Grad School Stuff

So...I was informed of this totally cool thing that NOAA does. It's their Graduate Sciences Program. A classmate told the class about it when we had a speaker come in.

The GSP is for graduate students (MS or PhD) and NOAA pays your tuition, fees, health insurance, and gives you a housing allowance to get your MS/PhD as long as your MS/PhD fits into NOAA's "mission-related occupational fields." The way you get this is you actually become a full-time employee of NOAA and you have to work 16-weeks in a year. You get a salary, benefits, travel expenses paid, etc. The 16-weeks of work is basically as a trainee in a particular area. So that's the cool part - degree paid for and full-time NOAA employee. The catch is for every year of university level training you receive, you have to give 3 years of federal service. So if I got my MS in 2 years, I'd have to work for the federal government for 6 years.

Luckily for me, I've always wanted to work for NOAA anyway (in some capacity) since I've decided to go the Federal route than NGO. I don't want to do state because it's unstable in my field. But...6 years?! That's a LONG time. 3 years I'd have no problems doing, but 6 years is a bit long. I wonder if I could get my PhD paid for during those 6 years...

Anyway, I'm thinking of going ahead and applying for it. They get about 40 applicants a year and, on average, have accepted 5 students a year (most is 7, least is 2). I'll probably try applying before I accept at a college and if I don't get in, I'll try again for my last year (if I end up doing a 2-year MS). Applications for the GSP open in October (when you know what departments want/need a GSP). I'm going to try to do early application deadlines for grad school, so I'll know by Dec-Jan what colleges have accepted me. That'll give me some breathing room on the GSP since they'd like you to already be accepted to the college and the deadline for applications for the GSP is Jan 31st. If all else fails, I can just send with my GSP application where I've applied. I need to take the GRE again, which means I should take it sometime this summer if I'm going to try for early applications to grad school (need to pad myself about 1 month for official scores).

So...yeah, that means my summer is going to be packed with grad school stuff. I also need to make a timeline...so, anyway, that's my current ambitious goal in regards to grad school! I'm also going to look at other grants/scholarships, but some of them I won't be able to do until I get accepted to a college since lots of those send the money TO the school. NOAA does some other scholarships/grants, but if I end up getting the GSP, I can't accept those since I'll be an employee of NOAA. So, we'll see!!

My current post-graduate plans (assuming I didn't get a job at the college I graduated from or somewhere else) was to come back to Monterey and try to get an in with the Sanctuary since that's run by NOAA. So, who knows, maybe if I get the GSP I can figure out a way to come back to this Sanctuary anyway! Or, I could end up anywhere else in the country. LoL

Off of that....I turned my capstone in for the first assessment on Wednesday. I expect it to get torn apart again. I didn't manage my time well enough and ran out of time, once again. It went to my 2nd reader, so that's why I think it'll get torn apart again.

Anyway, with that. I should be off. 29 days till graduation!!