In high school, I almost constantly had an adult leading me by the hand towards college, telling me how to build up my resume, when to interview and with whom, and helping me decide where to apply.

That’s not to say that applying to college was an easy process, but looking back as I prepare to apply for grad school, I can see that I took these resources for granted. While I know that there are resources here at Scripps and through Keck to help me on that search, the steps to figuring out which programs to apply to, and in finally applying to those programs, are far less well-defined, and no one is monitoring my process.

Another factor that makes the whole process more confusing is the fact that unlike senior year of high school, everyone’s planning to do different things after graduation, so I can’t just copy whatever my peers are doing. Instead of everyone filling out the same application and writing the same essays, I have friends who are applying to medical school or PhD programs, friends who are taking a few years to figure out what exactly they want to do, and friends who are going right into the job market. Exactly no one is applying to the type of program I’m looking at, and while this means less competition for me, it also means that I have a lot to figure out on my own.

However, if you are at least thinking about going to grad school, there is one lesson that is universally applicable across disciplines. I learned this lesson the hard way, but you don’t have to:

Start searching now. Perhaps more important than this advice itself, however, is its crucial qualifier: Don’t treat the search like a scary, momentous thing, or like a commitment to a given discipline. It doesn’t have to be.

Maybe this seems like an obvious suggestion to make. However, it was a difficult lesson for me to learn. A year ago, I was so scared of the future and so in-denial about my lack of plans or goals that I just avoided doing research altogether. The excuses I made were that I had plenty of time to figure things out, and that I was too busy anyways. I didn’t start my grad school search in earnest until my dad asked me over this past summer what I was planning to do after graduating. I didn’t have an answer. Instead, I sputtered out some defensive quip, broke down in angry tears, and ran to my room in a fit of adolescent-level indignation.

But thankfully, I am an adult and not actually a teenager anymore. So as soon as I was in my room, I opened my laptop and simply google searched “grad school science writing” (I had enough of an idea about my future that I already knew this was what I wanted to do). I clicked on the first program that popped up, clicked around the website, and within 20 minutes felt overwhelmed by excitement, motivation, and purpose. Call me impulsive, but the program seemed perfect. I knew that was where I wanted to go.

Next, still sitting on my bed, I clicked on the page on the website that listed the bios, credentials, and contact information of alumni, and I stalked each alum in awe of their achievements in journalism and science. I found one alum from last year’s class who seemed oddly similar to me– she had graduated from a small liberal arts college, worked in a couple labs, but had always felt torn between science and words. I shot her a polite email expressing how I connected with her bio, and asking her if I could ask her a few questions, Almost immediately received one back exclaiming that yes, she would love to talk! In just 30 minutes, my grad school search had begun. Not only had it been painless, but it was exciting to think about the future. Most importantly, I felt relieved of the burden of total uncertainty and denial.

Evidently, most people aren’t going to complete their grad school research in 30 minute time span, compelled by their panic-induced hyper-focused state. My point is that just beginning a search doesn’t need to be hard. Literally, it can be just a google search. Most importantly, it is definitely nothing to panic or throw a fit over. Whether you are a freshman, sophomore, or junior, think about what your interests are, and look around on the internet, or if you are more brave than I am, ask a professor. You can always change your mind, but I would have saved myself a lot of stress and panic if I had just begun my search earlier on.