Students seeking guidance on preparing for graduate school will have several chances to receive help this semester.
Anyone who qualifies for the Ronald McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement program will be able to take advantage of several graduate school preparation workshops.
“It’s designed to provide support services for first-generation, low-income college students who profess that they want to go on to grad school,” said Ronald McFadden, director of the program.
The prep courses, as part of the McNair Program, will be on select Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning Oct. 26. The course is available to McNair students who plan to enroll in graduate school by the fall of 2007. The deadline to sign up for the course is Oct. 13.
There will also be a workshop on how to write a competitive personal statement.
“It’s a statement that discusses your career goals. It’s something that tells them about you,” said Stephanie Kit, associate director of Career Services.
The workshop will be held today from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Career Services building. It will help teach students how to organize their experiences, thoughts and career goals when writing their personal statements, Kit said.
There will be a repeat of the personal statement workshop from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 2 that will include guests covering medical and law school statements.
Donald Asher, a nationally known speaker, will give a free presentation from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Oct. 18 in the Carolyn P. Brown University Center Auditorium.
“He talks about gaining admission to highly competitive graduate programs,” Kit said.
There will also be workshops on the graduate school application process, a summer writing class and a workshop on how to present research.
The Ronald McNair program also provides internships, research opportunities, tutoring, mentoring, academic counseling and assistance obtaining financial aid for its participants.
The McNair program is one of six federal TRIO Programs within the U.S. Department of Education, funded in four-year cycles since 1990. They offer an educational opportunity outreach “designed to motivate and support” students from disadvantaged backgrounds to “progress through the academic pipeline” to post baccalaureate programs, according to the Department of Education Web site.
It is named after Dr. Ronald E. McNair, an astronaut who died on Jan. 28, 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger exploded.
The University of Tennessee was one of the first of 179 institutions in the country to adopt the program. There are 35 students currently going through the program at UT.
According to the McNair Web site, the goal of the program is to increase graduate degree attainment of students from underrepresented segments of society.
