CHLOE KOWALYK
News Editor
Beginning on Monday, Oct. 18, SUNY Fredonia’s Career Development Office (CDO) and Graduate Studies will be holding their 13th annual Graduate School Week and Fair.
On Tuesday, Oct. 19, the second day of Graduate School Week, a Graduate School Fair will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to showcase more than 70 institutions offering graduate programs.
These institutions are from both New York and other states, and offer both graduate and professional programs in various careers such as business, education, medicine, law and science.
SUNY Fredonia’s own graduate programs will be showcased at the fair as well.
The goal of Graduate School Week is to prepare students for graduate school.
Throughout the week, various presentations and workshops will be run to help students prepare to apply for graduate school.
Wendy Dunst, the graduate admissions coordinator, is in charge of running all the workshops, including writing a strong statement of intent, how to apply to SUNY Fredonia’s own graduate programs and a workshop for speech pathologist applicants.
Dunst also allows students to bring in drafts of their work for her to review and edit.
The CDO is doing a presentation on all things graduate school, which will have both a counselor and a graduate assistant present to help guide students through the process of researching and applying to graduate schools.
Christopher LaGrow, the assistant director of the CDO, says that the CDO and Graduate Studies run this event because “a lot of students want to go to graduate school. Students want to go on to become doctors and dentists, some students may want to get their MSW (Master of Social Work) in social work,” LaGrow says.
“There’s a lot of different majors that send students to graduate school and we do this to help them get there,” he continues.
Dunst adds that “the workshops also help with [graduate school applications], because they focus on specific aspects of the grad school experience.”
However, this year, as the result of the ongoing pandemic, the event will be held virtually on Zoom — just like last year.
Dunst says that “a lot of people really liked [being online] because they could attend at that time and ask questions as if they were in the room, or they could view the recording later.”
The events taking place during Graduate School Week are open to everybody — students, community, faculty and alumni.
“We definitely want to bring the event back to campus for 2022 if we can,” says LaGrow.
LaGrow and Dunst explain that they can help anyone who is looking to go to grad school with interviewing, reviewing letters of intent and their resumes; they urge students to take advantage of this opportunity.
Those interested can RSVP in FREDNetwork for each of the available presentations and workshops.
More information is available on the CDO’s website.