Advice for those who want to get into a PhD program

I attended the job talk put on by the student chapter of the Canadian Library Association for Western University (formerly University of Western Ontario) at Faculty of Information and Media Studies. While there, my fellow PhD colleague Yimin Chen, gave some tips to students in the Masters in Library and Information Science programme for getting into graduate school.

Essentially Chen states that a student must be able to articulate in a few paragraphs

• What you specifically want to study or research?
• Why is what you are interested in important?
• How do you plan to study it?

Chen also states that students interested in PhD must minimally possess an opinion, self-confidence and conviction about your opinion and be able to articulate that opinion well.

Other useful advice was offered for those seeking employment. Lisa Quinn, Acquisitions Editor at a small university press, indicated that the key to getting a job outside of libraries is to look at one's skill sets. What do you possess in terms of skills that can benefit an organisation? Secondly, one must be aware of what type of work one would like to do.

Crystal Sharp, an independent information professional, also offered advice that students interested in being entrepreneurs. Sharp suggests that student interested in entrepreneurship must be prepared to keep up with changing technologies, business practices and government rules and policies.