Not that I'll claim to be an expert in such matters, but I headed off to graduate studies expecting to find genetic work on mosquitoes, and instead received funding for a management program dedicated to an invasive thrips. I am supposed to be developing a growth curve for these guys on Florida commercial plants at Florida seasonal average temperatures... but I'd kind of like to look into genetic methods of identifying the invader source populations, and I have recently started to fall in love with parasitic wasps. I suppose I could talk my adviser into letting me throw a predator-prey relationship into my study... but I'd still rather be working on the systematics for the incredibly weird wasps.

I do not know that my experience is a common one in graduate school; I am in search of my path while I travel. I gather that some head into these programs with a better idea of what their final outcome would like to be before they begin. This is part of why I am only pursuing my Master's: part of your MS is learning what you do and do not like about the science. Consider it two years of experiential education before pursuing that "real" Doctoral degree...


-Derksen (http://www.chthonian.org/blog)

Yeah, I know that the things I'm thinking about doing now might be quite different from the things I realistically end up doing. One person who just finished her Ph.D. told me that she started out in theory, switched to distributed systems, and ended up doing HCI. I'm planning to be in search of my path while I travel, too.

But I can't see into the future, I have to apply to programs based on what I know about my interests now, right? And in order to do that, I have to figure out what my my interests are, right? At least, figure it out well enough so that I can explain them in a statement of purpose. (And I'll probably be asking you, and a lot of other folks, for more help with that pretty soon.)

You seem to like making lists.

Have you considered studying LISP?

Good point. The diagram is also a list.

Lindsey K! You're considering studying LISP at this very moment! ♥!