hashtag.

I am not saying I want that.

I am saying that we should stop focusing on one side of the population.

“All men are created equal,” and we should do everything in our power to celebrate each person, fight for the right for each life amongst us, and stop dividing ourselves solely to speak out.

Now, I know many of my Dear Readers may be outraged, “what is this priveledged white girl saying? She doesn’t understand. She’s the problem!”

I have more to say, and they are my faults just as much as they are everyone else’s.

Please continue.

2. Life

We no longer value life.

The fact is that we spend our days simply trying to make it through. We don’t really think of life as something to celebrate, and we certainly do not take the time to appreciate the beauty that is human life.

Our society has lost the value of life so much that death has actually become a joke to us.

There needs to be another plague

He needs to stop breathing my air

How about we just drop a bomb on them?

She should have been aborted

I’m just going to crawl in to a hole and die now.

I have heard each of those phrases in the past four days alone, and I know that there are many many more. It is awful, but the fact is that we do not see life as a beautiful thing anymore. We see the lives of those outside ourselves to be burdern, a confusion, something to be tossed aside.

Here is another statistic, one that would throw my previous one completely upside down.

African American babies are aborted more than any other race.

If Abortion were to be included as violent crime, African Americans would be the majority.

However, because we find life to be far less beautiful than it is, because life is not recognized, because life is feared on the outside, these lives are taken. And if these mothers wanted to bring forth these lives, if they could see past the apathy of the world, it would be nearly impossible for them.

We do not try to help the mothers.

We judge the single mothers

We judge victims of sexual abuse.

We judge every other part of their lives. We speak about these women as if they should “stop breathing my air” and we say that they “are sucking our tax money away.” Instead of recognizing their desperate need for help to live both their lives and bring another beautiful life in to this world, we discriminate and hate them.

This happens in all races, but with this statistic, we can see that there is a need for a melting pot, one that includes all cultures, that respects all lives, that sees another human being in need and serves them.

We have to stop joking about violence

We have to stop pretending that people do not hurt.

There are lives that cannot be lived, and it is all our fault.

For the longest time, I included myself on those jokes. I would laugh along with everyone, and I was hardly touched by the complete disregard Americans have for life these day. But as I grew older, and as I encountered numerous suicide attempt survivors, rape victims, and soldiers who defend our lives every day, I realized that life was far more beautiful than I could have ever known.

And we cannot throw it away by killing someone when they are a nuisance, an inconvenience, different than us, or for any reason at all.

There is no reason for a life to end.

No race, creed, profession, or American should see a reason for death to be taken lightly.

3. Creator

One last thing: the colonists came to America because they needed a place to practice their faith.

Otherwise they would die.

What these people were experiencing in England was very similar to what we are experiencing today. These people were outcasted for practicing their faith, they were different from others, and they had a different culture.

What happened to them?

They were arrested, killed, and persecuted on numerous levels.

So they came to a new land to change all of that.

The United States was not just made to exploit the Native Americans, search for Gold, or create grand plantations. The United States was made so that people who held values bestowed upon them by God could actually uphold those truths. They came to America to escape persecution, to live the lives that God intended for them, to work and be successful by their own right.

We were the land of misfit toys, designed by a group of people who had the solid conviction to live their faith, the thing that made them different, and to accept the lives of those around them. We were made to be different, to be strong because of our collective differences, to be the nation that served as “a city on a hill” that could show light to the world.

And we have.

Why else would so many people seek to live in our great nation?

But now that we are starting to give up on our beliefs, now that we are letting go of our values, we are falling apart.

People are dying.

People are depressed.

People do not know what to do.

We as Americans need to go back to our roots, not those of slavery and oppression that we so shamefully remember, but rather to the root of faith and values. We need to see that while the world has changed, God’s gift of life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are never going to go away so long as we acknowledge them.

Pray for Dallas. 

Pray for America.

Pray for me brothers and sisters that I may not make these jokes anymore, that I may not see those sorts of crimes as political gain, that I may not see any life as less valuable than my own, that I see my priveledge and assist others to be able to live a life as blessed as my own, that I may never lose sight of God and the gifts He gives us.

I may not use the best words, but please know this: I know I am privileged. I know I am blessed. But I also know that we are dividing ourselves because we do not share in constructive dialogue. I know that I have been a part of the problem, but I also know that I am part of the change.

Let’s not hate.

Let’s not fight.

Let’s see that the person behind the profile picture is beautiful, loved, and part of the great chocolate fondue that is America.

Let’s try to change.

Let’s try to love.

Listening

Listening.

For a person with ADHD, it can be very difficult to sit and listen to someone. It’s not that we do not wish to listen, nor is it that we do not have a long enough attention span. With ADHD, you often find yourself being consumed with a new thought as soon as it pops in to your head. Sure, the original topic is still in your mind, but this new thought is so consuming that you have to address it, or you may explode.

At least that’s my experience.

Everyone in society has a problem with truly listening. Unlike ADHD, where the connection may not be clear, the majority of the world makes a clear connection in every conversation they have.

To themselves.

I was no different. Even after I received treatment for my ADHD, I still struggled with interupting my friends, and I almost always turned the conversation to myself. Just like everyone else, I took more interest in myself, and if it was not about me, I only listened to the parts of people’s stories that mattered to me. If it did not affect me, then I chose to ignore it.

Then I made a friend that forced me to change that.

He was a nice kid. He was a little weird, but it takes that kind of person to be a great RA. We're all a little crazy, but we make connections with people. Just like most RA's, my friend was great at finding connections with people and starting up conversations. Conversation was easy with him.

Except for one thing.

He paused at the most inopportune times.

I’ll tell a story to give an example.

It was not long after I met this kid. We were walking around Belmont’s campus on a Sunday afternoon, just as we always did in the beginning of freshman year. For anyone who knows what a college campus looks like, you would know exactly what we saw on a Sunday afternoon. No one was on the quad, and the entire campus seemed to be sleeping.

“The campus is so-“ my friend paused.

“Dead,” I finished his sentence, assuming that my interpretation of campus was the same as his.

“What?” he seemed genuinely shocked. I furrowed my brows in confusion. Were my thoughts not shared by everyone around me? He sighed and looked at the rose garden.

“I was going to say beautiful.”

For the longest time, I finished sentences for the people I thought I knew best. I finished sentences for people I didn’t care about as well. Actually, I finished everyone’s sentences.

Not sandwiches though.

I know everyone was thinking about that...

Anyways, I stayed friends with this boy for the majority of my college career. And as I got to know him better, I started to recognize the moments when he paused, and I noticed the moments when he didn’t pause. Over time, I started to speak in a similar cadence, just a little bit faster.

Later on in our friendship, I asked him what he thought was special about me, why we would still be friends after awkward romance drama, many years of school, and residence life. He said:

“You listen. With everyone else, I have to talk fast, just so I can get it out. But with you…I don’t have to do that. It’s nice.”

The funny thing was that I was not even trying.

I was just his friend.

I cared.

As time went on, and I moved forward with my life, I started to apply that same care and understanding that I gave to him to everyone else in my life. I would let my pauses become longer, and I would wait to hear what others had to say. Sometimes they were willing to share their lives with me. Sometimes they were not open to conversation with me.

Regardless of their reaction to my attention, I noticed just how much I heard in the voices of those around me.

I heard what people actually cared about.

I heard the actual stories of the lives around me.

I heard what truly connected me to everyone else.

It just took a little patience, and a lot more attention than my brain ever desired.

I am grateful for my friend with his slow Georgia voice. I am grateful that God would give me a friend that would teach me how to listen, just by letting me love him. In a soft and quiet way, God showed me how much love was in my heart. God let me see what I could potentially give to others.

We all want to be listened to.

We all want to be loved.

I think the best way to love someone is to listen to them.

Hear the stories.

And just like a campus on a Sunday afternoon, they are all beautiful. 

You just need to take the time to listen.