How do I write my grad school CV?

October 28, 2009 9:26 PM

How do I write a CV for my grad school applications?

I have a good idea of WHAT to put on the CV I'm just utterly mystified as to HOW I format the damn thing, what comes first, second, third... Also, I have Word on a Mac OS but there don't seem to be any templates. Obviously if they don't exist I'll just format the damn thing myself but if there are some out there, it would be good to know...

posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth to education (5 comments total)

There aren't any hard and fast rules EXCEPT to put your education toward the top and work toward the bottom.

What I'd do is find some grad students in the discipline that you're going for and copy them. I'll me-mail you the link to mine.
posted by k8t at 10:07 PM on October 28

What field are you in? I find it helpful to scope out the faculty section of department websites. The good ones usually have CVs from at least a couple professors. Look at a few of them and decide how you want to format yours.
posted by theantikitty at 10:17 PM on October 28

Media Studies. I did just that, theantikitty, I guess I was just put off by the fact that I really only have my undergrad education plus one or two academic awards and then my retail work experience. I'm only two years out of undergrad...
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 10:34 PM on October 28

scope out the faculty section of department websites...
And the graduate students, often linked from the same site, or a google search away! Their CVs will be much more similar to what you need, and a lot less intimidating.

Are you still near your undergrad university? Resume review is one of the services you should be able to get from the career services center, even as an alum.

Be wary of templates. A lot of them are over-used (well duh) or ugly. You can download them from Microsoft itself, among other places.
posted by whatzit at 11:00 PM on October 28

I guess I was just put off by the fact that I really only have my undergrad education plus one or two academic awards and then my retail work experience. I'm only two years out of undergrad...

This isn't so uncommon. Unlike in the world of business, where a resume is ONE COMPLETELY FULL PAGE AND NOT A LINE MORE, academic CVs vary enormously in length. After two years of grad school, mine is finally pushing up towards a full page. At the start of grad school, it was a half page, which felt not-so-great but didn't keep me from getting admitted. My advisor's is ten pages and growing.

If you're looking for things to add, though, bear in mind that there's stuff that would look lame or desperate on a business resume that might be appropriate here. Leadership roles in clubs, especially ones related to your field? Any sort of volunteer service you did for your undergrad department? (The last line on my CV is an official-sounding title that boils down to "Organized that one potluck last year." A little higher up there's one that means "Folded a whole assload of conference programs.") Small roles in relevant projects? (Another line on mine is resume-speak for "Helped a friend debug some software.") Publications, even if they're just in student journals or

But seriously — don't sweat the length. If you've included everything and it's still short, that's not a sign you're doing something wrong writing it, it's just a sign that you're new in your field. No shame in that.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:05 AM on October 29