BA MS

Andrew S.

GRE

Took Graduate Record Exam three times. From the first to the third my verbal score danced a little from the 84th , 63rd, and, then, 81st percentile. Strategically navigating this section is important. From the first to the third my mathematics score went from the 48th, to the 83rd, and hovered at the 80th percentile. There's only so much mathematical content on the exam. After learning the content, it's all about figuring out how to approach the problems. From the first to the third test my writing score improved from the 38th, to the 80th, and, finally, to the 93rd percentile. Here its about making a formula, sticking with it, and putting it into practice.

Logic

I minored in Philosophy and tutored Logic for 2 years. As a logic tutor, I worked with a variety of students including students who were blind. I developed original tactile system to teach categorical and propositional logic. I developed technical communication skills.

Philosophy

I have a particular interest in the limits of knowledge and how we know what we know. This branch of philosophy is called epistemology. Ethics also interests me. Ethics emphasizes critical thinking, questioning assumptions, and challenging yourself and others, to explore, belief systems. Philosophy is less a particular content area and more a set of analytic tools; a framework through which to attempt to understand the world. More accurately, to question our understanding of it.

Public Speaking

As an undergraduate I hosted a panel discussion on mental illness stigma. The panel consisted of 6 professionals from the community. I orated the panel as well as interacted with an audience of 40. In total, for two research projects, I recruited and collected data from 320 students. This involved going to 20+ classrooms and speaking before each.

Sociology

I minored in Sociology. I scored in the 86th percentile on the Social-Psychology Sub-Section of the Psychology Graduate Record Examination. The sociological perspective I hold most closely aligns with symbolic interactionism.

SPSS

As an undergraduate, I took research methods courses that exclusively used S.P.S.S. for data input, processing, and analysis. Additionally, I have utilized it for research projects in a lab setting and independently.

Statistics

Love it! As a psychology major a lot of my peers had an aversion to any form of mathematics. For whatever reason, I did not share this aversion, especially with statistics. It's intricately tied into research as a tool to test ideas and predictions. I am one of the few people you'll meet who genuinely enjoys talking about statistics, especially as it relates to research methods.