Graduate Schools

[WarBrute]

Hello Playgrounders!

So I am a Senior in college and I am looking at graduating after the next spring semester and I am now seriously looking at going to graduate school. I have been told the best thing to do when looking at graduate schools is to make contact with an adviser that share your interests.

The problem I'm running into is writing the first e-mail. I can be shy and I always fear coming off sounding awkward. I want the first impression to be a good one. Does anyone have any experience in this?

[Savannah]

*looks back through emails* My first email went something along these lines:


Hi [professor],

I am very interested in [program], particularly [area], but I had a few questions.

[Questions (mostly, stuff like "I'm interested in researching [x], and it appears you do at least some of that, is that true?" and "the program description says students will do [y], does that mean [ya] or [yb]?")]

Thanks,
[name]

Generally, just saying hello, saying a little bit about what I want to do, and making sure that they'd be looking at the stuff I was interested in (I was going into a really uncommon sub-field, so that was quite important!). I don't think it really needs to be a huge deal, just making sure they know who you are. (Actually, I think visiting the school and meeting the professor who is now my adviser was much more helpful than writing to him -- I kinda did it last minute, too, so he didn't have any warning, but it still worked :smalltongue:)