138: Secrets of Successful Nontraditional Paths Into Graduate School

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Welcome back everyone to Grad School Femtoring. Today's solo episode is all about secrets of successful non traditional paths into graduate school. This topic of non traditional paths toward grad school is actually a suggestion from one of my patrons. Just as a reminder, I do have a patreon. And in there, you get to have early releases of podcast episodes, you get to make suggestions for episode topics. And you have access to this discord chat community. So you can ask me questions anytime. So just a gentle reminder, if you want to support the show, if you find the show helpful in any way, shape, or form, I strongly encourage you to check it out. The link is in my show notes.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

For today, let's get started by talking about what is a non traditional student. I think it's important to define what we mean by nontrad and then from there, get into some examples of maybe some concerns that you might have if you self identify as a non traditional student in college or in grad school. And then some of the secrets, some of the things that have helped successful students gain that success. And then we'll wrap it up with some tips on how to navigate the grad school application process if you are non traditional yourself.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So what is it non traditional students, a non traditional student, as defined by the National Center for Education Statistics, is a population whose age is over 24. That's a big amount of people. And that includes a large population of adults, students who often have family and work responsibilities as well as other circumstances that can interfere with successful completion of educational objectives. So here we see as folks who typically have outside responsibility, some more responsibilities than your traditional student. Other variables that are used to characterize non traditional students are associated with their background. So that can include their race and gender, their residence, whether or not they're living on or off campus, their level of employment, especially a lot of non traditional students are working outside of college full time, and those who are enrolled in non degree occupational programs. So this is just a very broad definition of what it means to be non traditional.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

In your case, it might mean that you are a returning students, maybe you went to college didn't finish you're coming back. It might also mean that you have taken a big gap between college and undergrad, it might mean that you are a parenting student, it might mean that you have other dependents, it might mean that you have a lot of financial responsibilities and have to work one or more jobs on the side, it might mean that you live far away from your campus and so you have to commute. There are a lot of different markers, maybe you were formerly incarcerated and have returned back to school. Again, there are too many ways to describe non traditional students that it can be hard to define it, but typically it means it's someone that is older than the traditional path of going into college and the traditional path is going straight into college immediately after graduating high school.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

One of the key markers of non traditional students to is the fact that they tend to face additional obstacles when applying to college and also grad school. So maybe, like I said earlier, they've taken a longer break a break between high school and college, a break between college and grad school. In many cases, they've had to work full time on the side, they've had some source of employment during that gap. Sometimes students, students who are non traditional are not able to go to school full time and so they might be enrolled part time. And again, like I said, they might have family responsibilities. They might be a parent, a caregiver, live off campus, and might be trying to finish up a degree that they had not finished before. So when I have worked with non traditional students, the great majority of the folks that I have worked with, not surprisingly have been in college and have been transfer students.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And I've said this multiple times and I will continue to say this again. And again, no offense to traditional students because I love y'all too and I myself as a traditional student, but I absolutely have loved and adored working with non traditional students, y'all are an incredible group, I can't say more good things about nontraditional students. I got to work with them in my experience as a mentor, when I was a graduate student. I got to work with them as an instructor, when I taught English composition courses. I got to work with them as an advisor, when I was the Associate Director of the McNair Program. I have worked with a wide range of transfer students who are non traditional themselves, in many ways, and they are an incredible group.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

On the other hand, I think that one of the things that I've observed about this group of students and again, this may not be true of everyone, but based on my observations, I know that you might have a lot of concerns. Maybe you're concerned about a gap in your record, and maybe your GPA is not that strong. If you're returning to college, maybe you have always struggled with schooling. And you might feel a little bit intimidated having or feeling like you have to compete with folks who have recently been in school, and they're accustomed to that academic culture. So maybe you feel like you're a little bit kind of out of that, what is it like, the pacing of being a student and studying and writing and reading and all of that. You might also feel like you don't have a lot of time to waste so that you have to get it right. There's a lot of pressure if you are a returning student, if you're a non traditional transfer student, that you have to get it right, you have to be in the right major, you can't waste time. You have to be serious about your outside commitments, everything has to lead you to the next step. Because again, you don't have as much time as your peers, you have a lot of personal responsibilities. I've heard this so many times from various different individuals.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I also have met a lot of folks who have had to commute. And because of losing time, with commuting to campus, there's this feeling like, I don't have time to network, I don't have time to go to office hours, I don't have time to be hanging out with my peers. I don't have leisurely time. And so I am just going to focus on doing well in school instead of developing relationships. And that can sometimes hurt you if you don't develop those professional relationships on your campus. The other concern that I see and hear from having worked with non traditional transfer students is feeling like they don't have enough relevant research experience. Or maybe they feel like they don't have enough, again, relevant work experience, and that they're not going to get into graduate school because of that. But that's not necessarily true. Yes, you might have gaps, but there are things that you can do to address those gaps, or to supplement them. That would still allow you to get into graduate program, if that's the right path for you. So if you find yourself having similar feelings and thoughts, just know that you're not alone, and that there are things that you can do about it.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And I want to share these are like the quote unquote, secrets. And by secrets, really what I mean, is the reasons that I have loved working with transfer students and the things that I've observed that have helped them to be successful. How am I defining success. In this case, I'm defining success as students who have gone on to graduate, students who have gone on to graduate and gone to graduate school, students who have gone on to graduate and then pursued a career immediately after graduating. So folks who have been able to finish their schooling and then move on to the next step in their career. That's how I am defining successful in this case.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So one thing that I've noticed, and that I absolutely love this about them about non traditional students is that they're not here to mess around. They're not here to waste their time or your time. They're serious about the work they do, they are committed, being committed in anything is going to take you far if you're committed. And if you are consistent at whatever the thing it is that you're doing, even if you continue to fail, but you keep learning from your failures and you keep trying, inevitably you're gonna keep getting better at whatever it is the thing that you're working toward. So commitment, and consistency is huge.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Another thing I've noticed is that they tend to be sponges. What I mean by that, I mean that they learn and they're not afraid to ask questions and they're willing to keep listening. And I really appreciate that not having to say things a second or a third time. I appreciate someone following through asking follow up questions and not being afraid to ask questions is really important because Sometimes if you're a first generation student, and you are still trying to learn the culture of academia, trying to learn the language, the jargon, it can be intimidating to speak up to ask questions. You don't want to sound like you don't know what you're talking about. But you know what, you're not going to learn. If you don't ask questions. That's the tough part, you do have to be willing to speak up and learn. Learn that skill set, even if it doesn't come naturally to you easy to you, ask questions that will also take you far that will also help you to learn.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Another thing that I absolutely love about nontraditional students is that they have incredible backstories if you take the time to to get to know them. And I don't think they even realize how incredible their backstories are. Sometimes I hear their stories, and I'm like, oof, if you just wrote about this and your statement, like, you don't even realize how amazing you are. You don't even realize how much you've had to overcome. If you've overcome so much up to this point to arrive at this place. Imagine how much more you will overcome in the future and how much farther you're gonna get. The sky's the limit, it is incredible.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Another successful trait I would say about non traditional students that I've worked with, is that they follow through. What do I mean by that? That if I make a suggestion, if I provide advice, there's a good chance that they will listen. And why do they do this because like I said, they're not hit or miss round. So if they see you as someone that they're trying to model and that they can learn from if you are their femtor or mentor, there's a good chance that they're gonna listen. If I were, in the past, when I were to tell my non traditional transfer is, "Hey, you are really good at this, maybe you should apply for this scholarship, you should apply for that fellowship, or you should apply for that opportunity." Yeah, they might doubt themselves a little bit because I believed in them. And because I encouraged them to apply, they went ahead and did it. And if they hadn't done that, they wouldn't have had that opportunity.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

In fact, I want to mention two examples that have come back in my life. It feels like full circle moments. It's so interesting that I'm recording this podcast episode, during the same week that these two incidents happened for me. So one is a former mentee of mine who I worked with when I was a grad student, I was his graduate student mentor. He is a US Navy veteran who returned to school and was trying to figure out what to major in and had this passion for theater. And so I encouraged him to pursue theater as an area of study to apply, you know he was he also had an interest in conducting research, so to apply to the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellowship. And it's really interesting, because it's been many, many years since I worked with this individual. And he recently reached out to me to invite me to his dissertation defense. And one of the things that he said, was that he was inviting me because, quote, "you looked out for me, you helped me find direction, as my femtor your support built me up and made me feel like I had ideas worth pursuing, especially in a field like theater and performance studies." So this is just a reminder of sometimes you just need someone to help to motivate and to push you into, to lead you in the right direction to let you know, what path to pursue what options you have, and then it's your job to follow through. That's what's gonna help you be successful is knowing where the opportunities are, and then pursuing them.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I had another incident again, full circle moment for me, just reminding me how amazing non traditional students are. I can't say this enough. This is why I'm writing the book, y'all. Even though I struggle with my own writing, even though sometimes I question myself, I'm writing this book on graduate school admissions for non traditional first gen students of color because y'all deserve to have this information. Y'all deserve to have the knowledge and the resources and the opportunities to be successful and thrive in your careers and lives. But anyway, this other example that I was gonna mention, has to do with someone. And this is not someone I consistently mentored. This is someone I might have met a couple of times when I was a, again, mentor and a graduate student. And this person decided to reach out to me so they sought a bit more information on them. They were a social justice advocate who then decided to return to school to pursue a career in oral history. And here we are many, many years later, she reached out to me to schedule a consultation so that I could hopefully become her academic coach. So she's searching for support as she's navigating her own career and goals. And long story short, she said, quote, "thank you so much for being awesome. You met with me way back when and provided so much insight. So I'm looking forward to meeting." So this is, this is incredible that many, many years later, this important person remembers the impact that I had with just a few meetings with this person, and wants to come back and rekindle that relationship, that professional relationship. So just, you never know what could come up in you seeking out support in you looking out and identifying mentors.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And so when it comes to, if you're a non traditional student, and you're thinking of going back to school, please, please, please don't let the things that scare you intimidate you discourage you from doing from pursuing graduate school, if you know that is the right path for you, as you know, that that's what you need to pursue a career that you're really serious about and interested in, then go ahead and do it. I've helped individuals, I've helped folks in my own family, I have helped my sister in law get into a social work program. And she didn't have the greatest GPA, but she did have work experience in the field. Similarly, I have a cousin I helped him get into graduate school, and didn't have a degree in the field he was interested in didn't have direct, relevant work experience in the field he was interested in. But you know what, with the right kind of framing of how those experiences have helped to strengthen their that how that skill set would complement that program, would kind of strengthen the diversity of that program, all of that help them to get into graduate school.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So I don't I just don't want to discourage you, because there's so many people out there that are gonna discourage you. There's so many people out there who are going to say, oh, no, that's not good enough. Oh, no, you're never gonna get in. And I've seen so many cases of folks that if you saw their application, you might doubt like, I don't know this person is gonna get in because maybe the GPA was really low, maybe the GRE score is really low, maybe the writing needs work, because the writing needs work, that's something you can do something about, that you can get help, no matter how much writing support you need. You can get it to a point where it's a really solid draft if you get support. I don't believe in discouraging people from pursuing graduate school, if they really want to do it. If they don't really want to do it, if they don't have a strong enough reason, that's a different stor. Then in that case, I will discourage you and say, I'm not sure that graduate school is really the right option for you, because you're bored, because your parents are telling you to do it, because, I don't know, you're struggling to get a job. Those are not good enough reasons, if you need it for advancement, if you need it because it's a required credential for your degree. If you need it for something that you're just always going to wonder like, what if, if you don't pursue it, then yeah, go ahead and do it. But if it's for any other reason, other than you needing to do it, I don't know that I would encourage you to pursue that.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So again, if you are a non traditional student, if and you're interested in applying to graduate school, let's say this fall, what do I recommend that you do? First off, you want to make sure that you have mentorship. I know this is not easy. I have struggled to identify mentors in my life. And sometimes you find folks and they're not a good fit. But it is worth searching for them. There are people out there willing to help you. This can be a former professor, if you're returning to school, after a while it could be a former ta term professor. It could be a supportive supervisor. It could be someone that you've met recently, during an informational interview that you really resonated and connected with. There are so many different types of individuals out there that could serve as your mentor.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Now outside of seeking mentorship and mentorship, I will say this over and over and over again. And I am saying it over and over and over again because I need to say that to myself as well. Because I have struggled to put myself out there is the importance of conducting informational interviews. You don't really know for sure if a career path is the right path for you. I'm unless you talk to multiple people in that career. I mean, for the longest, I thought that being a professor was the career of my dreams, it just seemed so nice. I thought that professors just got up and taught a class and then had the rest of the time to themselves to just read and write. It does seem like such a luxurious career. Little did I know how much professors do on the back end, I was reminded, actually, similarly, when I recently interviewed someone who, who will be talking about what it's like to pursue a Master of Library Science and what it's like being a bilingual librarian. And hearing his experience as a librarian, the many things that librarians do, I was like, wow, I had no idea that librarians did so much behind the scenes that we have no idea about. So the same goes for any career that you're interested in. There might be things about that career that you have no idea about, unless you sit down and talk to someone and ask them what is a day in the life in this career? What are the pros of this career? What are the cons? You know, what are your favorite things? What are your least favorite things? And why? How did you learn this position? What was your path, like? More and more people don't have normative straight paths, they're hopping from one thing to the other. They are pivoting and that's okay. So conduct informational interviews with those in the fields that you're interested in, just to confirm that this is the right path for you. And if not, that could lead you to the next path.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The next thing I want to recommend is if you're definitely going to be applying to graduate schools, have someone review your profile to identify your gaps or to come up with a plan to fill that gap, or to strengthen other aspects of your application. So what I mean when I say your profile, I'm talking about your application profile. So what is an application consists of your application form, your application essays, statement of purpose, personal statement, your transcripts, that includes your GPA, any test scores, if they're required, that could include the General Record Exam, your CV, curriculum vita, or your resume? And so you want to have someone review your profile to see in what areas are you, do you look good? And in what areas do you not look so good? Just looking at it as an applicant, and not knowing who you are as an individual. Because sometimes, we might not have an accurate understanding of what our profile looks like. Maybe you think I have the worst GPA. And then someone looks at and says, "Actually, it's not that bad" or maybe you think, "Oh, my writing's not bad." Oh, my gosh, how many times have I heard people say, oh, yeah, my statements are good to go. And then I look at them and like, actually, you're gonna need a few more drafts. So it's just good to have a another person's opinion on your profile as an applicant to see what it is you're going to need to work on. If there if it's something that you can't really fix, because your GPA is not going to change. Then there are other aspects of your application that you can strengthen, like your test score, or like your essay, like the writing that how strong your writing is for your application essays. So again, have someone review your admissions profile, to identify gaps and to find ways that you can strengthen your application.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And then start working on your applications. Don't forget to ask for help. Don't forget to get support. Please don't try to do this alone, it is a lot harder to do this on your own. You can ask for support from a friend, you can ask for support from a colleague. And if you struggling to find anyone who is qualified to help you, you could also save up some money to hire an academic coach or to hire an editor. There a lot of folks that do this for a living, we're willing to help you. Just don't try to do this on your own, find a way to get help within your means and your circumstances.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And then the two last things that I want to share are related. So one thing is if you're applying to grad school, it's okay to be redirected. If for some reason you apply and you don't get in this time, have a plan B is your plan B, that you're open to reapplying and that you're going to try to find something to do in the meantime while you reapply. Or is your plan B that you pursue a career path without necessarily getting getting that degree or maybe you decide to get a little bit more work experience. Or maybe you decide to get some sort of assistantship, whatever it is that you can do in the meantime, to redirect you toward a similar path. Maybe it's not the exact path that you anticipated, but it's still in alignment with your goals and your values in the kind of career that you're interested in. And then the last thing that I'm going to say, because I've done this, a lot of people are doing this, it's rare for you to not do this. It's okay to pivot. That's the final message. I want to remind you if you're applying to grad school, and you're changing careers, if you're applying to grad school, and you're in the same career, but you find that, you know, maybe you're getting called in a different direction, it is okay to pivot.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And it's also okay to not do the thing you love right away, your first job out of college, your first job out of grad school, may not be the job that you love may not be the job of your dreams. It's okay to have a job that pays your bills for now. Also, there's a difference between your job, and your career, and your calling, and your identity. These are not all the same thing. If you love something, and your job isn't 100% in alignment with that, you can still find ways to do that thing that you love on the side, you can still keep pursuing the next steps and you're never starting from scratch. Again, non traditional students, y'all tend to be older, more experienced. And there's this concern that I don't have enough time, I don't have time to waste. But you know what, you're never starting from scratch because you know what's amazing from, what's amazing about you say, you have a plethora of experiences, whether it's work experience, life experiences that you're bringing with you, every single thing that you do from here on out, you're developing a skill set, and you're bringing that with you into any space that you go to.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

My theater background is not a waste. It helps me with what I do every single day it helps me to come here, sit my butt down and talk to you and am I great at it. No. Am I bad at it? Also no, why? Because I have that background. My research background, same thing, helps me with doing the work that I do. Am I great at it? Probably not. Am I bad at it? Definitely not. You see what I mean? Like all of your skill sets, oof, my organizational skill set is on point, why? It's actually something I did not major in. It's actually something I've never taken a class in. But you know why I'm so good at it because I have continued to hone that craft. And I still do it to this day. Because I love it. Because it's something that I just can't help but do. And so the same goes for you. Whether you are someone who loves to write, whether you're someone who loves to research, whether you're someone who loves to build, whether you're someone who loves to, I don't know to, to tell stories, whatever that thing is that you love, you are developing skill sets that are going to help you hone that craft over time.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Just be a little bit compassionate with yourself. Don't be afraid to pursue graduate school, if that's what you want to do. Don't let someone else tell you that you can't do it. Don't let someone else discourage you and say that you don't have the right academic profile. There are ways that you can strengthen your application, even if it means having to reapply having to gain a little bit more experience or take an extra class or get that you know, internship or whatever it is to make you more competitive the second time around. And if it doesn't work out the second time around, figuring out a way to redirect yourself to still get to a career that is in alignment with your values and what you see yourself doing. So that's it. That's my episode on the secrets of successful non traditional paths into graduate school. I hope you found it helpful and I will talk to you all next time.