As per the planning worksheet:
The particular audience for my lay document are history undergrads who possess the potential to become history grad students, but as of yet lack the interest. Hopefully the doc will create
For my expert document, the audience will be those individuals that are interested or just beginning the process of applying to grad school.
For the lay document, I know the problem to be pressing, because I've never been approached with information about grad school here, and what I know comes from what I've been able to find, or what grad students I've talked to have told me. In terms of difficulties, it's rather hard to really get interested in a program if you lack even a basic knowledge of what it's about, or what makes it special.
In terms of the expert document, there is information available online, but this information is such that it is more of a reference than anything, and doesn't function as a very useful tool for someone actually going through the application process. If a student wants to know more of what they are doing, they are essentially at the mercy of their advisor.
Both documents will be booklets, with the lay document possibly featuring a sort of splash poster of some sort to accompany it.
The documents are intended to be a package deal, distributed by advisors to their students as needed.
The lay document will attempt to relate a bit of what the graduate History program here is all about, and in doing so, encourage interest in it. The intended outcome is to essentially create an audience for the expert document.
The expert document aims to provide not only the information already available, but also useful advice, relevant contact information, and tools like checklists and lists of deadlines (if feasible). The intended outcome is to make it a less stressful proposition for a student to go through the application process.
2 comments:
I think the idea of a booklet is an awesome idea! I would have loved in my junior or senior year to receive a booklet about grad school options. I bet there would be an increase in applicants (and possibly students) in the history grad program if students were aware of the process and benefits of going to grad school.
The poster would be a great touch. Although it's just a Busniess and Technical Writing course, it seems important that within a business, posters and other visually appealing documents must be made. I think it would give a great display of your abilities.
Definitely pulling resources that the history department has and then some of your own would make a great little booklet. I wonder if your lay one could be more like "here are the benefits" and the expert document could be more like "here are the tiny details, like cost, time commitment, previous students' theses/disertations."
Sounds like a great plan!
I also think this idea is great. When I was considering what to do after undergrad I did not get any information from anywhere, not even Clemson, about graduate school, the GRE, or anything related about what to do next. There are a few job/career fairs, but nothing else. I basically went through the choosing a school, choosing a program, and application process on my own. Although these are not difficult tasks, the last time we, as students, went through a process like this was when we applied to college and we had the help of guidance counselors and sometimes even family members. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
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