Over the last 22 years, I have been the director of training programs in which I mentor undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students.  Mentoring and guiding students is my favorite thing to do at work.  I have served as mentor to hundreds of students over the years.   
Many college students ask me whether they should go to grad school.  I never answer that question.  It is a big decision for them to make.  I do tell them what they can expect in grad school that will be different from college.  This can help take some of the shock out of this transition and help students prepare for what's to come in graduate school, for those who decide to go that route. 
Here are 7 differences between the college and grad school experience:

1. You have to be self-motivated:  There's generally no "homework", quizzes, and few exams in grad school classes.  Some classes may only require a final paper or exam.  Although that may sound good to you, it is a major adjustment for college students. Because there is less interim feedback, some students find it difficult to gauge whether they are learning at the right pace in a course – until it is too late.  To succeed in grad school courses, you must find your own self-awareness of how much you are learning every day without the external pressure of frequent exams.
2. You must learn how to learn: Although some graduate courses may use textbooks, many also include original materials such as peer-reviewed articles as the main information sources.  To be able to extract the relevant knowledge from original research articles can be difficult for college students who may not be very familiar with this type of source.     
3. Learning from experts rather than teachers: Seminar-style courses can be tricky for students transitioning from college to graduate school.  These kinds of courses may have a course director who may teach a few of the lectures, but then schedules presenters who are experts in specific topics to give lectures as guest speakers.  Students need to adjust to this because the series of lectures and seminars can feel disjointed and discontinuous.  Another common difficulty that students face with this kind of course is that lecturers vary in their style and the presentations can vary in didactic value. It is up to you, the student, to piece it all together.  
4. Fewer classes per semester: I have reviewed some undergraduate transcripts that make your head spin.  There was the student who double-majored in Africana Studies and Fermentation Science, and the young woman who attempted to improve her low GPA in the sciences by taking credit classes in aerobic exercise.  You don’t get to do this in grad school.  In graduate school, you take fewer classes per semester and the classes are more focused towards training you with the knowledge and skills you need for your specific career.
5.  Digging deeper: Fewer classes doesn't mean more idle time.  In graduate school, classes tend to focus on more specialized topics, like anthropology or microbiology and get into the more intricate details of the theme.  If in college you did a flyby, in grad school you do a deep dive exploration.
6. One big huge project: Most graduate programs require a long-term scholarly project that students must complete before the degree is granted.  This can be a thesis, dissertation, scholarly paper, research project, etc.  Completing a dissertation requires a different kind of relationship with a professor.  The teacher becomes more like a mentor who guides the student through the process of inquiry.  The student then becomes more like an apprentice, working on some aspect of the mentor’s research.  Some college students never experience a mentor relationship until they get to graduate school and this can be a very difficult transition.  
7. A different kind of fun: The graduate experience can be very different (more subdued, less say...) than college life.  You will find that most students in grad school have a strong purpose to learn and less time to party.  It may not only be because the students are older, or that they are all nerds.  It is also because in grad school it is nearly impossible to cram for an exam the night before a test or to come hungover or sleepy to a graduate class or to a meeting with a thesis mentor.  The learning needed to succeed in grad school requires consistent discipline and self-directed study.  Although you can still have fun in grad school, the stakes are high and it is very difficult to get away with just a passing grade because you will need to acquire this knowledge for a job or a career.

The bottom line is, successful graduate students need to be motivated and driven from within.  It can be hard to transition into this model because students may be used to periodic assessments and short deadlines where they know how they are doing along the way.  In graduate school, a long time can pass before you realize that you are not learning all you need to learn or that you have not done all the work needed to complete a dissertation.  That is a rude awakening to have after years in grad school.

Graduate level education is certainly not right for everyone.  It is definitely not right for students who simply go to graduate school as a way to delay a career decision.  Graduate school is a huge investment in time and money, so students need to be aware of what to expect.  If you are not sure, work for a year or two and then decide and prepare for a very different school experience.  

An alumnus of Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Amaya Caballero Wittmaack is now a 3rd-year medical student at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Co-Founder of a data science company, A/B Data Doctors (www.abdatadoctors.com). She was a participant in the 2012 Mount Sinai International Exchange Program that I direct.  I placed her to do her internship at the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit in Murcia, Spain with my colleague Dr. Juan Antonio Ortega. This is the story of how a series of international experiences and the research training that we provided led her to go to medical school and start a data services company.  ​

My undergraduate adviser once said to me “it is not just what you do, it is how you do it.” She certainly applied these words to her own life as a proponent of equal rights, founder of the Global Fund for Women, and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Her advice helped me go from an 18-year-old idealistic college student to a forward-thinking 28-year-old medical student and business owner of a data science company.
I founded A/B Data Doctors with my husband in 2018 to provide data science expertise to individuals and organizations. We have worked with companies such as Zocdoc.Com, suitX, Skye Biologics, The Khana Group, and others around the world to leverage health-related data to support the design and implementation of evidence-based approaches to improving health interventions and access to healthcare resources. Currently, our organization also provides support to other sectors including private companies conducting market research, education-related organizations, and eHealth start-ups. Our services include data analysis, biostatistics, data visualizations, survey design and dissemination, study design and ethical approval support, and other data science needs.  Our long-term vision is to develop our own projects and proposals as well as apply the concept of leveraging healthcare data to improve health systems in the developing world.
My experiences thus far have taught me a few lessons.

• Firstly, you never know what opportunities life will throw your way—when they come, use the opportunity to strengthen yourself as much as possible and live out the experience to the fullest.
• Secondly, in retrospect, everything happens for a reason. It will all make sense later.
• Thirdly, remain open to learning from supervisors, mentors, and colleagues.
• Lastly, remember that “it is not just what you do, it is how you do it”.

I will tell you how I have learned these lessons.
My roots as an entrepreneur and healthcare worker began when I was a volunteer and non-profit worker. As a premedical student at Stanford University, I spent my free time volunteering with nonprofit organizations such as TeachAIDS, where I helped develop and disseminate HIV prevention education tutorials to youth in low income countries. When I graduated, I remained committed to participating in transformative initiatives, and I was interested in gaining more research experience. I learned about the Dr. Claudio’s International Exchange Program from a classmate at Stanford and decided to submit an application. A few weeks later, I learned that I was selected as a participant for the summer of 2012 in Spain. While at the time I had hoped to be assigned to a project in a low-income country, I later realized that my assignment was an ideal personal and professional development opportunity.
As a participant, I traveled to New York City to visit the School of Medicine at Mount Sinai for the program’s orientation. I met with other like-minded students, gained mentorship from Dr. Claudio and alumni of the program, and learned more about health disparities. Then, I flew to Murcia, Spain, where I began my summer research internship at the Hospital of the Virgin of Arrixaca working in the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit. My project focused on whether maternal breastfeeding habits predicted childhood obesity indicators. I shadowed clinicians, entered data from surveys, collected survey data using phone interviews, analyzed data using SPSS, and presented my results in a manuscript and presentation to my mentor. My experiences in Spain and the opportunity provided by the program shaped my career immediately following my time in Spain and to this day. Conducting research in an international context was invaluable both in developing my professional Spanish language skills and learning how to work in a cross-cultural environment. Having the opportunity to explore Spanish culture on the weekends, completing the famous “Camino de Santiago” pilgrimage, and spending three weeks following the completion of my project traveling around Europe enriched my worldview.
Immediately following the program, I was hired by USAID-funded nonprofit organization based in Washington D.C. that promoted family planning, community health, and gender-norm transformation interventions in India, Rwanda, Uganda, and Guatemala. Due to my hands-on experience conducting research in Spain, I pursued training in data analysis and qualitative research—fortunately, Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health had numerous individuals committed to teaching in these areas. Through this position, I saw the importance of leveraging data to appeal to stakeholders, to obtain funding for critical development programs, and to support initiatives that were both effective and cost-efficient. My passion for evidence-based healthcare continued to grow. Having loved my experiences in Europe, I ultimately decided to return one year later to pursue a master’s degree.
I pursued my MS in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine to acquire skills in healthcare data analytics. Later, I applied to medical school and am currently finishing my third year as a medical student at the University of Virginia. As a medical student, I continued to pursue opportunities to serve my community. I became a community health organizer where I organized screening programs for homeless residents. I was appointed as the president of the International Medicine Club and promoted our mission to encourage our best and brightest to use their skills in regions with limited healthcare resources. Personally, I was awarded the Center for Global Health Scholars Award to do research and healthcare in a rural center in Tanzania. I also worked for two years doing clinical research, where I helped found my University’s first pregnancy cohort and traveled across the country presenting my research. During my third year of medical school, I founded A/B Data Doctors and am currently applying for the MD/MBA program at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. I aspire to utilize my expertise as a future medical doctor, researcher, and entrepreneur to develop my business into an organization that leverages healthcare data to support initiatives that are both efficacious and cost-efficient. I aim to promote this mission both within the United States and also within developing regions.
So this is how I have learned these lessons, through making sense of these experiences to create my own story.  Firstly, you never know what opportunities life will throw your way—when they come, use the opportunity to strengthen yourself as much as possible and live out the experience to the fullest. Secondly, in retrospect, everything happens for a reason. I see now how being assigned to the project in Spain with Dr. Claudio’s International Exchange Program was the perfect experience for me, ultimately leading me to pursue other research opportunities, obtain my MS in the UK, become more involved in mitigating health disparities among Spanish-speaking patients, and most likely lead me to apply my skills in founding A/B Data Doctors. Thirdly, remain open to learning from supervisors, mentors, and colleagues—not only will their connections further your long-term goals, but learning from their experiences will enrich your own. Lastly, remember that “it is not just what you do, it is how you do it”—behaving professionally, with integrity, and being well-intentioned are essential aspects to being an inspirational leader. In my experience, adopting this philosophy has helped carve a professional and personal trajectory that excites me more and more as the days go by. 

I have been the director of several internship programs for more than 20 years now. I have reviewed thousands of applications from students at all academic levels.  What is striking to me is that I see the same mistakes year after year.  Different applicants, same mistakes. 
Here are three actions students should take when applying for internship programs.
1. QUALIFY- Read all qualification criteria carefully. Do not apply for internships for which you clearly do not qualify. If you are not sure if you qualify, read additional materials or contact the internship organizers. Applying to internships requires a lot of time and effort.  Don't waste your time if you do not fit ALL the criteria for acceptance into a program.  Rarely, if ever, do programs make exceptions to their entry criteria.  Here are some examples of entry criteria that applicants often try to sidestep or ignore:

• GPA- Many programs, such as those funded by the National Institutes of Health, require that interns have a grade point average of 3.0 or above.  This is non-negotiable.  Some programs even require a 3.0 GPA in the student's major, so trying to increase your GPA by taking irrelevant classes does not get you closer to being accepted into these programs.  If your GPA is lower than 3.0 and you want to qualify for these kinds of internship programs, consider receiving tutoring or repeating some courses in the summer and try again the following year.
• Start/End Dates- Summer programs can have firm start/end dates that do not necessarily fit with your school's schedule.  This is important because summer programs may require commitment to specific dates for important reasons such the need for interns to attend orientation, group training sessions, or a need for coordination with mentors' schedules.  Understandably, this is very frustrating for potential applicants whose home institutions require summer activities.  However, accepting a scholarship or internship, especially those that are paid or particularly competitive, require a commitment from participants.  Before applying, review your calendar and make sure that you can actually be available for the dates required in the internship program. If not, check with your school advisers to see if they can give you special permission to attend the internship, if you are accepted.  If so, get their agreement in writing.
• Previous Training Requirements- Some internships may require that you already have certain skills.  For example, if you are applying for a summer program on big data, do you need to have certain computer programming skills before attending?  If you don't have those skills yet, will you be enrolled in a course prior to the start of the program?  Are you likely to learn the skills required before the summer?  Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. Misrepresenting or exaggerating your level of training can seriously backfire if you are accepted into a program and don't do well. Strive to enter internship programs that are challenging, but within reach for you based on your current training level.
• Socioeconomic Status Requirements- A few programs are intended to address issues of under-representation of individuals that are socioeconomically disadvantaged on the basis of race, ethnicity, income, gender, citizenship status or other criteria.  Some of these socioeconomic criteria may only require self-identification while others may require documentation such as tax returns or passport.  If you are in doubt as to whether you fit these kinds of criteria, you may want to contact the program organizers for clarification.  

2. VERIFY- Application forms for internship programs can be brief with only a few documents to submit, or extensive with requirements for essays, transcripts, letters of recommendation, etc.  If the application platform allows, preview all forms and documents needed before you start the application process.  This will allow you to estimate how much time it will take you to fill the application and verify what documents you may need to request or find before you start.  If the application requires letters of recommendation or documents that you need to get from other people, make those requests first. That way, those documents will be in process, while you work on the application forms.  No professor likes to get a call or email from a student requesting a letter of recommendation that is "due tomorrow"!  Let them know with plenty of time that you will need their letters by a certain deadline. 
Once you preview the application requirements, verify everything as follows:

• Verify That Your Responses Are Accurate- Make sure that all of your responses are accurate.  Some common questions in which I have seen students not be quite accurate in their application forms are current GPA, the courses completed, dates of previous experiences, names of awards, etc. Inaccurate or false statements may get you in the door, as a finalist for a program, but nowadays many programs use verification services to check the information that you provide.  You don't want to be the one that is caught in a lie, whether intentional or not.
• Check and Double-Check- Review your resume, responses, and essays for typos and grammar.  Don't only check for misspellings, but also for grammatical errors and accurate names. It helps to run your application through a grammar and spelling program before pasting it onto the application forms.  It can also help to read it out loud to yourself or ask a friend to check it for you.  It seems like a no-brainer, but I assure you it's not.  I have received applications in which students misspelled their own name.  I have received applications with sidebar comments or reminders that students intended to fix later, but forgot. And, my personal favorite error, applications directed to other programs.  Every year, I get a few applicants that talk about how much they want to enter the program at Columbia or Yale, which would be fine, except that they are applying to my program at Mount Sinai.  This happens because students cut/paste the same responses into different application forms.  It is fine if you do that, but please, verify before you apply. 
• Answer the Questions- Strive to be clear and direct in your responses.  Remember, selection committees are trying to find out whether you are likely to succeed in their program.  Make it easy for them to read and understand your responses. For example, if you are asked to write an essay detailing your career interests, then talk about YOUR career interests.  I have received many essays that read like a thesis on the subject with paragraph after paragraph on generalities about the topic of the internship.  They tell me things that I already know.  Instead, I want you to tell me why YOU are interested in this topic, what makes YOU good at this, what has been your experience in this area of work, and how you plan to pursue a career in this area in the future.  Tell me how this internship will help you achieve your goals, and what you will bring to the program.  Prove to me that you will succeed in the internship.  Provide evidence and examples.  Details like these make for a winning essay rather than one that sounds generic or like a page ripped out of any textbook.

3. APPLY- Once you have determined that you qualify and you have verified that all your information is accurate, do not hesitate to apply.  Don't be intimidated.  Don't run out of steam.  Although many internship programs are very competitive, you will not get 100% of the programs for which you don't apply.  Send your complete application forms and all documentation on time before the deadline and you will have a chance.

Our previous research has shown that exposure to contaminants in outdoor and  indoor air can affect respiratory health, especially in children.  This is important because diseases such as asthma, bronchitis and other conditions are very common and affect many families. 
We have also previously written about the discovery that houseplants could potentially improve the quality of indoor air by filtering some common pollutants.  Different kinds of plants may be able to absorb different kinds of pollutants from the air and from soil.
More recently, I was interviewed by Julia Ries for an article on Healthline.  The article is about a recent study by researchers from the University of Washington in which they show that genetically-modified pothos ivy can absorb benzene and chloroform from the air.  For the article, I was quoted as follows:
   “Air pollution is a major contributing factor in diseases, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases such as asthma, and potentially brain development in children,” said Luz Claudio, PhD, a tenured professor of environmental medicine and public health at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
“We have better control of the environment inside our homes, so it’s worth having clean air indoors as much as possible,” Claudio said.
The original scientific article from the laboratory of Dr. Stuart E. Strand was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology and can be found HERE.  In their study, the Strand team showed that introducing a detoxifying gene that is normally expressed in mammals (a cytochrome called P450 2e1) into pothos ivy plants not only made the plant express the gene, but also made the plant able to detoxify benzene and chloroform from the air. 
Although this type of research holds promise as a way to improve our environment, genetically-modifying plants is a controversial approach.   We don't know if adding or modifying a gene in an organism can affect other properties beyond the characteristic intended for modification.  In spite of those concerns, genetic engineering holds immense promise as part of the arsenal of approaches towards improving environmental health.