At the beginning of my graduate school orientation at Stony Brook University, the first speaker opened with the words, "College is about learning. Graduate school is about discovery." Now, almost a year later, I thought it would be fitting to evaluate what I see as the major differences between college and grad school. I don't know if my experiences are typical, but I hope writing about them can give some potential grad students an idea of what it might be like to move on in the world of academia.I graduated from Brandeis in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in math and enrolled in Stony Brook's Ph.D. program in mathematics. To a certain extent, I found the speaker's comment about discovery to be true, especially for doctoral students. A doctoral student always needs to have an eye for researchable problems and research areas that could become the topic of a dissertation. Excellent class performance is insufficient to earn a Ph.D.- doctoral students must participate in research. While many students come in knowing exactly what they want to research, students like me who do not can be at a distinct disadvantage. Every time I meet someone new in my department, the first question I am asked is what I want to research. It's always awkward saying that I just don't know yet.

I attended colloquia and talked to different professors about their research interests. After some consideration, I chose the operations research track over the more traditional differential equations oriented track in applied math. I enjoyed learning how to model problems graphically and geometrically and seeing the complexity of the algorithms to solve them. I also found it interesting that even in learning applied math, which is supposedly more employable outside of academia than pure math, they don't always teach you about real-world applications. For professors who teach applied math, the material can involve just as much abstraction as simply theoretical math. I personally haven't yet made up my mind as to whether I want to work in academia or use math in another field. But for people who work in another field and use applied math, it's important to research on their own specifically how to apply math to whatever industry in which you want to work.

Aside from the academic challenges that graduate school presents, I find the biggest difference between college and graduate school is the social atmosphere. Graduate school is definitely not the real world, but it is one step closer. Like most grad students, I live off campus, where there is no Department of Student Activities providing ready-made events at which to socialize with peers. At Brandeis, I was active in several religious and politically-oriented clubs. Here, most of the people I talk to are from my department.

If you're in math or science, it is likely that more than half of your program will be made up of international students. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the language barrier can sometimes make it difficult to form close friendships. On the other hand, the relatively small number of English-speaking grad students in the department can provide you with a sort of natural social group.

Among the people with whom I spend time before and after class, our conversations range from intellectual discussions to small talk. Most of the time, our conversations are about how to best allocate the stocks in the Dow (I'm taking a quantitative finance course) or how we can improve the running time on a particular algorithm we're working on for another class. Sometimes, our conversations go beyond what we are learning in class to normal chitchat.

Nevertheless, my closest friends in my life are still the ones I met at Brandeis, and I suspect that will always be the case. It is really important to make every effort to keep up friends from college, because once you're not seeing each other every day, it isn't going to happen on its own. A large chunk of my free time is spent on the phone with people who, not too long ago, I could just walk out into the hallway and see.

The transition to grad school was somewhat rough in the beginning. I didn't like being so far away from my best friends. I missed the Brandeis bubble. Grad school was a lot of work and seemed to offer little reward. I've learned to adapt and can appreciate the new lifestyle. The shift from learning to discovery was in fact a valuable experience. I haven't exactly left my mark on the field yet. However, it's exciting to know that I am working toward contributing to the general corpus of human understanding and not merely passively receiving it. Nothing will ever live up to my time at Brandeis, but every experience life offers can be rewarding in its own right. It took me over a semester to realize it, but now I'm definitely glad I chose to go to grad school.