Hello people!
This week’s blog post is an informative piece about how to secure a position in a thesis-based research program (master’s or Ph.D.) at a Canadian University as an international student. I have, in the past 4 years of my time at MUN, been contacted by several candidates asking for tips on how to go through the admissions process, so I think a blog on the SGS portal can probably show the way to a good few!
- Choose the research field of your choice
This does not necessarily have to be narrowed down to one choice, but you must have 2-3 research areas in your mind before you start the entire process of application. This is quite a critical step for your future research career and should be done with a thoughtful mind. You can either be someone who wants to pursue research in a challenging field where you have lesser experience but are very inquisitive to learn because working in that area could give you great career options (kind of an in demand set of skills for future jobs) or you could be someone who would like to stick to things they know very well, have prior research experience in and are quite comfortable to work with from the very beginning. Whatever it is, you need to know this clear enough before you embark on your research journey! At this point, it’s nice to talk to people in research, to get an idea about job options other than academia after graduation. This will help you narrow down to a few choices!
- Build a strong Resume and Cover letter
Once you have a few fields of research in mind, build a Resume where you highlight your academic/research accomplishments very well. If you have prior research experience, that is great but if you do not, it’s still okay to apply if you are someone who has excellent grades and a great background as a student (demonstrated by awards and accolades). The next most important thing is to make this document an absolute error-free one! Any sort of spelling errors, bad grammar or unnecessary bold and italic texts are a big no-no. Make it a clean, uniform and absolutely pristine document, it is the key to a research group of your dreams!
Cover letter is something which can either be sent as the body of the email or as an attachment like the Resume. It has to be crafted in a way that it highlights two things: what makes you a good fit to that particular research group and how would working in that group help you with your future goals. For the first point, you could explain it using prior experience, great academic scores in that subject, or demonstrate your ability to be a great and efficient learner (explaining a situation where you have been able to show that). For the second point, you can write how you would gain a great skillset by working in that group for a future career you are passionate about!
- Choosing and contacting potential supervisors
So, this factor clearly is the one that decides it for you. In the U.S and some other countries, it is the University you apply to first and then after you get an admit from the University (decided primarily by your GRE and TOEFL scores and your SOP), you join as a grad student in the department and get to spend some time in each of the labs, for you to be better able to make a choice where exactly you fit in! But, in Canada it’s the professors you apply to directly (for most of the Universities and programs, with a few exceptions). If the professor wants you in, then usually you will get in, the University doesn’t usually have much to do in the selection process, however, you do, of course, have to have met all the minimum qualification criteria for admission. So, the message is: make a good impression and get the prof interested in looking at your Resume at the very least! If you do not hear back, there is no harm sending a gentle reminder or two but definitely not more than twice. The emails have to be customized according to the research group you are applying to and all this takes time! Get your email content checked by a friend or a mentor before you send them out.
Make a list of the professors who work in the research areas of your choice. This can be done by going through departmental websites for different universities and then looking at the faculty research portal. You will find that active research supervisors who would be willing to take on students have either posted for potential openings in their group, but if not, you can always check if the research group is active by checking if the professor has published the prior year or so and the best way of course is to write a nice well-structured email to the professor asking for potential positions in her/his group.
- Prepare yourself for an interview
If you get the professor interested in your profile, they will likely want to have an interview or probably a less formal kind of chat with you, before they, and also you, are sure about making further decisions. They might question you on your previous research experience, conceptual knowledge, and have a few get-to-know-you kind of questions like what makes you interested in pursuing a research career or what your expectations are from your potential PhD supervisor and so on (these questions can differ hugely from one supervisor to another). But what they are looking for are genuine answers and not overly boisterous replies (so be you, tell them you expect to get a decent teaching/industrial job after graduating, tell them about the real you, not something which you are just for that interview!)
- Gear up for the adventure!
If you are offered a position, get yourself ready! Read up on that group’s research work, make contacts with past and present group members, and then of course get yourself mentally prepared to begin the journey you are about to begin! Apart from this, you definitely need to make arrangements for your stay, for which you can either ask your supervisor to get you in touch with someone or you can contact the University’s Internationalization Office or the School of Graduate Studies office to facilitate you through the entire process! The cover picture here is my first picture in St. John’s, NL clicked at the beautiful Quidi Vidi Lake back in 2016 when I began my PhD studies at MUN.
Graduate school is a beautiful transformative place, where you fall many times and rise every time, you learn and live and grow and bloom! You get to be the best version of yourself, trust me all this work you put in to get an admission into the program and University of your choice is totally worth it! Put in your best efforts and let this pave your way into the best place out there. Getting into a fully funded research program is competitive, but do not think that it’s impossible. Be patient, write well to professors in your research field, and have faith in the process!
Until next time,
Let positivity be your best friend!
~Seerat