Article Archive
Introduction It’s summer in Antarctica, the temperature’s hovering in the 30s and the wind is blowing. And it’s winter in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where the… temperature’s hovering in the 30s and the wind is blowing. We’re Zooming with Shavonna Bent, a 5th-year student in Marine Chemistry in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program. Shavonna is currently at…
Intro When you think of the life of an oceanographer, you might start imagining scientists in wetsuits, smiling widely as they splash around in the waves doing ‘science’ (in the broadest sense), but there’s a lot more to fieldwork than that. From spending months at sea in a 300-foot research vessel to riding around on…
In June 2019, a crop of fresh-faced first-year MIT-WHOI Joint Program students boarded the SSV Corwith Cramer, a 134-foot sailing vessel, for an orientation cruise. The sun shone brightly on Vineyard Sound, and seagulls’ cries mixed with our animated chatter as we familiarized ourselves with the ship that would be our home for the next…
INTRODUCTION Much like adopting a hamster, attending graduate school is a several year commitment. Although your day-to-day may differ from those with traditional jobs, bills will still be coming due. Many graduate degrees, especially Ph.D.’s, will have some level of “funding,” a vague catch-all term that encompasses money that will be used to pay both…
Image of the 2022 JP ASK Team. Picture courtesy of Elena Perez. Applying to graduate school can be a difficult, confusing, and opaque undertaking. Students from non-traditional backgrounds or without personal connections to academia are often at a disadvantage as they navigate the unwritten rules of the graduate school admissions process. Graduate students in the…
Three questions that are often asked by someone applying to graduate school are: What kind of research can I do? In whose lab will I work? Is there funding for me in this program? In the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, many faculty members at both MIT and WHOI may be seeking graduate students at a given…
Stories At Sea R/V Atlantis 05/01/23 – 06/09/23 These images show the Research Vessel Atlantis. The image on the left is a birds eye view of the ship taken from a plane. The image on the right is a closeup of the ship taken from the dock. Working and living aboard a scientific research vessel…
Introduction So you’re in graduate school, and you’re spending untold hours poring over way-too-specific textbooks, grumbling about the quality control on the dataset someone sent you, and hiding the last box of Kimwipes from the rest of your lab. But isn’t there more to this whole experience? Everyone applies to graduate school for different…
Getting a PhD doesn’t necessarily mean that one has to enter into an academic career. There is an ocean of opportunities available to graduate students; yet finding the right path can seem like a daunting task. Through our new Alumni Spotlight series, the Through the Porthole crew is aiming to highlight the variety of careers…
The MIT-WHOI Joint Program (JP) notes that 62% of its students have gone on to work at a research institution or university [1]. Although over half of JP alumni have gone into academia, getting an advanced degree in oceanography doesn’t limit you to a single career path. In fact, graduate school can impart a…
This article was written by Annaliese, a third-year student, and Emily, a first-year student, both of whom are in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department. Submitting your applications to graduate schools is a huge accomplishment, but come January, the sit-and-wait stretch where you are expecting letters from schools can drive a person crazy. This…
Starting your graduate research is an exciting time, and something that most of us have looked forward to since the moment we thought about the prospects of entering a graduate program. Graduate research, however, is confusing. Setting expectations with your advisor right off the bat is essential to a functional advisor-advisee dynamic. That is to…
This article was co-written by three people, whom we introduce below, all with different perspectives on undergraduate research. We have tried to outline the ways to best succeed in different stages in one’s undergraduate research career. Helena: Helena is a current senior at Yale University double majoring in Physics and English. In Summer 2022 she…
Three questions that are often asked by someone applying to graduate school are: What kind of research can I do? In whose lab will I work? Is there funding for me in this program? In the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, many faculty members at both MIT and WHOI may be seeking graduate students at a given…
Introduction Why do we need to talk about health in graduate school? To begin with, academia isn’t well known for being easy on your mental health, and physically aging throughout your degree can bring major changes, regardless of your age. Taking the time to invest in preventative care and learning to advocate for yourself in…
Although people enter graduate school at many stages of life, for some students, it can be the first time that they live in one place long enough to call it home. Part of the process of creating a home may involve figuring out your favorite grocery store or biking route, but it can also involve…
One of the first questions people ask you when you are moving to a new city or town is inevitably: have you found a place to live? This somewhat innocuous question can be loaded with stress, especially given the current housing crisis hitting most of the United States. This question is implicitly loaded with other…
Hello Through the Porthole readers! In this article some of the TTP crew share their experiences moving when starting grad school. The move to grad school is often overshadowed by the starting of grad school itself, and unexpected challenges can come up for many grad students in that first year. We share some of the…
Student Spotlight: Jaida Elcock Biological Oceanography PhD student and science communication extraordinaire. Growing up, Jaida was always interested in science. She always knew that she wanted to work with animals and science, but wasn’t sure what that would look like until she found a passion for marine science in high school.…
Ingredients of a personal statement Regardless of where you apply for graduate education, your application is guaranteed to ask for a statement as to why you in particular are a good fit for the program. These statements go by many names, commonly the Personal Statement or Statement of Purpose, and all entail crafting a careful…
The newsletter crew reflect on their own application experiences Hello everyone! In this article, the Through the Porthole Crew opens up and discusses our experiences applying to graduate school. Each crew member provides a unique perspective on the motivating life experiences that helped us when writing our personal statements. Additional information on the paths one…
What are your potential advisors looking for in a personal statement? Applying to graduate school is, among all else, selecting someone you’ll find fulfillment in working with. Your advisor during grad school is a mentor and supervisor, and they are also looking for students with whom they’ll work well. We surveyed some faculty in our…
In our last issue, we shared pictures of Joint Program students collecting environmental samples for analysis, working with underwater robots, and more! Many of those pictures were from the pre-COVID world. Some showed JP students at work in masks during COVID, but many students had to postpone fieldwork during 2020. Now, during the summer…
Student Spotlight: The First Year Students on the Jake Pierson orientation cruise. Photo: Yilang Xu, 2018. The First Year of Grad School Graduate school, no matter what came before, will be a new experience. Despite the label, parts are less like school and more like a normal job, and the parts that are school in…
So you’re applying to grad school … how do you get big fancy scientists to talk to you about their labs??? You’re applying to graduate school, congratulations! We’re here to provide insight into the sometimes murky waters of how to find a spot in a lab with research that you’re excited about. For Ocean Science…
Joint Program students at work! What does it look like to work in the geosciences? Research in the Joint Program brings students from the Arctic to Antarctica, and everywhere else in between. In the field, students work with cutting-edge ocean engineering tools and collect biological and chemical samples. We analyze what we’ve collected…
Diving In: A perspective on paths to graduate school Becoming an excellent scientist is not contingent upon taking one career path. Many students enter a PhD program immediately after college, but that route and its traditional details (lab experience in undergrad, good grades, shining scientific resume) are not the secret to a fulfilling career in…
Student Spotlight: Lei Ma & Lydia Babcock-Adams Students in the Joint Program come from a variety of backgrounds: from microbiology, to physics, to mechanical engineering, to marine science. The ocean itself encompasses a huge number of scientific fields; those who study it cross the bounds of scientific disciplines to describe the poetically indescribable: the…
Celebrating Black History Month in the Geosciences Our inaugural issue of Through the Porthole coincides with the start of Black History Month, a time to celebrate the (too often overlooked) achievements of Black Americans in all areas of American history and culture. It is also a time to reflect on the barriers that persist for…
