By Lan Anh (Bella) Do, Ph.D. Cognitive Psychology PhD Candidate

Applying to graduate schools, for me, was a process of searching for a P.I. whose research interests fit with mine. In other words, professors were the main motivation for all my applications, rather the schools themselves. At Tufts, I was interested in working with Dr. Ayanna Thomas who is currently the editor-in-chief of the journal Memory & Cognition. Her work in memory, learning, and metacognition was in line with my research experience and more importantly, she examines such topics in the context of stress, an important but understudied factor that is highly relevant to education. Fortunately, she offered me admission to Tufts, but it was not the only offer that I received. That was when I had to truly think about the question: Why Tufts?

Everyone has their own criteria when selecting a graduate school but perhaps the ultimate aim is to find a place that matches their needs and values. For me, an ideal program is the one that, first, allows me to work with not only my advisor but also other top-notch experts in the field of my interest, and second, financially supports me through the duration of my study. I see myself as a realistic person so typically I don’t need a beautiful story to back up my decision, but in this case I looked at the facts. Tufts is one of the R1 institutions that is well known for its high research activities. Also, at Tufts, the PhD in Psychology is a fully funded program, which allows students to work with payment as an RA and/or TA during the semester. Besides the stipend, Tufts provides a wide range of other funding for research related activities and travel grants for attending conferences. This is especially important for an international student like me because I probably wouldn’t be able to complete a 4- or 5-year PhD program if I had to worry about my budget.

When I think of Tufts, it feels like a tree to me – a huge oak with a big trunk and spreading boughs – a tree that can cover my head on both sunny and rainy days, but it also has a young vibe of a blue sky that allows people a lot of freedom to come up with new ideas. When I imagined myself flying away from South Korea, my second hometown, and moving to America, to live and study at Tufts for the next 4-5 years, I was not nervous, but rather excited. I listened to my instinct, and I picked Tufts to be the next destination of my journey.

After my first one-and-a-half months at Tufts, I have discovered many other advantages of being a student here, besides its prestige and generous financial support. Everyone is friendly and reaches out to me to ask if I need any help. I am able to call all the faculty in my department by their first names, so it is comfortable to communicate with them. This is a big difference and a nice surprise for me, a student coming from Asian cultures, specifically, Korean and Vietnamese, where there was always a hierarchy between students and professors, and such hierarchy forms the way we behave and talk to one another. There seems to be more room for open conversation and for students to express their opinions when they can talk to their professors in a more casual way.

Also, probably due to its smaller size, people at Tufts are very responsive. Whenever I have a problem and email the school offices to ask for help, they always respond quickly with a proper solution. From an international student’s perspective, this is a huge advantage of Tufts. I have faced quite a number of troubles since I moved to America, from course registration, mobile phone number, payment and countless other situations I have had to handle to start a new life. I’m glad that there is always someone whom I can reach out to for help.

In this semester (Fall 2021), I’m taking three classes and one of them is Advanced Statistics I. There is homework almost every week and a quiz every month. It may sound like a huge burden for some students, but as an educational psychologist, I’m aware that it’s actually a good teaching and learning method. Repeated retrieval practice and rehearsal can strengthen our memory and help us remember more of what we learned and for a longer period of time. Making such activities, however, can be demanding especially for the instructor (Dr. Daniel Barch). Thus, I’m grateful for the effort he spent on creating all the learning materials, and I expect to learn a lot from this course.

One bonus point that I like about Tufts is the huge and beautiful lawns on campus. It’s probably the first time in my life seeing this much green around me and having the freedom to walk on it. Hopefully, this amount of freshness can help everyone, including me, make the best of our education at Tufts, given the pandemic situation.