Career counseling or advising session: 2 points

 

Last month I met with Dr. Rebecca Kumar to go over my graduate school application materials. As someone with very little knowledge or guidance on these applications, this offer was a great relief to me and gave me much more insight on graduate school applications that I truly believe saved and elevated my applications thus far. Making sure these materials look good was also important for the Senior Workshop class I had at the time, in which I had to submit a graduate school application as part of my English Major Portfolio. This meeting specifically broadened my understanding on what schools were looking for and how to properly write a personal statement vs. a statement of purpose, which was my primary pain point. Arguably just as, if not more important than that, this meeting was when she helped me narrow down my research focus more precisely. I had been too broad with my interests, but we settled on terming it “black queer and feminist film and literature.” I look forward to continued work with Dr. Kumar and taking her advice to further improve my applications for other schools.

By Samantha Hines