Heath

While I was looking at the NTID website and deciding what to study for college.

I am not really sure what is the difference between an undergraduate program and a graduate program ?

Deafness

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Endymion

Heath,

When people say go to college, they usually mean the undergraduate program. An undergraduate curriculum takes about four years and at the end you get a bachelors' degree (BA, BS, etc.).

Once you finish the bachelors' degree, you can go on to graduate programs. Graduate programs are shorter (about two years) and at the end, you get a masters' degree (MA, MS, etc). I have also heard to term "graduate" applied to a doctoral student (studying for a PhD).

If you want to go into a graduate program, good for you! People with graduate degrees earn more and have more career options than people with undergraduate degrees. For example, most of the top people in business, science, religion, and every other field, tend to have at least a graduate degree, if not a doctoral one.

You will have to finish an undergraduate program before you go to grad school, however.

Heath

Thank you Endymion and I will be taking both Undergraduate and graduate programs. That makes alots of sense.

Seattle.guy

An undergraduate is the part of an university offering majors leading to the bachelor's degree (4 year). A graduate school is the university that students may attend after completion of their undergraduate degrees in order to obtain a degree higher than bachelor's degree. For example, graduate degrees range from master's degrees, Ph.D's, or other professional degrees, like M.D. and D.D.S.

Endymion

No problem. Though a little more advice: if you want to get into a graduate program, get good grades when you're an undergraduate. Try and shoot for a 3.0 GPA minimum. Low grades will make it hard to get into a grad program.

If you finish your undergraduate experience with cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude honors, you not only can get into grad school, you can get into a really good grad school that'll help you land a very nice job after graduating with your masters' degree.

For now, just focus on the undergraduate degree. That's the most important thing. That's just my advice, anyway.

Seattle.guy

If college students want to go to a graduate school, they must take GRE, Graduate Record Examination. GRE is a test that is an admission requirement for many graduate schools. It is similar to the SAT.

GRE consists of 8 different subject tests in the specific areas of Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math, Computer science, English, and Psychology. I think subject tests have multiple choice questions. That's all I know about GRE...

Heath

Thank you both for the excellent advice and the information. It looks like I will have a very good education and then have a very good job upon graduation from NTID. I still have to study what I will want to study in college then let my VR counselor know with a decision and that decision can not change once I commit to a career field that I want to study in so I have to have a very commited decision once I make that decision.

Seattle.guy

No problem! Good luck on your decision.

Endymion

That's a good point, Seattle.guy. There are also other tests: the GMAT for business, the PRAXIS for teaching, the LSAT for law, and so forth.

What do they give for people who want to pursue the MArch degree?

Heath

Which career field really allows me to work as an intern or work through a co-op educational work and still get paid for it ? I don't want to do any free volunteer work. My time is too vaulable to be working for free and I need to earn some money even while I am in college. I see college kids broke and don't have money and they really need money but then they over-work themselves with low or no pay at all. That is crazy. I am not gonna go that route. You know what I mean?

Endymion

I understand totally! There are many paid internships for college students, but generally you'd be best off with majors like economics, business, physics, chemistry, computer science, and so forth. You'll have a harder time with majors such as sociology, anthropology, literature, history, humanities and such.

When you get to college, meet with the career advising office right away. I made a point to do it once every semester. The career advising office can also point you to resources where you can get paid internships.

What major are you thinking of doing?

Heath

2 career fields I am looking at are computer science but I still need to study what computer classes I would be taking. I am not talking about computer repairs but working in an office and the another one is travel and tourism management. It has always been a dream of mine to travel all over the world. I will be sure to meet with the career advisor office right away. Endymion, Thank you.

Endymion

Maybe you could do Information Technology? That gives you a business degree, and you can work with computers (as well as other things). Computer Science tends to be more of an engineering specialty, and you might have a little more trouble applying a Comp Sci degree to travel management than an IT degree.

You could also look at other business specialties: Finance, Marketing, Operations, Management, etc.

But if you find something that interests you, take it as a second major or minor. Do you like history? Minor in history! Do you like philosophy? Minor in that.

Maybe you could try minoring in Women's Studies.

Minor in that and I think you'll have quite an experience.

Heath

Okay Thank you Endymion, I will be looking into the IT career field and if I am going to minor in something then it would have to be very good for the IT career field. I don't think I'd enjoy being in women's studies classes, yeeecchhh !!!!! but I could take a couple language classes. I would really enjoy learning German Sign Language, Italian Sign Language.