Summer Pre-Doctoral Institute
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Wednesday, June 5 - Friday August 2, 2013
Application Deadline: April 15, 2013
The transition from undergraduate to graduate education can be challenging! Adjustments in living, learning, and socializing will have to be made as you move from one level of educational training to another, one type of institution to another, and/or one geographical location to another. As you embark upon this next phase of your career development, it is particularly important that you are provided the time needed to settle and become comfortable with the culture of graduate school and this very new way of living. The Summer Pre-doctoral Institute provides incoming graduate students an opportunity to make those adjustments using an approach that will be personally, socially, and academically profitable to graduate students and developing researchers.
Purpose of the Summer Pre-Doctoral Institute
The purpose of the Summer Pre-Doctoral Institute (SPI) at the University of Illinois (Illinois) is to provide incoming graduate students from U.S. populations underrepresented in graduate programs on our campus with an eight-week orientation to graduate study. The program provides participants with an early introduction to graduate study at Illinois and an opportunity to work with their assigned summer research advisor or a faculty mentor in their department. An orientation to the department through SPI will assist participants in becoming socialized into the departmental culture, as well as afford them an advanced opportunity to become quickly prepared for the rigors of their graduate program. During the eight-week summer session, each participant will be allowed to enroll in an independent study course assigned by their advisor and fulfill a rotation (for students in the sciences and engineering. Students will participate in a series of seminars on research methods and statistics, which provide them with a foundation from which to begin their dissertation research and will further enable the student to become acquainted with the expectations of their graduate program.
