How to prepare for an Accounting PhD career?
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16 Oct 2010, 19:15
Hello everyone, I am very excited to find this wonderful forum.
I am an international student studying in a state university ranked top 10 in its undergraduate accounting program. I am highly interested in going into a PhD program after graduation. I am confident in maintaining a gpa of at least 3.7 at the time of graduation, and getting a GMAT score of 750+ because I really like accounting and I am doing ok in it. My concern is that I am not doing very good in Calculus (got a C last spring in Calc II b/c i underestimate it and didn't put into much effort as it was not a required course, my bad), also I feel like I should have visited the office hours more often and get to know the professors better. I need your kind advice:
1) Course-wise: should I retake Calc II, and take more Math & Econ classes? If I should, which classes do you recommend that will help prepare me for PhD in the future? This time I will take all my classes very seriously!
2) I am very bad at networking because I grow up in a very different culture (in where I came from, professors will like you a lot as long as you are very polite, agreeable, and doing an excellent job in the exams, no networking really necessary) when I go to office hour here I only ask homework/exam questions and don't know how to impress my professors. Can you please provide any advice to students like me who is a little bit shy of speaking up? Should I read WSJ carefully and start discussing current issues with professors? They all seem very busy and I feel weird to start discussing about things that are not related to course subject while other students are still waiting for the professor to answer their questions.
3) What personal traits/qualifications do you think is most important for a career in PhD?
4) Why are there so many more male professors than female professors?
Thank you very much!
Yours Sincerely,
Julie