35: Contacting & Meeting with Prospective Faculty

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Hello everyone, today I am going to be talking to you about reaching out to prospective faculty. This is relevant for those of you that are applying to grad school this coming fall. And first I wanted to, before I get to addressing, like what you should say and how you should reach out to them, I wanted to tell you a little bit more about what my students are doing, or what I'm suggesting that they work on during the month of September, just to get a head start, we are on the quarter system. So this fall quarter for us, begins at the start of October. That means they have a whole month to prep for their grad apps before the quarter starts. I have been telling my students, that there are few things that they can work on, specifically related to their grad school apps.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

One thing that they can do is that shouldn't be too hard to do is finalize their grad school list, that means really combed through it. And make sure that you have a list that you're really confident in that has eight to 12 schools with two to three professors that are good fit for you at each school.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Another thing I'm telling them to do is to finalize their CV, the curriculum vitae, that document should be the most approachable, or guess some would say easy, easiest document to work on. When thinking about all the other components of your grad app, just have someone else, take a look at it for any edits any grammar errors, make sure it's up to date with your latest information, whether it's presentations, or work experience or research experience, you want to make sure it's up to date.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The other thing that they should work on in the month of September, are their essays. That's both the statement of purpose. And your personal statement, you could even get started on the diversity statement, although I don't recommend doing that quite yet. Because I think a lot of programs have very specific prompts for a diversity statement. And they want to make sure that you are actually answering the questions or actually addressing what the prompt is asking you to do for that. But the statement of purpose and personal statement, those are documents that tend to remain the same in there, they might be slightly different per school, but a good amount of the content will remain the same, which is why you can work on that.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Now, another thing that you can do now, and this can also wait a little longer, but it doesn't hurt to do it early, is to start requesting recommendation letters from three individuals, ideally faculty in your field.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And for those of you that are in the humanities and social sciences, now's the time to really take a look at your writing sample. Make sure you've identified a writing sample, that's a strong piece of writing that demonstrates that you can write in an academic way. Or you can write a research paper of some sort. So if you're required to submit a writing sample, you'll want to take a look at your grad school list, the application portal or the websites to see what are the page limits? And how can I tailor whatever writing sample I have to meet those limits and requirements.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Okay, so let's talk about reaching out to faculty. This is something that stresses out all of my students. I mean, I don't think I know of a single person who is not intimidated at the fact of reaching out to someone who is so intimidating. I mean, someone who is probably really well known in their field, someone who they look up to because they've been running into the scholar over and over again in their research, someone that maybe one of their professors has recommended. And so you know, no matter what, it's intimidating to reach out to someone who is an expert on something that you're interested in pursuing. Imposter syndrome definitely kicks in. And a lot of my students, the first thing they think about is, well, I don't know enough to reach out to them. And if I reach out to them, and I meet with them I'm just gonna make myself sound not very smart, and they're gonna figure out that I'm an imposter, they're gonna figure out that I know nothing in the field, and they're gonna reject me, like, that's gonna be a reason for them to turn down my application.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

That's not usually the case. I mean, most of the time when students reach out to prospective professors, sometimes they get back to you, sometimes they don't say, you know, maybe they're busy, and they won't get back to you right away. When they get back to you, sometimes they're very enthusiastic and excited and provide advice. And, you know, we're really approachable. And sometimes they may be really Curt and straightforward and blunt. And that's just how they are because they're very busy. In any case, it's not something to take personally. But it does definitely inform the relationship that you might have with that individual, because a lot of times, you know, I don't think of it as them interviewing you, I think of it as a reciprocal meeting, where you're also interviewing them to find out if they are a good fit for you. Because at the end of the day, you're going to dedicate four or five, six, maybe even up to 910 years of your life, working with some, in some cases, it's the same advisor the whole time. So you're gonna get to know this person very well. And do you really want to spend that much time with an individual who you don't get along with who you don't have good rapport with? Who makes you feel uncomfortable? Who makes you feel bad about yourself? So you remember, you're interviewing them, you want to make sure that this individual seems supportive.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

I can't emphasize enough identifying individuals who are also kind. Yes, you want someone who's an expert in their field? Yes, you want someone who is going to advocate for you. And it's going to look good as a recommender, in the future for you, but you also want to make sure that this person, you know, is good to you, that you get along with them. What do you do when you reach out to them? Um, I do think it's important to do some initial research on them on who they are on their work. But I don't think it's necessary to go all out and start reading multiple papers before you reach out to them. Because again, they might not get back to you, they might not even meet with you. Do a kind of an initial scan of their work, maybe see what you know, their most recent publications, you could go through their abstracts, or skim an article. But you don't have to go all out again, don't let that be the thing that holds you back from reaching out to them, because you haven't had enough time to read their work.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Then when they get back to you, you schedule an appointment, then that it would be a good idea for you to read at least one article. Ideally, a recent publications, that way you have something to talk to them about. So take some notes, and have some things that you want to mention to them about their work and why it interests you. When you're sending the email to them, strong emails or emails that are not too short or too long. So maybe two to three short paragraphs. They're informative, where you introduce yourself. So who are you? What school do you go to how, you know, have you been involved in any research programs, if you have a strong GPA, you could mention, I have a 3.8, 3.9. If not, don't mention it at all. And let them know I'm a prospective applicant interested in applying to the Ph. D. program in X at University of Florida, and that you're specifically interested in working with them. And it's not a bad idea to ask them if they're taking any students, so, if they're accepting any students this year.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And then, of course, you want to end the email by asking them if they have any time to meet with you to discuss their work and your application for the fall. And you want to make sure that you make it seem like you're not going to take too much of your time. So if they're available for a quick 15 to 30 minute meeting, to discuss, you know your research and to discuss your kind of upcoming application and answer any questions they may have about the program. So short to the point. Try to be specific. You don't want to send the same generic email to everybody you wanna make sure that there are some details about them about their research where they know that you've done at least some, some initial kind of research on on their work, and that it aligns, that the work that they're doing and what you're interested in doing in grad school aligns.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And then when you're actually meeting with them, so what do you do to prepare? Aside from reading their work? taking some notes? During the meeting, you can ask them about their mentoring style? Yes, you can ask them like, are they hands on? Are they hands off? How do they typically work with students? You can ask them about funding, because that's a, you know, big concern. And that's going to be a reason why you choose to go or not go to that school. You can ask them about what else can you ask them? Where do the recent graduates like where are they now? So? What are the job placement rates like? Or what types of jobs are individuals getting right out of graduation? That way, again, you know, what you're getting yourself into, and like, what the next step will be after you graduate. You can ask them about the department, the departmental culture, the campus with this the campus culture, like you can ask them about any courses that they're teaching sort of their particular seminars that you're interested in? You can also ask them if there are any new faculty that they're hiring, and if so, you know, what areas do they cover? But really, it's an opportunity for you to ask questions, they're not going to be the ones grilling you or at least they shouldn't be the ones asking you a ton of questions.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

What can you expect them to ask you? They'll ask you, they might ask you, what kind of experience do you have in the field? They might ask you, you know what kind of research you would like to pursue their? They might even ask you like, why that program? Oh, it's interesting that you're applying to our university or our program. What do you like about it or what interests do you have in this program? But they shouldn't be asking you too many questions. Because that's something that they're going to leave, you know, until after they've reviewed your application after you've made a shortlist. And they formally invited you to interview for them. So again, it should be fairly informal.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

And then after the meeting is over, just kind of reflect on how you're feeling about it. Do Is it a really good meeting? Are you feeling good? Are you feeling more confident that they express an interest in working with you? Or did they did it feel a little awkward and uncomfortable, that they seem a little unsure, and like they weren't sure if they're going to accept students this year, or they weren't sure if they're going to have funding this year.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Or maybe they directed you to someone else, they referred you to someone else, they said, well, maybe you might want to work with this other person instead. And if so, then you move on to the next individual, you move on and reach out to someone else. Because again, you want to feel really good about the people that you are planning to work with. And anybody that you meet with and mentioned in your applications, they could be the individuals that you end up working with. So that is all I have for this week. It's something that I came up a couple of times with a few students, even a few coaching clients, folks are really interested in reaching out to faculty right now. And it's stressing them out. And more often than not, it's just sending that initial email. And going through that first meeting that is really intimidating. After you get through the first one, it's a lot easier to then reach out to more people and meet other individuals. You just got to get that momentum started. And trust me, you will not regret it.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

If you're in STEM, I'm sorry, but you have to do this. So go on and reach out to professors. ASAP. If you're in the humanities and social sciences, it's not required, but this year more than ever, I strongly urge you to do it. Because the other thing while you want to reach out to professor's is you want to find out did their funding get cut? Are they actually accepting students this year there are whole departments who are not admitting students at all this year because of the pandemic and how it's impacted their departmental funding. And there are some departments that are admitting students but only certain professors that have funding so now is the time to reach out to them. To find out if they're accepting students to find out if they're even having an admission cycle this fall. so that you don't waste your time and apply to a program that's not going to look at your application or apply to a program mentioning faculty who are not going to be interested in you. So do your homework, work on some of these materials that way as we get closer to the deadlines in December, you'll feel much more confident, you'll be a lot less stressed because you'll have a lot of the work front loaded and done. All right, good luck.