For College Aspies...

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Yeah, this is what I heard as well. I have heard often though about people getting their bachelor's with a GPA below med school standards (reasonably below, like a 3.2) and have used a master's degree to leverage themselves.



This is a good point, and something that I'm thinking about as an incoming sophomore. I'll probably do my grad work in something like neuroscience, computational/theoretical biology, or regenerative biology, but I'm still not sure, and I don't imagine I'll know for certain even when I'm 21 and done my bachelor's of biology. I always hear the old saying "A master's is about breadth while a Ph.D is about depth", and I don't know if I'll be ready to focus in on one subject in just a few years. I can be an indecisive bastard, I know.

it's just hard to know what you wanna do.

i have always wanted to be a marine biologist since i was like 5 yrs old.... and it wasn't until i was doing my MS (in marine bio) that i found AS and decided to switch to neuroscience... i still maintained all the research techniques that i learned during undergrad and epsecially my MS... and i have simply just switched fields... if i had just gone straight into a marine biology PhD... i'd be having a hard time now splitting my interests, so to speak. now, i get to research all this stuff that is consuming me... but i can still keep abreast with all my marine interests too. think i coulda been happy with staying in marine bio... but i'm very happy i made the switch.

and a MS can help with leverage for a less-than-ideal GPA because it also gives research experience... something much more indicative of a person's capabilities in the "real world" of research.... which is why i'm sure that it helps for med school too.

i still recommend getting a MS first for tons of reasons... broad switches in fields... not being STUCK with a prof that you dislike for 5+ yrs (that can suck, trust me, i've seen it happen)... if you don't know what kind of career you want to do... simply gaining techniques so that you can later combine them in a different program... that's a good one cause you'll find that you have to bring stuff to the table as lots of things are collaborations and hybrids of programs and i've found it very beneficial to have experience doin stuff outside of what my current PhD program offers.

^Agree.

I'm getting my Bachelor's in Writing/Literature and then getting my Master's probably in Library Sciences. Right now, that's what I'm working on. Though if my internship next summer with the FBI pays off, I could be doing that.

Associate's. Then I'm getting an ok job and moving out of parents house. I'll pursue higher if I develop both the means and the desire to do so, though.

Bachelors, in a "hard" science field. The reality is though that I ended up taking a whole lot of math including a couple grad courses in math, so more accurately I would say that I do mathematical sides of my science/field.

A comment on MS vs. PhD. I agree mostly with what Sedaka said but with a couple extra points.

One is that changing fields - it's primarily because you should be picking your research FIRST and degree title/department second. You may find that you want to solve/work on problem X or idea Y. In undergrad it may seem like field A is best to investigate X and Y, but after some graduate study you might feel that field B will be more appropriate.

(if you choose problems X and Y right, they should be hard enough that no one - including professors in fields A and B - can be exactly certain of where the answers lay)

Another is funding. MS can be expensive, and in "purer" areas, not very useful either in academia or a job market. Taking grad courses as an undergrad or as a PhD student is usually much cheaper since you can either cover them with your undergrad financial aid/scholarships/etc, and PhD students usually get 100% tuition paid for anyway. So it's important to make sure an MS is worth the investment in your case, or if it's possible to explore some cheaper way.

And the #1 thing that will be most helpful if your ultimate goal is PhD is research - at every level. Undergrad research. Summer REU's and other research programs. Research during your MS. Research experience is highly valued by every top 25 PhD program in the country.