By Josie Gereszek – gereszekjo@mnstate.edu

When studying for an undergraduate degree, it’s often hard to make post-graduation plans. One recurring workshop looks to make that process a little easier.

Students gathered Thursday in Maclean 164 in hopes of learning a little more about their grad school opportunities. The Career Development Center offered the session to inform students of how to find, apply and prepare for graduate programs and entrance exams.

Junior Jade Choung attended to increase her likelihood of getting into study abroad programs.

“When you’re applying at international schools abroad, the more certification and all that stuff you have, well, you can probably kick out the other candidates,” Choung said.

Assistant Director Diane Wolter of Career Exploration at the Career Development Center said she’s right in starting the search before her senior year.

“One of the biggest things that we find with students is that they’re kind of unaware of how early they have to start looking at graduate programs,” Wolter said.

Choung said she has some work ahead of her.

“Right now I’m just kind of dipping in to see what I have to know or should know before applying for grad school,” she said.

She came to the right place. The workshop covered numerous resources available to students in the grad school search. Peterson’s Guide is one of these.

Its website provides step-by-step timelines, essay help, test prep and other tools to help students find, get in and pay for school.

“There’s a lot of tests to take,” Choung said. “I never really looked at it before, but it’s something I’ll probably look at since I’ll be graduating pretty soon.”

Among other resources, Wolter said just attending a workshop in the first place is a good jumping off point.

“We kind of just want to get a little toe in the water and then send them out to other resources, and let them know what all is available out there for them,” Wolter said.

The next graduate school workshop will take place in the third or fourth week of the fall semester. In the meantime, students are encouraged to turn to the Career Development Center and faculty in their field with any questions they may have.

“In our office we really want to offer services to students wherever they are in their whole educational path, whether it’s finding a major, finding an appropriate career with that major or going on to grad school,” Wolter said.