WORLD'S ONLY MINORITY GRADUATE RESOURCE ENCOURAGES UNDER-REPRESENTED GROUPS TO SEEK DEGREES
Student Blogs Show It Can Be Done
CHESTER, PA, November 8, 2006 -
Minority students unaware of the graduate opportunities available to them now have a place to go for help and information.
GradPortal.org, a directory of graduate programs originally started through a FIPSE grant and now run by Educational Directories Unlimited, the leading online provider of higher education information, is the first website to offer advice for minority graduate students by minority graduate students. This GradPortal.org Mentoring Channel is available at http://www.gradportal.org/mentoring-channel.
Current graduate students are using the site to detail their experiences as part of a graduate program and an under-represented group via an interactive Web log, or blog. The goal is to show others in similar situations that completing a graduate degree is possible, and that they can and should attempt it.
"The most recent statistic from the U.S. Department of Education states that only 17% of all graduate degrees are awarded to minority students," says Mark Shay, CEO of Educational Directories Unlimited. "The main reason for this is because under-represented students are unaware of the opportunities, both academically and financially, that are available to them, and don't have a positive force urging them forward."
GradPortal.org aims to enlighten these students and show them that they are not only capable of getting into a great graduate program, but that they can receive financial aid, fellowships and scholarships to help them afford it. The students on the mentoring channel will share their stories with future students in an attempt to inspire them to pursue a degree.
The first two GradPortal.org bloggers are Jason Rivera, a PhD candidate and McNair Scholar in Social Psychology at Claremont Graduate University, and Cathryn Blue, a PhD candidate in Experimental Psychology at St. Louis University.
As a resident assistant, Rivera has experience offering advice to graduate students. He also had a hard time deciding whether to attend graduate school at all, and looks forward to sharing his story with others going through the same process.
"When I first considered graduate school, I had a hard time making the appropriate decisions," he says. "I hope this blog will give future students a resource to make their process easier than mine."
He goes on to say, "As a resident assistant, I learned that it was never helpful to simply give the answers, but far better to give students the ability to understand their options so that they could make the choice themselves, while modeling the behavior all along the way." He plans to use this method in his blog, letting readers learn from him instead of just telling them what to do.
Blue also has a great deal of experience mentoring people, both through a program called SOJOURN, which is organized through the department of African American Studies at SLU, and Nia Kuumba, a Catholic-based program focusing on the empowerment of African American women in the St. Louis community.
Blue says, "It is important for potential grad students to know what's going on in current grad students' minds. I wish I had something like this when I was an undergrad."
She adds that she feels she can learn as much from the readers as they can learn from her.
GradPortal.org offers the only directory of graduate school programs and funding options focused on under-represented groups. Anyone can use the site for free, and anyone can respond to the two bloggers to ask them questions or give them advice.
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