Folks chat about degree programs at one of our 2010 fairs. Photo: Julia Smith

Thinking about going to graduate school to further your career and make a social impact?

We’re bringing Idealist Grad Fairs to 18 cities this fall. Here are the next six. Click on a city name for details and to RSVP:

• Ann Arbor – Monday, Oct. 3, 5:00-8:00pm
• Minneapolis – Tuesday, Oct. 4, 5:00-8:00pm
• Chicago – Monday, Oct. 10, 5:00-8:00pm
• Portland, OR – Monday, Oct. 17, 5:00-8:00pm
• Seattle – Tuesday, Oct. 18, 5:00-8:00pm
• Denver – Thursday, Oct. 20, 5:00-8:00pm

All of the fairs are free, open to the public, and include the option to attend a panel about admissions and financial aid from 6:00-7:00pm. See the rest of the season lineup at idealist.org/gradfairs.

By Amy Potthast.

Right this minute, our Idealist Grad Fair season is kicking off in New York City. To celebrate, we’ve got a fresh podcast for you: a look at nonprofit management programs through the eyes of three friendly admissions counselors. The podcast comes in three bite-sized installments. Click here to learn more and listen.

With a plethora of graduate disciplines available to you—MBA, MPA, Social Work—you may be wondering, why might I go for a specialized degree in nonprofit management?

We hope this show might help answer this question. Topics include:

• Part 1: What makes a degree in nonprofit management. Amy learns that it’s a very narrowly focused degree, mostly geared towards professionals already in the sector or career changers, and it prepares students for senior leadership positions in the sector.
• Part 2: The typical coursework students will encounter, plus the option of a certificate program.
• Part 3: Admissions and financial aid. What makes the ideal applicant, and how do students pay for their degrees?

Special thanks to our panelists:

Edward Grice is the Associate Dean of the MBA program in nonprofit management at the American Jewish University. Chris Nicholson is the Director of Graduate Admissions at North Park University in Chicago, home of the Axelson Center for Nonprofit Management. And Rebecca Zirm is the Director of Recruitment at the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organization and Case Western Reserve University.

Links to learn more:

• Idealist Grad Fairs feature nonprofit management, public affairs, social work and other public service degrees — and they’re touring the country all fall.
• Idealist Grad School Resource Center features an overview of the nonprofit management degree, among others.
  The Nonprofit Academic Centers Council is the accrediting body for nonprofit management degree programs across the country and a resource for people seeking the degree.
• Seton Hall’s Nonprofit Management resources include a great overview of nonprofit education  and a listing of grad programs.

If you listen to the podcast, I’d love to hear what you think!

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Amy Potthast served as Idealist’s Director of Service and Graduate Education Programs until 2011. Read more of her work at amypotthast.com.

By Amy Potthast.

Can you make the world more sustainable by working for a corporation?

According to Net Impact and its free, downloadable career guide Corporate Careers that Make a Difference, you can.

Everyday, business leaders make a positive environmental and social impact in their companies – both in dedicated green jobs, as well as in more conventional job functions.

On this episode of the Idealist Careers Podcast, Idealist’s Amy Potthast chats with Abby Davisson from Net Impact, a national nonprofit dedicated to engaging business in making the world sustainable, and Yonnie Leung, Principal of Environmental Sustainability for Shared Services at Pacific Gas and Electric Company in California and one of the professionals profiled in the Net Impact career guide.

During the conversation, they also briefly mention Net Impact’s Business as UNusual Guide to MBA programs that have a focus on corporate citizenship. The 2011 Guide launches this week; if you’re in the market for MBA programs, you can download it free from Net Impact. You can meet many of the schools mentioned in Business as UNusual this fall at the Idealist Grad Fairs taking place across the country.

Ready to listen? Download the show or subscribe in iTunes.

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Amy Potthast served as Idealist’s Director of Service and Graduate Education Programs until 2011. Read more of her work at amypotthast.com.

Amy Potthast served as Idealist’s Director of Service and Graduate Education Programs until 2011. Read more of her work at amypotthast.com.

Two of our favorite recruiters at the Idealist Grad Fair in DC last Thursday. (Photo: Julia Smith)

As summer gets underway, and our summer grad fair tour comes to an end (shameless plug: tonight only, 5-8 pm, at Roosevelt University in Chicago), future grad students can turn their energies toward getting ready for fall classes. Here are some things to think about:

From Alamosbasement on Flickr

Visit campus (again)

Since campus is relatively quiet, summer can be an ideal time for a first or second campus visit. While you may not have as many courses to choose from to observe, you will benefit from the slower pace of office life and more quality time with staff and faculty.

In addition to the campus tour, and financial aid and department office visits, you might take the time to orient yourself to the library (home away from home for many in grad school), and take a current student or two out for coffee to get the inside scoop on professors, funding, and coursework.

Read more about visiting campus in our Grad School Resource Center.

Get the inside scoop on financial aid and scholarships

Use your campus visit to meet with your financial aid office, if you haven’t already, to make sure you are making the best choices regarding your student loans, and so that you can get the skinny on scholarships. While you should have been looking for scholarships all along, it’s never too late to search for funding for next year and experts in the financial aid office or your department’s office should have some pointers for you. If you haven’t already put your name in the hat for a graduate assistantship in your department or another, this is a good time to do so.

Read more about funding your graduate education in our Grad School Resource Center.

Take pre-requisite classes

From T.Young on Flickr

Finally, use the summer to take care of pre-requisite courses you need to complete before you can bite into your graduate-level work.

If you are required to take a class before you can enroll, find out if the school has specific restrictions about where you can take the class. Ask the admissions office for course approval before you pay for it and take it. Also find out if you need to earn a minimum grade in the class for it to count.

If you are deficient in a foreign language, or another skill that will take a longer time to master, talk with the admissions office about your options. Your best bet may be to wait another year before applying.

Finally, if you are not starting school this fall, check out this 12-month to-do list for prospective grad students.

In NYC? Come meet friendly people from grad programs around the world! (Staff photo/Julia Smith)

This Wednesday, June 22, is a big one for our team in New York City. Come hang out!

• Idealist Grad Fair, 5:00-8:00pm: Thinking about going to graduate school? Join us at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus for this free event! Meet recruiters from 60+ grad degree programs from nonprofit management to education to urban planning. From 6:00-7:00 youcan also sit in on a Q&A session and learn more about admissions and financial aid. Learn more, sign up, and help us spread the word: http://bit.ly/SummerFairNY

• Focus group for people who think Idealist should be more mobile phone-friendly, 4:00-5:00pm: Do you have a smartphone? Do you wish you could browse Idealist more easily via your phone? Do you like snacks? If so, join us just before the Grad Fair for some treats and idea-sharing. Learn more and sign up here: http://svy.mk/mobilefg

   

  

  Last year the fair was the night of the NYC tornados! Hopefully this Wednesday will be calmer...but mingling with admissions recruiters in a huge, strong building is a pretty great way to wait out a storm. (Photo: Anthony Quintano.)

Amy Potthast served as Idealist’s Director of Service and Graduate Education Programs until 2011. Read more of her work at amypotthast.com.

From Flickr user killfile (Creative Commons)

People debating whether or not to go back to school for a master’s degree — or debating when is the best time to do so — may appreciate a new framework for understanding the qualifications a master’s degree student should have upon graduating.

And current students may find the framework helpful in talking about the impact of their education with potential employers.

Recently the Lumina Foundation for Education published The Degree Qualifications Profile to describe the intellectual, civic, knowledge, and applied-learning outcomes students should demonstrate by the end of the associate, bachelor’s and master’s levels of schooling.

The idea of the project isn’t to comprehensively define what each field of study needs to include in its curriculum by any means. But it does offer some useful distinctions that highlight the relative complexity of training that, according to the authors, should signify a master’s degree versus a bachelor’s.

For example, in one category of learning, civic learning, a student at the bachelor’s level should (among other things) be able to develop and justify “a position on a public issue” and relate their position “to alternative views within the community/policy environment.” Meanwhile, a master’s student should assess and develop “a position on a public policy question with significance in the student’s own field, taking into account both scholarship and published positions and narratives of relevant interest groups.”

Other stated benefits of the Degree Profile for future and current students could include:

• Offering a road map for navigating higher education options by giving students a framework for their educational plan if it’s not already determined for them.
• Giving students a yardstick against which to measure their growth in “crosscutting competencies” or transferable skills – abilities that students can rely on regardless of changing careers or industries.

While the Degree Profile is non-binding, a few regional accrediting bodies and school associations have agreed to test the framework which will help flesh out the details of the document (by bringing critical feedback as well as examples).

In the meantime, I am going to share the framework with classmates in my grad school cohort. We’re developing portfolios right now and the outcomes detailed in the Profile may prove valuable categories for sharing our skills and abilities, even if our program wasn’t designed with these outcomes in mind.

To learn more about grad school, explore Idealist’s Grad School Resource Center.

When we scheduled our season of graduate degree fairs many months ago, we planned our stop in San Francisco for November 1. Who knew that the Giants would also be cruising to victory in Game Five of the World Series last night?

From Gary Stevens (Creative Commons)

Luckily, Idealists are nothing if not multitaskers. 600 fans streamed into the Hall of Flowers, scrawled name tags in orange marker (“Giants pride!”), and talked with representatives from 116 degree programs while root-root-rooting for the home team. At one point, the entire Hall of Flowers erupted in applause as cars honked outside in celebration.

We have just two fairs left this season: one tonight in Los Angeles, CA, and one this Thursday in Atlanta, GA. There’s no telling if they’ll be quite as eventful (though with tonight’s election returns, you never know). But I hope they are festive and that if you go, you connect with the school of your dreams.

And if you see Chris Machuca, the manager of the grad fairs, give him a wave. He’s wrapping up quite a season himself, having run events in 16 cities over the past three months. Home run, Chris.

A photo from our NYC fair

Next week our annual grad fair tour will take us to…

• Denver, CO (Monday, October 25)
• Seattle, WA (Wednesday, October 27)
• Portland, OR (Thursday, October 28)

If you’re near one of those cities, we hope you’ll join us. You’ll have a chance to meet recruiters from 60-80 graduate degree programs ranging from conflict resolution to law to social work to journalism.

A prospective doctoral student recently wrote to ask whether he should travel to one of our fairs. He was curious what to expect and wondered: W hat is the value of attending a grad fair?

Amy Potthast, our Director of Service and Graduate Programs, offered her take:

Each fair takes place in a large room where each school staffs a table with more information, and where representatives chat with prospective students.

One value of a grad fair is that you can potentially build rapport with an admissions staffer at your prospective schools. You’ll then have the name of someone with whom you can follow up, ask questions, and meet on campus. You can make an initial in-person impression with a school representative — which is more powerful than over the phone.

Another value of the event is that you will learn more about schools you’d like to apply for and you find other programs you hadn’t set your sights on yet.

You can also ask basic questions and weed out other programs that aren’t going to be the best fit for your goals — saving you time and money.

We’ll have a Q&A panel where a number of recruiters will offer frank advice about admissions and financial aid so you can hear from a range of admissions experts at once.

On-campus visits are also a good idea, and we have an article on our site where you can learn more about how to plan for campus visits.

Learn more about grad school in our Public Service Graduate Education Resources Center.

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

Hello, Midwest.

I hear you’ve been thinking a lot about your career path. A little bird told me you’re wondering if graduate school might be a good next step.

I have great news, Midwest. My colleague Chris is coming to visit next week, along with recruiters from 100+ grad degree programs. They’re hosting meet-and-greets (otherwise known as Graduate Degree Fairs for the Public Good) just for you. You can meet them all, ask questions about financial aid, and learn the ins and outs of admissions.

All the cool kids came out to our fair in NYC.

Intrigued? You can learn more about the three fairs and RSVP by clicking these links:

• Minneapolis, MN – Monday, Oct. 18, 5:00-8:00 p.m.
• Chicago, IL – Tuesday, Oct. 19, 5:00-8:00 p.m.
• Ann Arbor, MI – Wednesday, Oct. 20, 5:30-8:30 p.m.

Hope you can make it. (Psst: if you can’t, you can find tons of resources at idealist.org/gradschool.)

Julia

p.s. You look great today. Is that a new shirt?

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[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

Amy Potthast served as Idealist’s Director of Service and Graduate Education Programs until 2011. Read more of her work at amypotthast.com.

From isafmedia (Flickr/Creative Commons)

A week after our graduate degree fair season started this fall, I went back to grad school myself—a part-time, low-residency Masters in Education program focused on adult learning and education (rather than K-12) from Oregon State. I’m a mother to two young kids and a program director at Idealist, and beginning this program has made me realize how crucial alternative format grad school options are for people at mid-career, with families and full-time jobs.

Here are some other programs worth highlighting:

Online programs
Some for-profit schools have made people leery of online education. But reputable nonprofit and public universities are offering more online opportunities all the time. For example, our host at tonight’s Washington, D.C. grad fair—George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development—offers five different online masters programs, ranging from masters programs in Bilingual Special Education, to Educational Technology Leadership. For people who don’t need the masters degree right now, the school offers a slew of online certificate programs.

Teacher residencies
Other programs around the U.S. enable people to attend graduate school for education while they teach full time in public schools. Mississippi Teacher Corps brings people from all over the country to work as teachers throughout Mississippi while earning a tuition-free Masters degrees in Curriculum and Instruction at University of Mississippi. Boston Teacher Residency and NYC Teaching Fellows offer similar programs (though the fine print varies).

Re-careering support
For established professionals from any background, programs like EnCorps Teachers Program in California can be a lifeline for starting a brand-new teaching career later in life – and putting skills in math and science to work, helping new generations of students. EnCorps is a public-private partnership dedicated to increasing the number of critically-needed STEM teachers in public middle and high schools. Teach For America, famous for recruiting top recent college grads, also enlists older professionals in the movement to end education inequity; TFA is sponsoring tonight’s grad fair and hosting a special networking event after the fair.

More resources
If you’re thinking about a graduate degree or other career transition into the education field, you might enjoy our Education Graduate Degree Overview or a visit to one of our graduate degree fairs. Tonight’s is from 5:00-8:00 p.m. in Washington, DC.

[This blog entry first appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]