Graduate studies

During my studies, I worked in two research labs but I also interned in two pharmaceutical companies. Based on personal preferences, I decided to stay on the academic track and focus on research. Thus, I decided to apply to PhD programs. American schools enable exceptional students to skip Master’s degree and obtain a doctorate right after college. It takes about five or six years to finish and Master’s degree is automatically awarded after two or three years.

The application process was even more convoluted than college admissions. Parts of application comprised a college transcript and a CV with field-related experience. The alternative of SAT/ACT for graduate programs is GRE. For international students, GRE can be a problem. The verbal part is based on knowledge of social science-specific vocabulary, jargon, or unusual epithets that are not commonly used in a conversation. Preparing for this exam, therefore, took me a couple of months. On the other hand, the quantitative part of GRE is a piece of cake, even a high school student, in my opinion, can break the 90th percentile. The next step was to obtain a recommendation letter from three or more professors. It is crucial to choose a professor who knows the student in both academic and personal life and is familiar with the student’s research potential. Thanks to my broad research experience (neuroimaging, tissue engineering) and good relationships with the faculty, it was not difficult to obtain excellent letters from my professional investigators from Boston University and Harvard Medical School. The most time consuming step was then composition of statements of purpose. A good essay should introduce the student’s current research, reasons to apply, career goals, or a specific vision how to improve the field of biomedical engineering. I looked up professors whose research interests me, read a ton of their publications and tried to relate their work to my experience.

Application deadlines varied but most schools required all parts of the application to be submitted by December 15th. Over the Christmas break, interview invitations were being sent. University visits are a pleasant but still slightly stressful experience. The school pays for flight/transportation and accomodation and the trip usually involves city and campus tour, laboratory showings, meetings with professors and a dinner in a great restaurant. My first visit was Dartmouth College – a cute school in the mountains at the border of New Hampshire and Vermont. The professor, who would like to work with me, performs research on nanoparticles used as contrast agents in ultrasound imaging. In less than a weak, I am flying out to Nashville to visit Vanderbilt University. Southern warmth and blues music will be a nice getaway from Boston and I am excited to meet the research faculty!