Home - HON 290C - Research by Subject at Miami University

Welcome

You need to look at many different variables when obtaining a job or deciding where to go to graduate school. For graduate school, many factors depend on the kind of program you are going into. In some fields the reputation of the university will make a big difference. Other times it’s the individual program’s reputation that matters. In terms of getting a job, you want to be employed by a stable company that will challenge you and provide opportunities for advancement. You want to find a program that will challenge you intellectually, help you establish a career in a chosen field, not go broke, and be happy in your day to day life. Making the right decision will require careful research, and these resources should help you get started.

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Quality of Life Sources

Income/Cost of Living (CNNMoney.com; BankRate)

Compare Cost of Living between your hometown and potential new location
- http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_start.asp

Look for a young professionals group, and see what programming they offer.

What is there to do?
- Metromix provides a glimpse of nightlife in most major markets
- What restaurants are there? Look at UrbanSpoon
- Search for the Convention/Visitors Bureau in the city you are examining
- Use a travel site recommendation tool like 10best.com to see what is popular.

Newspaper for Area---can tell you about events going on in town (community calendars), police blotters, cost of houses and cars (classifieds), help wanted ads, etc. (Can do a Google search for “name of town” and “newspaper”. Can use library databases like LexisNexis News and Newspaper Source.) Also look for alternative papers that focus on the arts community.

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Get the Job!

Investigate the business that you are interviewing at: Go to Hoovers for a detailed profile:http://www.lib.muohio.edu/indexes/redirect/799
Think about retirement now http://www.forbes.com/2004/09/28/cx_sr_0928retirement.html
Investigate business complaints at the Better Business Bureau http://www.bbb.org/us/
Looking at a nonprofit? Take a look at the Nonprofit Almanac:

King Reference | HD2769.2.U6 N64 2008 | LIB USE ONLY

And don’t forget all the resources from Miami’s Career Center http://www.units.muohio.edu/careers/

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The College or University

Knowing what matters for your programs. (and how to investigate that)---Does it matter what school you go to? Does the reputation of the university as a whole matter, or just the program itself? (Chronicle of Higher Education; Best Graduate Schools---does include articles as well as rankings; websites of professional organizations)

Resources that are available to you (financial, materials (library), grants)---Search the website of the university carefully, really look at the pages for financial aid, the library, the graduate school, etc. Talk to graduate students. Go on a tour.

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Evaluating Programs or Schools

Professional Organizations (what do they suggest; what do they require; do schools need to be accredited?). (Occupational Outlook Handbook---look at the bottom of entries to see a list of relevant organizations; American Council of Learned Societies; American Chemical Society; IEEE (Engineering))

Investigate Professors/Labs---Look carefully at department and faculty web pages for information, look at relevant databases for your field to see what kinds of articles professors in that department publish.

Ultimate production (thesis, dissertations, examples of such). Look at Dissertation Abstracts for examples of dissertations from that institution and program.

Search the schools website for a grants office. See if faculty in your department are receiving grants.

Areas of research and what they are producing. If university has a Scholarly Commons/Institutional repository, search the collection to see what kinds of things are being published.

Search governmental websites (http://www.usa.gov) or (http://www.science.gov) to see if anyone from the school is completing government funded work. While a lot of this work finds its way to traditional journal databases, some does not, and is not easily accessbile via Google.

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