Graduate school is both a challenge and rewarding.
As a second year masters student now with a year under my belt I can speak from experience. With any challenge you take on, it’s wise to be prepared and stick to it. Oftentimes, we get caught up in “life” and forget to do those small things that are important to making sure we are successful in graduate school. With that being said, below I discuss tips for graduate school students that are in their first year in their program.
Focus on perseverance.
One of my mentors from undergrad told me that in graduate school you need to stay focus. Staying focus comes with the test of nothing more than "perseverance". Dr. Johnson believes applying this method to grad school as a whole will make you successful. He did not mention anything about being the best or being perfect in what you do, but just keep pushing to get to the end goal. Over the summer, I had the chance to speak to him about my journey thus far. Throughout the conversation he mentioned several times to change my vision board if need be to get where I need to be in the future.From experience in my first year already, I would say that no matter how hard it is the key to success is your willingness to keep going and not give up when times are challenging.
Make time for self-care.
Self-care is crucial to success in grad school. It is easy to get overburdened with assignments and responsibilities, but taking time to connect with friends and family who are not associated with the program is important. Reaching out to people outside the program helps balance the insanity of going through graduate school. I would also suggest keeping a journal (is what I do now), exercising, eating well (no junk food) and getting adequate sleep. Thinking about it now, during my undergraduate career I was able to swing an insufficient sleep schedule, but in grad school, this can have a negative impact on the quality of your work.
for example as the year continued I realized the need for a better routine when I could no longer function well for my academic and my graduate assistantship six hours of sleep. Some people need more hours than others, so know yourself well to figure out how sleep plays a role in your daily function. But, of course, fitting in self-care isn’t easy to some people. if that is the case, I suggest picking several activities that you can’t do without. Cassie, a young women in my cohort enjoys marathons, so whenever she gets the chance she trains for marathons that happen on campus and of to help her cope. Another person is my roommate Z, who is also in the Master’s program exercises to balance the craziness that happens in graduate school. He puts in place three times a week to workout, and in some weeks he squeezes in four times a week if time permits. For other grad students, nonnegotiable activities might be reading, writing, or painting.
You might feel like you are not adequate to the level of thinking in Graduate School.
When starting grad school, you could feel as though the level of thinking is inadequate to your understanding. Students that have been in their programs for more than two years even feel this way. Psychologists have termed this feeling as “impostor phenomenon,” a deep sense of insecurity about their capabilities and intelligence. The level of thinking is different from undergrad. If you are reading a book you should look over the table of content of the different chapters of the book. In most academic books, the authors state all of their main points, framework used, and an outline of information will be covered in each chapter. Just to make it clear, you are not really expected to read every single word of the book; your mandate is to understand the author’s main ideas, arguments, and be able to articulate why this discussion matters and how does it relate to the field.
Be purposeful when reading. Ask yourself, what is the author trying to say? What is motivating her exploration of this topic? What does this research contribute? What academic conversations is the author trying to align with? What are the main arguments of this piece? How does this relate to my other assigned readings? Going in with these questions in mind will focus you as you read and aid you in pulling out the most relevant information.
