General Information
There are many opportunities to do graduate study abroad, some of which are competitive scholarships overseen, at Wesleyan, by various people on campus.
Graduate study abroad is different from undergraduate study abroad, partly because – in most cases – the entire degree program (rather than a single semester or year) is carried out in another country. The purpose of going abroad at the graduate level is more often the degree than the experience of living in another culture, but it is important to remember that you will be studying in a different pedagogical system and living in a different milieu, so some of the same preparatory suggestions for study abroad apply here as well.
The scholarships overseen by the OIS (Gates, Luce, Marshall, Mitchell, Rhodes, and St. Andrews) are highly prestigious and very competitive. Consequently, it is wise to have a back-up plan for what you will do after you graduate from Wesleyan. That said, SOMEone has to win them, and as long as you have a good project in mind and a strong academic background, it might as well be you, so don’t be discouraged by the multitudes of other highly-qualified candidates.
Application Procedures
Sample Personal Statement
Programs
Other useful sites:
British Council: http://www.britishcouncil-usa.org
On Course: http://www.oncourse.co.uk
UK Education website: http://www.educationUK.org
Research Assessment Exercise (rates academic departments at UK institutions): http://www.rae.ac.uk/ and click on "results"
International Graduate Scholarships Not Through OIS
Brodigan: Contact Prof. Eric Charry, echarry@wesleyan.edu
Jack Kent Cooke:
http://www.jackkentcookefoundation.org/jkcf_web/content.aspx?page=SchProg
Contact Dean David Phillips, dphillips@wesleyan.edu
DAAD:
http://www.daad.de/deutschland/en/2.2.4.html
Contact Prof. Krishna Winston,
kwinston@wesleyan.edu
Fulbright:
http://www.iie.org/FulbrightTemplate.cfm?Section=U_S__Student_Program
Contact Prof. Krishna Winston, kwinston@wesleyan.edu
Watson:
http://www.watsonfellowship.org/site/index.html
Contact Dean Louise Brown, lsbrown@wesleyan.edu
As you consider whether to apply for one or more of these scholarships, here are some useful things to do:
- Figure out why you want this award: you need to really want this and have a good academic reason why. In other words, “I had a great time in country X when I studied abroad and want to go back” isn’t convincing, but “I want to spend the next Y time period studying/working on project Z, which relates to my academic interests A and B, and my professional goal C, and on which I have already done the following research” is. Research options via Internet or any other method that occurs to you.
- Draft your statement (you need to be thinking about how you want to present yourself after graduation anyway, so consider this a Voyage of Personal Discovery).
- Polish your resume.
- Become literate in contemporary life (see "Notes" if you have them; if not, get me your mailing address and I’ll send them to you). You should be able to talk sensibly about US involvement in Iraq, Bush’s energy policy, David Mamet's plays, the implications of cloning technology, whether we should abandon the electoral college, and such -- obviously not everything, but the sorts of issues you find in the New York Times and on National Public Radio every day. Know what you like to read and why; have opinions about global issues. If all this is completely outside your interests, then this is probably not the right set of awards for you - they really do expect people to be very much engaged in the world at large.
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