If you’re planning your path to graduate school—whether you’re a first-generation student, a working professional, or a lifelong learner—there’s a crucial factor you shouldn’t overlook: accreditation. In a recent episode of the "Victors in Grad School" podcast, Dr. Christopher Lewis sits down with Daniel Sessions, Accreditation Officer at the National Association of Academic Excellence, to demystify accreditation and explain why it matters so much to your graduate journey.

Understanding Accreditation—Your Assurance of Quality

Dr. Lewis opens the conversation by highlighting how many students overlook accreditation while searching for the right program. Daniel Sessions breaks it down simply: think of accreditation as a seal of approval on your education. It stands for legitimate quality assurance and long-term value. When an institution or a program is accredited, it’s been vetted by rigorous standards—giving you peace of mind that your time and investment will pay off after graduation.

The Difference Between Institutional and Programmatic Accreditation

One of the most important clarifications in the episode is the distinction between institutional and programmatic accreditation. Institutional accreditation is a broad assessment of a whole university or college. Programmatic accreditation, however, dives deeper into evaluating a specific program or area of study—often required for careers that rely on licensure or specific professional credentials, such as healthcare, accounting, or law.

Why You Need to Care About Accreditation

Dr. Lewis and Sessions stress that choosing an unaccredited or questionably accredited program can have real consequences, such as ineligibility for professional licensing, difficulty transferring credits, or even trouble qualifying for financial aid or future educational opportunities. Accreditation isn’t just about prestige—it can impact your ability to practice in your field after graduating.

Essential Questions for Prospective Grad Students

Sessions encourages prospective students to ask admissions officers what role accreditation plays in their programs, verify accreditation status with official accrediting bodies, and consider how the school’s reputation is reflected in the industry. Trust but verify—don’t be afraid to dig deeper!

Ready to Learn More? Listen to the Full Podcast

Whether you’re just starting to weigh your grad school options or you’re narrowing your choices, this episode offers practical advice and insider insight that will empower you to make informed decisions. Listen to the full episode of "Victors in Grad School" to hear Daniel Sessions’ personal journey, tangible tips, and deep dive into academic excellence.

Your pathway to graduate success starts with asking the right questions. Don’t miss this essential conversation—give the episode a listen today!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]: Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]: Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. And as always, every week, you and I are on a journey together as you are going through and figuring out those steps that you are taking to prepare yourself to go in, go through, and even go out of attending graduate school. And that's why this show exists. It's here to be able to give you some hints, some tips, some tools, some things that you can learn from that'll help you to find success in that graduate school journey. I love being able to sit down and talk with you every week because there are things that you can do right now, things that you can do to prepare yourself, to make sure you're asking the right questions and making sure that you're prepared for identifying the right schools for you if you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:02]: If you're at the very beginning or that you're making sure that you know what to do as you're going through that school and as you're looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. Every week, I love being able to bring you different guests with different experiences that can help you do just that. And today we got another great guest. Daniel Sessions is with us. And Daniel is an accreditation officer for the national association of Academic Excellence Incorporated. And we're going to talk about that because I've talked about accreditation in the past. If you've ever gone to any of the webinars that I've done or you've heard me talk about. Things to look for when you're looking at schools, when you're considering different schools.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:40]: And accreditation is one of those things that not everybody asks about. It's kind of in the background. Sometimes you see it on a website, but it is something that is important, and it's something that you should know about. So we're gonna be talking about that as well. But first and foremost, I'm really excited to have Daniel here. We're gonna have him talk a little bit about his own experiences as well. So, Daniel, thanks so much for being here.

Daniel Sessions [00:01:59]: Thanks, Dr. Lewis, for having me. I appreciate it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:00]: Well, I'm really excited to be able to have you here today, to have you talk about not only accreditation, but some of your own graduate school journey. And I know that you did your undergraduate work at Southern Illinois University and then you graduated Went out into that workforce, graduated, got some experience, and at some point you made a decision, you made a decision that you wanted to continue and go on and get further education. Can you bring me back to that point and what made you make the decision that you wanted to take that next step?

Daniel Sessions [00:02:31]: So I have to give a shout out to an identity piece that I have, and that is not only a first generation undergraduate student, but a first generation graduate student. And so at that point, where I decided to go back to graduate school was I had seen the benefits that formal undergraduate education had given me as I entered, entered into the workforce. And I knew I had a taste of the nice sweet fruit. And I realized that it could only be better if I furthered my education and deepened my understanding in a very specific specialization area. And so I went on about a 12 month experience process where I tried to decide, well, what was it? There are many different areas that you could go study that you could elect to do. In addition and above and beyond that, where could I go? And so ultimately I decided to enroll and go to graduate school to better my life and to give myself not only some upward mobility in a credential perspective, but, but also just to gain further light and knowledge in my life so that I could be the best professional that I could be through advanced education. Because I felt like I was made for that and I wanted to experience that myself.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:29]: Now you just talked about that. You went through that process of looking at programs, looking at schools, figuring out what you wanted to do and where you wanted to go, and I guess bring me to that point, talk to me about what you did as you were looking and, and exploring those different schools. And I know you ultimately decided to attend Northwestern University to get a Master of Science in Strategic Communication and Law. What made you decide that Northwestern was the right school? And what made you decide that Strategic Communication and Law was the right program?

Daniel Sessions [00:04:01]: So I was at a pivotal point in my adult career where I had spent the first just over a decade in clinical healthcare and had exited clinical healthcare to start teaching human anatomy and physiology at a local technical college. And I really had a departure point that I was grappling with. It was either double down and go back and go to graduate school in the form of clinical medicine, or specialize in a different area. And I loved working in education and I knew that higher education administration was something that I could see myself having a very long and rewarding career on. Now, around that same time frame, we were seeing a lot of change in the higher education space. And A lot of change in the regulatory space as it relates to oversight of education, the 2008 through 2010 and 11 timeframe. And I decided ultimately not to pursue and continue to pursue clinical healthcare, but to specialize in an area that would help me in higher education administration and strategic communications. I've always liked to talk, I've always liked to present.

Daniel Sessions [00:04:57]: And it was just something that I felt as though was part of who I am and what I do. And so to be able to rally the allegiance of my associates through words and present material and clear and concise manners was something that I was looking for. And so as I evaluated Northwestern and suburban Chicago, not only the reputation of the institution, but also the program, as I evaluated it, just seemed like it fit my needs very well. And I was very excited to jump in with both feet.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:23]: Now, every student, when they go from undergraduate into graduate work, there is a transition that you go through, a transition in the way in which faculty are expecting things of you, transitions in the way that you have to read, in the way that you have to write, in the way that you have to do a lot of different things. You were successful, you came into the program, you got through the program. As you made that transition from undergrad to workforce and then workforce back into graduate school, what did you have to do to set yourself up for success and what did you have to do to maintain that success throughout your entire graduate school journey?

Daniel Sessions [00:05:58]: I had to be very self disciplined in setting some boundaries for myself. If I knew I was going to be focusing on other responsibilities, I wouldn't be sort of half in my studies, my research, my assignments, my writing. If I was in school mode, I needed to be in school mode and remove all other distractions out of my life. At this time in the season of my life, I was a young father. I was working to make ends meet and go to graduate school at the same time. So my plate was quite full. And so I had to dedicate and create some boundaries for my own self so that I could give everything I had to my scholastic endeavors. And so that's really what I attribute a lot of my success to.

Daniel Sessions [00:06:33]: But also just some of those intrinsic motivation factors. Really wanting to do this not only for myself and for the process of learning and growth, but also for the process of my family and my young growing family. That really helped from a motivational perspective, to really buckle down, even when I was tired, to stick with it and take everything that I could out of the activities.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:51]: I mentioned earlier that you are working for the national association of academic excellence. And in that association, they are an association that is working on accreditation and accreditation for institutions, for programs. And it's not something that everyone talks about. It is not something that that especially academics talk about it, Universities talk about it. It's really important for universities for programs. But when it comes to students looking at graduate schools, when it comes to parents and students in high school looking at schools, it's not a question that is usually on the tip of their tongues. So I guess first and foremost, before we delve too deep into this, one of the things that I was really interested in having you talk about is for someone just starting to explore graduate school, how would you explain accreditation in the simplest terms?

Daniel Sessions [00:07:41]: The simplest terms I would use would be legit quality assurance and long term value. Those are the three main things that I would attribute to accreditation and what accreditation affords an institution as you're evaluating whether or not to attend graduate school there. Now, I can't talk about accreditation without rewinding the clocks back a hundred years. And when you go back 100 years ago, what did accreditation start as? And what was the main focus of accreditation when it was really entering the scene of higher education 100 years ago? And that was really quality assurance and academic excellence, Focusing on the academic rigor of the programs, the courses, the assignments, the faculty, the scholarship, you know, really putting a seal of approval on this is what you get when you are an accredited institution through this enterprise. Over the last hundred years or so, and especially in the last few decades, we've seen accreditation take on multiple different arms. And it's by virtue of just the competencies that accreditors have to offer institutions. And so we've seen over the course of that time period, accreditation start to be focused in some other areas as well, and some would argue focused in those areas more so than what they originally embarked on the journey of accreditation to do. And so I think accreditation is really, really important.

Daniel Sessions [00:08:56]: And specifically asking questions around how does that accreditation assure academic excellence within the institution? What role does quality assurance play in continuous improvement of the courses and the programs at that institution? And so accreditation, think about it as a seal of approval or an extra meas of academic excellence, as a distinction or as a distinguishing factor for that institution to talk about when you're thinking about matriculating into a graduate program.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:25]: I appreciate you sharing that. And I know that as someone hears the word accreditation, they're going to hear institutional accreditation and they're going to hear programmatic accreditation. What is the difference between institutional accreditation and programmatic accreditation. And why does that distinction matter to students?

Daniel Sessions [00:09:43]: That distinction matters greatly. And there are two very different specific lenses that those accreditors look at. Institutional accreditation. Think about it as a 30,000 foot view with microscopes down into specific areas. It is over the entire institution at large, their entire process of continuous improvement, their entire process of faculty qualifications and institutional effectiveness. It looks at the college and the university as a whole. Whereas programmatic accreditation is specifically focused on a discipline of study or a school of study within that institution. So let's say it's a business programs accreditation.

Daniel Sessions [00:10:18]: They look at the business programs in a similar way that an institutional accreditor will look at the entire institution. A programmatic accreditor will look at the entire operations within that given program. And it's considered or sometimes referred to as a specialized accreditor for that specific reason, because they have specific and distinct oversight of those areas that require specialized things in those specific programs.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:43]: Now, when someone first goes onto a website, programs that are accredited are going to make it very clear that they're accredited. Sometimes it can be in small print and still be on a page, and sometimes it's not, as always, easy to find. But usually a program will be very proud of the fact that they've been accredited by a agency. As you think about graduate students that are considering different programs, why should prospective graduate students pay attention to accreditation when choosing a program?

Daniel Sessions [00:11:10]: Well, you should pay attention to accreditation when choosing a program for a couple of reasons. One, programmatic accreditation is largely voluntary. It's voluntary in the fact that there are many programs out there that may not be programmatically accredited. And you have to understand why that matters. Now, as you're approaching, say, a specific discipline of study that has and or leads to some form of professional licensure within your state or within your country, it's really, really important to attend a programmatically accredited program. There are higher standards on the outcomes of those graduates that lead to licenses within their given discipline or their given employment field, say accountancy, for example, or some healthcare examples, or social work, mental health type providers, or even teachers. Right? By looking at programmatically accredited programs, you're basically understanding that they are meeting very specific outcomes that these accreditors will require of these programs that are competencies demonstrated and or retained by graduates of that program. And so if you're thinking about and evaluating programmatic accreditation of a given program, it's really, really also too important to know, does this program lead to some form of specific type of licensure or specific type of approval to be employed in that field.

Daniel Sessions [00:12:29]: And if so, that should even bump up your priority level of a programmatically accredited program even more so in thinking.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:35]: About that, it seems like you're saying that especially for those credential programs, there are definitely some risks or consequences of not enrolling in a program. So what are some of those risks or consequences that students should be aware of if they don't enroll in a program that has that proper accreditation?

Daniel Sessions [00:12:54]: The best example that I can give you is one within the clinical healthcare space. You know, and somebody that was educated internationally, they could find themselves not being able to be appointed to the boards here within the United States to practice in that clinical healthcare profession. They could find employers that are unwilling to employ graduates of unaccredited programs. And so while you may be able to navigate the academic journey and attain many of your scholastic endeavors that you want to obtain for your own personal sort of intrinsic value, the outcome of an unaccredited program may ultimately be difficulty in the life after graduate school. What does that look like after and how do I demonstrate that while I did have and achieve great learning, some employers may not even entertain discussing potential employment with you if you did not attend a programmatic the accredited program?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:44]: Well, another example, I worked at a law school for almost 10 years, and there are law schools that are accredited only in certain states. And if you attend a law school that is accredited only by, let's say, California, you can only practice in California and sit for the bar exam in California. You cannot sit for any other bar exam in any other state. You can only sit for the bar exam in that state. So you have to be really willing to stay in one state to use that license if you're going to sit for the bar exam. It doesn't take away the fact that you got a JD but it does take away the ability to be able to sit for the bar exam and take that credential with you and sit for other bar exams in other states. So that's just another example that could be a risk if you are not asking those right questions on the way. Are there other, other impacts that you can think of, Daniel, that this accreditation can impact, like financial aid or transfer of credits or other aspects that students should be thinking about?

Daniel Sessions [00:14:44]: Yes, absolutely. And so if continuing education, if you're, if you consider yourself like I do, a lifelong learner and you decide that you would like to even level up, let's say you're considering a master degree right now, but you're not closing the door on potential Doctoral studies someday, sometimes depending on where your ultimate terminal degree efforts will go toward, they may not accept a subordinate master's degree if it doesn't come from a institutionally accredited institution or even potentially a programmatically accredited program. And where I think there's sort of been an escalating factor in this area is I am a study of technology. I love the way we're leveraging technology and our learning nowadays and the ability and the freedoms that we've discovered in still maintaining academic rigor and academic excellence while leveraging technology in our studies. We also have to be very, very careful about selecting, for example, online education and what are the impacts like you've identified with a law degree that you may need to consider? What are the specific approvals that that online program offers? Yes. Does it have any residency based requirements? Does it have any long term employment related concerns like limited ability to procure the appropriate license or approval for your long term career journeys? So those are just a few things. As far as transferability of credit, when you start talking graduate school transfer of credit is less important than say undergraduate transferability just because of the number of institutions that sometimes students will attend before degree attainment. But it's still an appropriate conversation to have, especially as you're leveling up to the next level or going from a master's degree to a doctoral degree.

Daniel Sessions [00:16:20]: Some doctoral programs will recognize those subordinate masters and some will not. Just frankly will not. And so that's something you should definitely consider because don't shut the door on your own goals because you could find that you love higher level learning and want to continue up the doctoral level as well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:35]: So I talked earlier about this conversation really leads to the fact that you have to know the questions to ask and you need to make sure that you're asking the right questions as you're going through this process of identifying the right program for you. So what are some of the most important questions that students should be asking schools or programs about accreditation before committing to a program?

Daniel Sessions [00:16:56]: So I think a very high level question that will be very telling and how these programs or these schools or these admissions officers or these program deans that you may be talking with as you're deciding whether to enroll or not? One of the higher level questions that you can ask is what role does accreditation play in your program or your institution? And hear their answer. If it's something that they have to take a minute to think about, well then maybe that's telling you something without actually telling you something by virtue of how they arrive at Their answer will tell you whether or not accreditation is something they think about every ten year cycle, or every five year report cycle, which are the typical reporting cycles in the accreditation world, or whether it's something that is really ingrained into the courses, the academic rigor, the continuous improvement that they engage in on an ongoing basis to make their program and their institution as best as it can be. You know a second question that you can ask, are really outcomes related and outcomes focused? You know, what do graduates of your programs typically do? And do you have examples of what types of graduate outcomes, what students have gone on to do after graduation? And so those are just a couple of things to say. Help me tangibly understand what role does accreditation play in the ongoing continuous improvement of your institution and your program, but also what does your program do in the lives of the graduates? Because I'm a firm believer that you can talk about how good your program is and talk about all the wonderful things that you do as part of that academic journey, but really how does it impact the lives of your students and your graduates? And that will be a very telling story.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:25]: One of the things that I know that sometimes you'll see on different websites as you look at different programs is that you may see something that says that a accreditation is pending or a program is on probation. What does that really mean? And should students be cautious when they see words like this?

Daniel Sessions [00:18:47]: So pending accreditation status is less problematic so than say a probation or a show cause or a specific type of monitoring distinction. Anytime you see probation, show cause, monitoring related statuses within accreditation, that means something, something has gone wrong. It may not necessarily mean that there's a systemic issue, but what it may mean is that they failed to demonstrate something specific to the standards or criteria or measures that the accreditor expects of partner and member based institutions or programs. And so that's definitely a point of question. Ask about that, ask about what led to that status. Ask about what they're doing now to resolve that status or when they expect that that status will be changed to a regular accreditation status. Now, the pending status, that may just mean it's a new accreditation for them. A lot of accreditations like the NAE that I work for, we will enter institutions into a pending status for a period of time while you, those institutions assess specific student outcomes and help those, there's that data about student success tell the story of academic excellence.

Daniel Sessions [00:19:54]: And so a pending status may just mean that it's either a new process for them or they're, they're going in a, in A RE certification process with that accreditation review cycle. And so it may just be a seasonality type thing where. Where they're currently in that RE review process. So pending is less concerning to me as it would be any type of what I would consider to be a negative distinction, like a show cause like a probation, like a heightened monitoring type status, because that's usually an indicator that something has gone awry.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:22]: Speaking of accreditation status, how can students verify that a program's accreditation status is both legitimate, but also make sure that what is being shared on the website by the program is accurate and not misleading?

Daniel Sessions [00:20:38]: I'm a big fan of the Ronald Reagan quote, trust but verify. I think it's important to ask the institution about their programmatic status, but I have yet to find an accreditor out there in the higher education space that also doesn't give students and consumers the ability to look up the status of an institution. So ask them, but then verify that. Go to the actual accreditor, look and find the area wherein you can verify. And oftentimes under the accreditation tab of many institutional websites, they'll have a direct link to their accreditor's website where you can verify from the accreditor themselves, not the institution, what their current status is. And oftentimes publicly available documents like decision letters, like if there is a negative accreditation status, usually there'll be some form of documentation on the accreditor website that sheds a little bit of light. Obviously not down into the details or not into specifically personally protected information, but information on, well, maybe this institution failed to demonstrate successful outcomes of their graduation rates or something like that. So trust but verify.

Daniel Sessions [00:21:39]: Ask the institution. I think you owe it to the institution and the program to ask them themselves. Tell us your story about your accreditation and then go verify that with the actual accreditor themselves and you'll be surprised. You can find a lot of information if you just click 1, 2, or maybe even at most 3 clicks down to find the information that you're looking for.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:57]: One of the other questions that I have is that there are sometimes numerous types of accreditors that are out there, many types of accreditors for institutions, but there's also at times different accreditors for programs, and then there's programs that have no accrediting body. So how do you sift through the milieu in regards to all the different plethora of different accrediting bodies that are out there to know what you're actually seeing and able to really know what matters as you're looking at the Fact that, yeah, the institution is accredited by AACSB or some other agency, but what does that really mean and what should they be looking for in that regard?

Daniel Sessions [00:22:44]: Yeah, so accreditation is definitely something that we're hearing a lot about in higher education right now. And one of the things we call it the regulatory triad in higher education, there's the federal level, the U.S. department of Education, there's the accreditors, you know, the institutional and programmatic accreditation. But then there's also the state approving agencies where these institutions operate their schools. And so if you're unsure about a specific accreditor and whether or not they have the distinction that they say they do, well, you can go out and take a look at do they have federal approval through the U.S. department of Education? Are they a part of different creditor type associations like chia, which is a great distinction that you can find from an accreditation perspective. Now that's more so for an institutional accreditation from a programmatic accreditation. It's also about how is it regarded within the industry with which that they accredit programs? How does the business community look at that specific business accreditor? How does the health professions community look at this specific accreditor? And so there's always one, two or three ways in which you can sort of corroborate whether or not a specific accreditor has the distinction and the reputation that they themselves will say in the marketplace that they have.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:55]: So as I think about accreditation a little bit further, in your perspective, how does accreditation adapt to new fields of study or emerging disciplines in graduate education, undergraduate education, like you said that maybe they don't have an accreditation body yet because they're a new field of study.

Daniel Sessions [00:24:13]: So I think that's part of what I like to call, and we talk a lot about at the NAAE is continuous quality improvement. How does the institution find ways to apply the pedagogies that they engage when teaching and learning at their institution, but also the scholastic endeavors, the research, and how do they create these new programs in these new discipline areas? You know, think about, you know, 10 years ago, we weren't talking a lot about artificial intelligence engines and algorithms that create these types. And now, you know, you're getting degree programs in these specific areas. So how does that come to be? That can come to be from industry review boards partnering with institution or with providers of specific business sector things. What do they need in graduates to fill their entry level or managerial type roles? It can be in calling upon a new and additional research that the, the faculty will engage in to discover more about that discipline of study or that program of study. And so it's what I would say is germane to the sort of the academic experience as we develop into new areas, new technologies, new fields of study. How did they arrive at that? How are they continuously looking for ways in which to make their program the best that it can be for the students who ultimately raise their hand voluntarily and say, I want to learn that, I want to do that and I want to, to take that back out into the, into the world and be a contributing member of society.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:31]: So talking about your organization, I mentioned the fact that there are different organizations. There are university accreditors, there's programmatic accreditors, and each one looks at things a little bit differently. Talk to me about your organization. What makes your organization different in how you look at programs or how you look at institutions and how it stands apart from other agencies?

Daniel Sessions [00:25:55]: Sure. So the national association of Academic Excellence has sort of that differentiator that I'll share with you in the name itself, and that is academic excellence. That story that I told you earlier about going 100 years ago, when accreditation first started, that was really the central focus was that academic excellence piece. And it's our opinion over the years that accreditation has, while continued to pay attention to academic excellence, placed importance on other federal compliance areas. As at the federal level, different demands were being placed on accreditors. So one of the things that the main differentiator of the NAAE is the data set with which we will assess and seek quality assurance in the way that outcomes are being generated from an institution. Oftentimes you have to submit a self study or an assurance argument that talks about and shows data as to why and how you do what you do and back it up by evidence. And oftentimes that evidence that's examined is backwards looking or what happened last academic year and tell us a story about how that assures that you meet the standards and the measures of the accreditation.

Daniel Sessions [00:26:57]: Whereas at the NAE, we actually ask you to make a plan and make a hypothesis and say this is how we intend to drive the outcomes that we're looking to drive within our programs and then go assess it for an academic year or two and at the end of that data set, that academic year or two, come back and tell us your story, what you thought you were going to do, did it actually happen and what were the main drivers to make that happen in the real lives of the students that were in those programs within your institution, and if it didn't, what went wrong? And what will you do different next academic year to improve those outcomes? And so rather than crafting a story and an argument about your compliance with the standards and the measures by looking backwards at stuff that's already happened, we ask you to take a snapshot in real time about where you're going and then go there and then tell us whether or not you were right or wrong and what you're going to do differently as you attempt to continuously improve over the next few academic years. And so that's. And when people ask what's the main differentiator of our emerging accreditation, that's what I believe is the big differentiator.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:57]: Finally, in regards to accreditation, what final piece of advice would you give to prospective graduate students about accreditation and making an informed choice?

Daniel Sessions [00:28:08]: I would just remind you that accreditation matters again. Where accreditation started was the pursuit of academic excellence, academic rigor and faculty thought leadership. As you continue on that educational journey and ensuring that the faculty are unbridled from undue political pressure or that they are giving back to the communities in the discipline which they're studying and that accreditation should help tell that story. And don't just rely upon the word of one or two trust, but verify. Ask the questions. Don't shy away from asking the questions, but then go verify for yourself. Talk to employers, talk to industry experts, go look at the accreditations website and see what they talk about that institution so that you can be an informing factor to you in selecting your graduate school experience and that by attending a school or university that is accredited, you can have some assurance that it has been validated by a third party source.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:04]: Well, Daniel, I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for sharing not only your own journey, but sharing so much about accreditation, why it's important, and why anyone that's thinking about graduate school should be thinking about accreditation and should be asking questions about accreditation because it is important. And I truly appreciate you sharing this because I know that it will add some additional questions that people should be asking and hopefully now will be asking as they are going through this process for themselves. So thank you. Thank you for your time and I wish you all the best.

Daniel Sessions [00:29:37]: Yeah, thank you for having me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:39]:

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]: Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]: Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. And as always, every week, you and I are on a journey together as you are going through and figuring out those steps that you are taking to prepare yourself to go in, go through, and even go out of attending graduate school. And that's why this show exists. It's here to be able to give you some hints, some tips, some tools, some things that you can learn from that'll help you to find success in that graduate school journey. I love being able to sit down and talk with you every week because there are things that you can do right now, things that you can do to prepare yourself, to make sure you're asking the right questions and making sure that you're prepared for identifying the right schools for you if you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:02]: If you're at the very beginning or that you're making sure that you know what to do as you're going through that school and as you're looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. Every week, I love being able to bring you different guests with different experiences that can help you do just that. And today we got another great guest. Daniel Sessions is with us. And Daniel is an accreditation officer for the national association of Academic Excellence Incorporated. And we're going to talk about that because I've talked about accreditation in the past. If you've ever gone to any of the webinars that I've done or you've heard me talk about. Things to look for when you're looking at schools, when you're considering different schools.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:40]: And accreditation is one of those things that not everybody asks about. It's kind of in the background. Sometimes you see it on a website, but it is something that is important, and it's something that you should know about. So we're gonna be talking about that as well. But first and foremost, I'm really excited to have Daniel here. We're gonna have him talk a little bit about his own experiences as well. So, Daniel, thanks so much for being here.

Daniel Sessions [00:01:59]: Thanks, Dr. Lewis, for having me. I appreciate it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:00]: Well, I'm really excited to be able to have you here today, to have you talk about not only accreditation, but some of your own graduate school journey. And I know that you did your undergraduate work at Southern Illinois University and then you graduated Went out into that workforce, graduated, got some experience, and at some point you made a decision, you made a decision that you wanted to continue and go on and get further education. Can you bring me back to that point and what made you make the decision that you wanted to take that next step?

Daniel Sessions [00:02:31]: So I have to give a shout out to an identity piece that I have, and that is not only a first generation undergraduate student, but a first generation graduate student. And so at that point, where I decided to go back to graduate school was I had seen the benefits that formal undergraduate education had given me as I entered, entered into the workforce. And I knew I had a taste of the nice sweet fruit. And I realized that it could only be better if I furthered my education and deepened my understanding in a very specific specialization area. And so I went on about a 12 month experience process where I tried to decide, well, what was it? There are many different areas that you could go study that you could elect to do. In addition and above and beyond that, where could I go? And so ultimately I decided to enroll and go to graduate school to better my life and to give myself not only some upward mobility in a credential perspective, but, but also just to gain further light and knowledge in my life so that I could be the best professional that I could be through advanced education. Because I felt like I was made for that and I wanted to experience that myself.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:29]: Now you just talked about that. You went through that process of looking at programs, looking at schools, figuring out what you wanted to do and where you wanted to go, and I guess bring me to that point, talk to me about what you did as you were looking and, and exploring those different schools. And I know you ultimately decided to attend Northwestern University to get a Master of Science in Strategic Communication and Law. What made you decide that Northwestern was the right school? And what made you decide that Strategic Communication and Law was the right program?

Daniel Sessions [00:04:01]: So I was at a pivotal point in my adult career where I had spent the first just over a decade in clinical healthcare and had exited clinical healthcare to start teaching human anatomy and physiology at a local technical college. And I really had a departure point that I was grappling with. It was either double down and go back and go to graduate school in the form of clinical medicine, or specialize in a different area. And I loved working in education and I knew that higher education administration was something that I could see myself having a very long and rewarding career on. Now, around that same time frame, we were seeing a lot of change in the higher education space. And A lot of change in the regulatory space as it relates to oversight of education, the 2008 through 2010 and 11 timeframe. And I decided ultimately not to pursue and continue to pursue clinical healthcare, but to specialize in an area that would help me in higher education administration and strategic communications. I've always liked to talk, I've always liked to present.

Daniel Sessions [00:04:57]: And it was just something that I felt as though was part of who I am and what I do. And so to be able to rally the allegiance of my associates through words and present material and clear and concise manners was something that I was looking for. And so as I evaluated Northwestern and suburban Chicago, not only the reputation of the institution, but also the program, as I evaluated it, just seemed like it fit my needs very well. And I was very excited to jump in with both feet.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:23]: Now, every student, when they go from undergraduate into graduate work, there is a transition that you go through, a transition in the way in which faculty are expecting things of you, transitions in the way that you have to read, in the way that you have to write, in the way that you have to do a lot of different things. You were successful, you came into the program, you got through the program. As you made that transition from undergrad to workforce and then workforce back into graduate school, what did you have to do to set yourself up for success and what did you have to do to maintain that success throughout your entire graduate school journey?

Daniel Sessions [00:05:58]: I had to be very self disciplined in setting some boundaries for myself. If I knew I was going to be focusing on other responsibilities, I wouldn't be sort of half in my studies, my research, my assignments, my writing. If I was in school mode, I needed to be in school mode and remove all other distractions out of my life. At this time in the season of my life, I was a young father. I was working to make ends meet and go to graduate school at the same time. So my plate was quite full. And so I had to dedicate and create some boundaries for my own self so that I could give everything I had to my scholastic endeavors. And so that's really what I attribute a lot of my success to.

Daniel Sessions [00:06:33]: But also just some of those intrinsic motivation factors. Really wanting to do this not only for myself and for the process of learning and growth, but also for the process of my family and my young growing family. That really helped from a motivational perspective, to really buckle down, even when I was tired, to stick with it and take everything that I could out of the activities.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:51]: I mentioned earlier that you are working for the national association of academic excellence. And in that association, they are an association that is working on accreditation and accreditation for institutions, for programs. And it's not something that everyone talks about. It is not something that that especially academics talk about it, Universities talk about it. It's really important for universities for programs. But when it comes to students looking at graduate schools, when it comes to parents and students in high school looking at schools, it's not a question that is usually on the tip of their tongues. So I guess first and foremost, before we delve too deep into this, one of the things that I was really interested in having you talk about is for someone just starting to explore graduate school, how would you explain accreditation in the simplest terms?

Daniel Sessions [00:07:41]: The simplest terms I would use would be legit quality assurance and long term value. Those are the three main things that I would attribute to accreditation and what accreditation affords an institution as you're evaluating whether or not to attend graduate school there. Now, I can't talk about accreditation without rewinding the clocks back a hundred years. And when you go back 100 years ago, what did accreditation start as? And what was the main focus of accreditation when it was really entering the scene of higher education 100 years ago? And that was really quality assurance and academic excellence, Focusing on the academic rigor of the programs, the courses, the assignments, the faculty, the scholarship, you know, really putting a seal of approval on this is what you get when you are an accredited institution through this enterprise. Over the last hundred years or so, and especially in the last few decades, we've seen accreditation take on multiple different arms. And it's by virtue of just the competencies that accreditors have to offer institutions. And so we've seen over the course of that time period, accreditation start to be focused in some other areas as well, and some would argue focused in those areas more so than what they originally embarked on the journey of accreditation to do. And so I think accreditation is really, really important.

Daniel Sessions [00:08:56]: And specifically asking questions around how does that accreditation assure academic excellence within the institution? What role does quality assurance play in continuous improvement of the courses and the programs at that institution? And so accreditation, think about it as a seal of approval or an extra meas of academic excellence, as a distinction or as a distinguishing factor for that institution to talk about when you're thinking about matriculating into a graduate program.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:25]: I appreciate you sharing that. And I know that as someone hears the word accreditation, they're going to hear institutional accreditation and they're going to hear programmatic accreditation. What is the difference between institutional accreditation and programmatic accreditation. And why does that distinction matter to students?

Daniel Sessions [00:09:43]: That distinction matters greatly. And there are two very different specific lenses that those accreditors look at. Institutional accreditation. Think about it as a 30,000 foot view with microscopes down into specific areas. It is over the entire institution at large, their entire process of continuous improvement, their entire process of faculty qualifications and institutional effectiveness. It looks at the college and the university as a whole. Whereas programmatic accreditation is specifically focused on a discipline of study or a school of study within that institution. So let's say it's a business programs accreditation.

Daniel Sessions [00:10:18]: They look at the business programs in a similar way that an institutional accreditor will look at the entire institution. A programmatic accreditor will look at the entire operations within that given program. And it's considered or sometimes referred to as a specialized accreditor for that specific reason, because they have specific and distinct oversight of those areas that require specialized things in those specific programs.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:43]: Now, when someone first goes onto a website, programs that are accredited are going to make it very clear that they're accredited. Sometimes it can be in small print and still be on a page, and sometimes it's not, as always, easy to find. But usually a program will be very proud of the fact that they've been accredited by a agency. As you think about graduate students that are considering different programs, why should prospective graduate students pay attention to accreditation when choosing a program?

Daniel Sessions [00:11:10]: Well, you should pay attention to accreditation when choosing a program for a couple of reasons. One, programmatic accreditation is largely voluntary. It's voluntary in the fact that there are many programs out there that may not be programmatically accredited. And you have to understand why that matters. Now, as you're approaching, say, a specific discipline of study that has and or leads to some form of professional licensure within your state or within your country, it's really, really important to attend a programmatically accredited program. There are higher standards on the outcomes of those graduates that lead to licenses within their given discipline or their given employment field, say accountancy, for example, or some healthcare examples, or social work, mental health type providers, or even teachers. Right? By looking at programmatically accredited programs, you're basically understanding that they are meeting very specific outcomes that these accreditors will require of these programs that are competencies demonstrated and or retained by graduates of that program. And so if you're thinking about and evaluating programmatic accreditation of a given program, it's really, really also too important to know, does this program lead to some form of specific type of licensure or specific type of approval to be employed in that field.

Daniel Sessions [00:12:29]: And if so, that should even bump up your priority level of a programmatically accredited program even more so in thinking.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:35]: About that, it seems like you're saying that especially for those credential programs, there are definitely some risks or consequences of not enrolling in a program. So what are some of those risks or consequences that students should be aware of if they don't enroll in a program that has that proper accreditation?

Daniel Sessions [00:12:54]: The best example that I can give you is one within the clinical healthcare space. You know, and somebody that was educated internationally, they could find themselves not being able to be appointed to the boards here within the United States to practice in that clinical healthcare profession. They could find employers that are unwilling to employ graduates of unaccredited programs. And so while you may be able to navigate the academic journey and attain many of your scholastic endeavors that you want to obtain for your own personal sort of intrinsic value, the outcome of an unaccredited program may ultimately be difficulty in the life after graduate school. What does that look like after and how do I demonstrate that while I did have and achieve great learning, some employers may not even entertain discussing potential employment with you if you did not attend a programmatic the accredited program?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:44]: Well, another example, I worked at a law school for almost 10 years, and there are law schools that are accredited only in certain states. And if you attend a law school that is accredited only by, let's say, California, you can only practice in California and sit for the bar exam in California. You cannot sit for any other bar exam in any other state. You can only sit for the bar exam in that state. So you have to be really willing to stay in one state to use that license if you're going to sit for the bar exam. It doesn't take away the fact that you got a JD but it does take away the ability to be able to sit for the bar exam and take that credential with you and sit for other bar exams in other states. So that's just another example that could be a risk if you are not asking those right questions on the way. Are there other, other impacts that you can think of, Daniel, that this accreditation can impact, like financial aid or transfer of credits or other aspects that students should be thinking about?

Daniel Sessions [00:14:44]: Yes, absolutely. And so if continuing education, if you're, if you consider yourself like I do, a lifelong learner and you decide that you would like to even level up, let's say you're considering a master degree right now, but you're not closing the door on potential Doctoral studies someday, sometimes depending on where your ultimate terminal degree efforts will go toward, they may not accept a subordinate master's degree if it doesn't come from a institutionally accredited institution or even potentially a programmatically accredited program. And where I think there's sort of been an escalating factor in this area is I am a study of technology. I love the way we're leveraging technology and our learning nowadays and the ability and the freedoms that we've discovered in still maintaining academic rigor and academic excellence while leveraging technology in our studies. We also have to be very, very careful about selecting, for example, online education and what are the impacts like you've identified with a law degree that you may need to consider? What are the specific approvals that that online program offers? Yes. Does it have any residency based requirements? Does it have any long term employment related concerns like limited ability to procure the appropriate license or approval for your long term career journeys? So those are just a few things. As far as transferability of credit, when you start talking graduate school transfer of credit is less important than say undergraduate transferability just because of the number of institutions that sometimes students will attend before degree attainment. But it's still an appropriate conversation to have, especially as you're leveling up to the next level or going from a master's degree to a doctoral degree.

Daniel Sessions [00:16:20]: Some doctoral programs will recognize those subordinate masters and some will not. Just frankly will not. And so that's something you should definitely consider because don't shut the door on your own goals because you could find that you love higher level learning and want to continue up the doctoral level as well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:35]: So I talked earlier about this conversation really leads to the fact that you have to know the questions to ask and you need to make sure that you're asking the right questions as you're going through this process of identifying the right program for you. So what are some of the most important questions that students should be asking schools or programs about accreditation before committing to a program?

Daniel Sessions [00:16:56]: So I think a very high level question that will be very telling and how these programs or these schools or these admissions officers or these program deans that you may be talking with as you're deciding whether to enroll or not? One of the higher level questions that you can ask is what role does accreditation play in your program or your institution? And hear their answer. If it's something that they have to take a minute to think about, well then maybe that's telling you something without actually telling you something by virtue of how they arrive at Their answer will tell you whether or not accreditation is something they think about every ten year cycle, or every five year report cycle, which are the typical reporting cycles in the accreditation world, or whether it's something that is really ingrained into the courses, the academic rigor, the continuous improvement that they engage in on an ongoing basis to make their program and their institution as best as it can be. You know a second question that you can ask, are really outcomes related and outcomes focused? You know, what do graduates of your programs typically do? And do you have examples of what types of graduate outcomes, what students have gone on to do after graduation? And so those are just a couple of things to say. Help me tangibly understand what role does accreditation play in the ongoing continuous improvement of your institution and your program, but also what does your program do in the lives of the graduates? Because I'm a firm believer that you can talk about how good your program is and talk about all the wonderful things that you do as part of that academic journey, but really how does it impact the lives of your students and your graduates? And that will be a very telling story.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:25]: One of the things that I know that sometimes you'll see on different websites as you look at different programs is that you may see something that says that a accreditation is pending or a program is on probation. What does that really mean? And should students be cautious when they see words like this?

Daniel Sessions [00:18:47]: So pending accreditation status is less problematic so than say a probation or a show cause or a specific type of monitoring distinction. Anytime you see probation, show cause, monitoring related statuses within accreditation, that means something, something has gone wrong. It may not necessarily mean that there's a systemic issue, but what it may mean is that they failed to demonstrate something specific to the standards or criteria or measures that the accreditor expects of partner and member based institutions or programs. And so that's definitely a point of question. Ask about that, ask about what led to that status. Ask about what they're doing now to resolve that status or when they expect that that status will be changed to a regular accreditation status. Now, the pending status, that may just mean it's a new accreditation for them. A lot of accreditations like the NAE that I work for, we will enter institutions into a pending status for a period of time while you, those institutions assess specific student outcomes and help those, there's that data about student success tell the story of academic excellence.

Daniel Sessions [00:19:54]: And so a pending status may just mean that it's either a new process for them or they're, they're going in a, in A RE certification process with that accreditation review cycle. And so it may just be a seasonality type thing where. Where they're currently in that RE review process. So pending is less concerning to me as it would be any type of what I would consider to be a negative distinction, like a show cause like a probation, like a heightened monitoring type status, because that's usually an indicator that something has gone awry.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:22]: Speaking of accreditation status, how can students verify that a program's accreditation status is both legitimate, but also make sure that what is being shared on the website by the program is accurate and not misleading?

Daniel Sessions [00:20:38]: I'm a big fan of the Ronald Reagan quote, trust but verify. I think it's important to ask the institution about their programmatic status, but I have yet to find an accreditor out there in the higher education space that also doesn't give students and consumers the ability to look up the status of an institution. So ask them, but then verify that. Go to the actual accreditor, look and find the area wherein you can verify. And oftentimes under the accreditation tab of many institutional websites, they'll have a direct link to their accreditor's website where you can verify from the accreditor themselves, not the institution, what their current status is. And oftentimes publicly available documents like decision letters, like if there is a negative accreditation status, usually there'll be some form of documentation on the accreditor website that sheds a little bit of light. Obviously not down into the details or not into specifically personally protected information, but information on, well, maybe this institution failed to demonstrate successful outcomes of their graduation rates or something like that. So trust but verify.

Daniel Sessions [00:21:39]: Ask the institution. I think you owe it to the institution and the program to ask them themselves. Tell us your story about your accreditation and then go verify that with the actual accreditor themselves and you'll be surprised. You can find a lot of information if you just click 1, 2, or maybe even at most 3 clicks down to find the information that you're looking for.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:57]: One of the other questions that I have is that there are sometimes numerous types of accreditors that are out there, many types of accreditors for institutions, but there's also at times different accreditors for programs, and then there's programs that have no accrediting body. So how do you sift through the milieu in regards to all the different plethora of different accrediting bodies that are out there to know what you're actually seeing and able to really know what matters as you're looking at the Fact that, yeah, the institution is accredited by AACSB or some other agency, but what does that really mean and what should they be looking for in that regard?

Daniel Sessions [00:22:44]: Yeah, so accreditation is definitely something that we're hearing a lot about in higher education right now. And one of the things we call it the regulatory triad in higher education, there's the federal level, the U.S. department of Education, there's the accreditors, you know, the institutional and programmatic accreditation. But then there's also the state approving agencies where these institutions operate their schools. And so if you're unsure about a specific accreditor and whether or not they have the distinction that they say they do, well, you can go out and take a look at do they have federal approval through the U.S. department of Education? Are they a part of different creditor type associations like chia, which is a great distinction that you can find from an accreditation perspective. Now that's more so for an institutional accreditation from a programmatic accreditation. It's also about how is it regarded within the industry with which that they accredit programs? How does the business community look at that specific business accreditor? How does the health professions community look at this specific accreditor? And so there's always one, two or three ways in which you can sort of corroborate whether or not a specific accreditor has the distinction and the reputation that they themselves will say in the marketplace that they have.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:55]: So as I think about accreditation a little bit further, in your perspective, how does accreditation adapt to new fields of study or emerging disciplines in graduate education, undergraduate education, like you said that maybe they don't have an accreditation body yet because they're a new field of study.

Daniel Sessions [00:24:13]: So I think that's part of what I like to call, and we talk a lot about at the NAAE is continuous quality improvement. How does the institution find ways to apply the pedagogies that they engage when teaching and learning at their institution, but also the scholastic endeavors, the research, and how do they create these new programs in these new discipline areas? You know, think about, you know, 10 years ago, we weren't talking a lot about artificial intelligence engines and algorithms that create these types. And now, you know, you're getting degree programs in these specific areas. So how does that come to be? That can come to be from industry review boards partnering with institution or with providers of specific business sector things. What do they need in graduates to fill their entry level or managerial type roles? It can be in calling upon a new and additional research that the, the faculty will engage in to discover more about that discipline of study or that program of study. And so it's what I would say is germane to the sort of the academic experience as we develop into new areas, new technologies, new fields of study. How did they arrive at that? How are they continuously looking for ways in which to make their program the best that it can be for the students who ultimately raise their hand voluntarily and say, I want to learn that, I want to do that and I want to, to take that back out into the, into the world and be a contributing member of society.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:31]: So talking about your organization, I mentioned the fact that there are different organizations. There are university accreditors, there's programmatic accreditors, and each one looks at things a little bit differently. Talk to me about your organization. What makes your organization different in how you look at programs or how you look at institutions and how it stands apart from other agencies?

Daniel Sessions [00:25:55]: Sure. So the national association of Academic Excellence has sort of that differentiator that I'll share with you in the name itself, and that is academic excellence. That story that I told you earlier about going 100 years ago, when accreditation first started, that was really the central focus was that academic excellence piece. And it's our opinion over the years that accreditation has, while continued to pay attention to academic excellence, placed importance on other federal compliance areas. As at the federal level, different demands were being placed on accreditors. So one of the things that the main differentiator of the NAAE is the data set with which we will assess and seek quality assurance in the way that outcomes are being generated from an institution. Oftentimes you have to submit a self study or an assurance argument that talks about and shows data as to why and how you do what you do and back it up by evidence. And oftentimes that evidence that's examined is backwards looking or what happened last academic year and tell us a story about how that assures that you meet the standards and the measures of the accreditation.

Daniel Sessions [00:26:57]: Whereas at the NAE, we actually ask you to make a plan and make a hypothesis and say this is how we intend to drive the outcomes that we're looking to drive within our programs and then go assess it for an academic year or two and at the end of that data set, that academic year or two, come back and tell us your story, what you thought you were going to do, did it actually happen and what were the main drivers to make that happen in the real lives of the students that were in those programs within your institution, and if it didn't, what went wrong? And what will you do different next academic year to improve those outcomes? And so rather than crafting a story and an argument about your compliance with the standards and the measures by looking backwards at stuff that's already happened, we ask you to take a snapshot in real time about where you're going and then go there and then tell us whether or not you were right or wrong and what you're going to do differently as you attempt to continuously improve over the next few academic years. And so that's. And when people ask what's the main differentiator of our emerging accreditation, that's what I believe is the big differentiator.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:57]: Finally, in regards to accreditation, what final piece of advice would you give to prospective graduate students about accreditation and making an informed choice?

Daniel Sessions [00:28:08]: I would just remind you that accreditation matters again. Where accreditation started was the pursuit of academic excellence, academic rigor and faculty thought leadership. As you continue on that educational journey and ensuring that the faculty are unbridled from undue political pressure or that they are giving back to the communities in the discipline which they're studying and that accreditation should help tell that story. And don't just rely upon the word of one or two trust, but verify. Ask the questions. Don't shy away from asking the questions, but then go verify for yourself. Talk to employers, talk to industry experts, go look at the accreditations website and see what they talk about that institution so that you can be an informing factor to you in selecting your graduate school experience and that by attending a school or university that is accredited, you can have some assurance that it has been validated by a third party source.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:04]: Well, Daniel, I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for sharing not only your own journey, but sharing so much about accreditation, why it's important, and why anyone that's thinking about graduate school should be thinking about accreditation and should be asking questions about accreditation because it is important. And I truly appreciate you sharing this because I know that it will add some additional questions that people should be asking and hopefully now will be asking as they are going through this process for themselves. So thank you. Thank you for your time and I wish you all the best.

Daniel Sessions [00:29:37]: Yeah, thank you for having me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:39]: The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of master's and doctorate programs if you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you're looking for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [email protected].