I'm a senior in high school now and I'm going through the whole college selection process. I still need to write my resume and my student essay. Does anyone have any selections or guidelines on how to prepare a well-done essay and resume?
Also, I'm undecided over how far away from home I'll be going. I'm hoping to stay within 50 or 60 miles (I live in South Jersey), where I can go to a school like Rutgers, Rowan, or Temple. There are a ton of good schools in the region, and while I'm not too fond of the exact area I live in, I'll feel horrible leaving my family. There is one school just a few miles away from my house that I'm looking at, but I'm not sure it would give me what I'm looking for in a college. This dilemma has been bothering me months now.
Please pray for me too make the right decision.
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Also depending on the degree you're applying to, there must be some sort of guidelines available through your school careers' services if you have that kind of thing?
Well some advice is to start early, because these things need lots of time and continual reviewing. Consult with your guidance counselor or teachers because they are usually happy to look over your resume and essays and share from their experience.
As for leaving home, it is not necessarily a bad thing. I'm in university very far from home and I think the experience has changed me tremendously. When I had no one else, God was always there and I learned so much after leaving home. I learned to rely on God, who always provides, because I had no family members in the area. It also has taught me how to be more independent. My suggestion is don't go to college too close to home or too far away. Get some distance but not so much that you can't make a trip home on the weekends. But that's just what I think.
Pray, and remember God has a plan set for you. I went in wanting to go to a certain college, but God had a different plan in mind and it ended up amazing. So do your best and don't worry because God will take care of the rest.
You can contact me if you need any advice or want me to look over anything.
God bless
What are you interested in studying? This aspect could help you make your determination.
Psychology....I have yet to find a regular college or university that doesn't offer it.
I am hearing more and more from friends that a Ph.D. has really become the necessity relative to Psychology.
It's true and that's becoming the situation for other academic subjects. There are so many programs now that offer BA's that essentially...they're becoming useless. Some are even seeing the undergraduate years as just a continuation of high school, which is really becoming the case as many schools dumb-down their curriculum and raise their average gpas. Average gpa years ago was around a 2.7 now it's a 3.3. The inflation is insane. General knowledge about everything is ... eh. People would rather see specialization and that's why MA's and Ph.D's are becoming the mainstream thing. Psychology especially is demanding because its over-saturated right now. Tons of people are doing psych because it's seen as an "easy" topic generally. I'm minoring in it for that reason. Undergrad just gives you a basis to stand on - you just learn about the theories, the people, and do some basic research here and there. It is NOTHING like the field, which is why a MA/Ph.D is now necessary.
Don't let that discourage you though. If you're serious about Psychology, pray about it and push yourself. You have to accept that you'll be facing fierce competition for limited amounts of jobs and you'll need years of additional schooling to even land a well-paying job. It's possible, it just takes time. Everything now-a-days takes time. There's no longer that whole earning the BA and landing that 80k job upon graduation (unless you're a pharm, doc, or engineer, but even they are now seeing some competition). Ask Abouna. Think and pray hard about it is all I can suggest.
I do hope to become a psychiatrist. I think that if I go into this field, I can really excel in it. I think I have a natural ability for it. My problem is that I want to focus on non-medicinal treatments, and I don't want to restrict what I do to those who are mentally ill. I want to be able to reach out to anyone who is dealing with significant mental or emotional distress. Also, while I don't mind taking biology and anatomy classes (I've taken honors biology, and I'm taking anatomy this year), I am NOT a math or chemistry person. What I'm hearing is that the majority of the mcat is organic chemistry, and that will make things very difficult for me.
I also need to improve my work ethic. I've procrastinated so much in high school and turned in assignments that I should have had done, and that's showing on my transcript. I've made it through, but I haven't necessarily made it through each class with flying colors.