Get Involved: The Key to Success in Grad School
Getting involved is one crucial thing I have learned about graduate school. My involvement started last spring after I received my acceptance letter from Florida Tech. I immediately contacted the graduate chair in the College of Aeronautics, Dr. Steve Cusick, and my journey through graduate school began. Upon arriving in Florida, I reached out to the professors. There is no shortage of research opportunities to take advantage of here at FIorida Tech. My advisors Dr. John Deaton and Dr. Stephen Rice are at the forefront of the human factors research in the College of Aeronautics. In subsequent posts I hope to discuss the research that Dr. Deaton is conducting about Mars space exploration.
Much to my delight, I was finally able to get involved in research with Dr. Rice and Dr. Winter. Dr. Rice has done previous research looking at consistency in people. The participants were given two tests and then asked how consistent the participants thought they were. Dr. Rice decided he wanted to replicate the experiment but with students in the Aeronautical 1 classes. We are in the midst of collecting data and entering it into Excel to look for correlations among the data. Past research has shown that there are differences in consistency opinions depending on your culture. United States participants tend to be more confident than they are consistent. It will be interesting to see what the research ends up showing.
Talking and networking are the best ways of getting involved. Even getting involved with the school outside of your studies is important. Your experience in grad school is what you make it, so why not make it memorable? Florida Tech has so much to offer. We finished up homecoming week this fall and it was a blast. Events, music and dancing were all included. So whether you are interested in advancing in your studies or improving your quality of life, getting involved at Florida Tech will ensure that it is a time to remember. Don’t be afraid to stand out—that is how you get noticed.
