[Muzz]

hello expatforumer

I am a graduate in mechanical engineering and want to continue and do my masters in canada.

Now through research and reading on university websites it seems the only way to get admission in postgraduate studies is to convince a professor that they can use your skills for research.

I find this really strange and awesome at the same time, but how am i supposed to convince a professor that I can help him with his reasearch?! The only thing I can think of is going through thier research papers seeing where i can help but this seems so tiresome and long, also if the research is already complete and published, how am i going to contribute?!

I want to do a postgraudate so an MEng, MSc or maybe even a PhD in petroleum engineering and so have looked at university of alberta, sasketchwan, regina and some others. any advice on where to go to study petroleum engineering (with reasons) will be helpful. I have a particular interest in oil sands and that is why canada- because its the best place in the world for learning in that particular niche.

Some extra info: I graduated in 2010 and went travelling since, I do not have any experience as a mechanical engineer because it was not possible for me to get a job related to my degree
please help me, any information about postgraduate applications to good canadian universities will be appreciated

thanks guys

 

[EVHB]

The grad students I know, met their professor at a congress, or through their prof in undergraduate school...

 

[colchar]

You do not have to convince a prof. If you just apply they will match your research interests to those of a prof in their department. If you are an attractive enough candidate someone in the department will take you on. On other instances they will accept you and worry about getting you a supervisor later on.

That being said, the best way to do it is to email profs whose research interests match yours and to let them know you are interested in working with them. If one of them is it makes the likelihood of you being accepted into the program that much higher and, at times, quicker (when I applied to my PhD program I had my supervisors all lined up and received an acceptance letter eight days after the application date which is extremely fast).

 

[Muzz]

research interests

Thanks colchar and EVHB,

Colchar i am going to do exactly what youve suggested, i guess the real challenge is nailing what exactly i want to do research on, the oil industry is vast and my interest being very recent, I have very few places to start from.

I am going to find out more about research in the industry and in the university of my choice in particular.

thanks for your help. any extra advice on how to make a more educated choice when it comes to research/thesis topics will be helpful, again having graduated as a mechanical engineer (a very generic degree) my knowledge of the oil and gas sector is very limited.

thanks again