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Advice to current grad students

Rebecca — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 13:00:45 +0000

In my third year of graduate school, after getting some positive response to my advice for prospective graduate students, I decided to write a second essay, advising current graduate students on staying happy and self-confident in grad school. As with the other, I don’t dare edit it at this remove, so here it is in its original form.

My Thoughts on Getting Through

As I see it, there are three main goals to graduate school. First is to increase your knowledge, do original work, and write a thesis. Second is to make contacts and start forming professional relationships. Third is to survive with self-esteem and confidence intact. This little essay is devoted to number three.

The first thing to remember is that grad school is hard and it’s meant to be hard. That’s why most of the population doesn’t do it. So, there will be times for everyone, barring those who possess genius or an excessively thick skin, when they feel like morons. I call those my “housewife days” – days when I feel like being a housewife would be infinitely more fun than what I am doing at the moment. They always pass, though, and then I get excited (even if only at a low level) by the math again. If they don’t pass, that’s when to seriously consider getting out of grad school. Actually, everyone should seriously consider getting out of grad school on a regular basis. It helps remind you that you are here by your own choice and can leave at any time, which is liberating and uplifting even without any action – it relieves any feelings of indentured servitude. It also might remind you how great it is compared to the real world (again, if you feel quite the opposite, you should consider leaving. Do not punish yourself unduly; I’m sure you haven’t committed that many sins).

Most people who go to graduate school have always excelled academically, and it is difficult for us to avoid having our self-esteem at least partially attached to our schoolwork. Then when the moron episodes hit, they can send us into a deep funk. (and not the good Sly and the Family Stone kind) The only ultimate cure for moron episodes is to get good enough at your field that nothing throws you completely for a loop, and get accustomed enough to speaking, teaching, and dealing with others in your field that you don’t feel dumb in those situations. For those of us who would like help before we retire, though, I have only one suggestion. Advisors, close your eyes: do extracurriculars. Do something you’re good at for sure, to keep you connected to the non-student side of yourself. Get involved in your church, join a music group or take dancing lessons. Universities usually have activities for cheap, or venture out into the community. My sister is going to learn some medieval dances and rapier fighting through her local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronisms. A couple of our department members have joined the women’s boxing club. And every community has volunteer work that needs doing.

Incidentally, a thick skin is an attribute you might work on acquiring – in the sense of not taking academic criticism personally. I have no advice on how to cultivate such a thing, though.

Extracurriculars are not a cure, however, and the rest of this is about damage control. A grad student friend of mine told me an interesting statistic recently. I forget the exact numbers, but a study found that somewhere upward of 90% of grad students spend the majority of their time emotionally in “crisis mode”. She liked that statistic because it made her feel less alone in her anxiety.

With that idea in mind let’s talk about support groups. Internet-based support groups for graduate students do exist, including ones specific to particular groups (by discipline or for women or minorities). I can’t rate any of them (it seems a personal matter anyway), though, because I fortunately have a wonderful built-in support group here in my program. The other students in your program are the best choice whenever possible – they know exactly what you are going through. From my advanced age of being in the third year of studies, I can tell you that when you are in your first year, doing coursework, and up through your candidacy or qualifying exams, older students are wonderful support. They know what you’re going through, as do your peers, but they are not insane with the same work and they also have first-hand knowledge of the light at the end of the tunnel. Here’s something to try: when you’re feeling completely overwhelmed, go into a sympathetic older student’s office and make frustrated noises, such as yelling “argh!” This in itself is a great stress reducer, but will often lead to a conversation about the current state of your life, which is the ultimate goal.

Moving on: post-candidacy, I’ve found that my peers, those within about a year of me, are the best support. We’ve branched out into different fields, which eliminates any competitive aspect that may have been there originally, but we’re hitting the same problems in our research. We all have to deal with our advisors in some productive way, which includes finding time to meet and getting satisfactory answers to our questions. We also are experiencing similar frustration with difficult or unclear papers to read. I spend probably more time than is wise talking with my officemates about the troubles of the day, but I think it is helping all of us with our mental health.

That’s all I have to say on the matter – everything listed above is from my thoughts or the thoughts of others I’ve talked with on the subject. I’d have to have a lot deeper understanding of human consciousness to write much more, and the only thing I do have is a deep experience of what it is like to be a graduate student. But I hope it helped, if only to let you know your problems are universal.

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Advice to prospective grad students

Rebecca — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 13:00:43 +0000

While I was a graduate student, no later than my third year of studies, I decided to write an essay of advice to prospective graduate students about choosing a program and mentally preparing themselves for graduate study. I’d been through it myself, of course, and also was closely involved in the prospective student visits at Notre Dame, and felt like I had something to say. I got some positive response from it, so I preserved it through several changes of website, including here. I don’t dare edit it from this far-away perspective, lest it lose any usefulness it may have once had, so here it is in its original form.

Advice to Prospective Graduate Students

So my only expertise lies in the fact that I’ve been through the whole application-visiting-selecting a school process. If you are interested, I still will proffer my opinion.

My advice to you can be summed up as follows: apply to schools based on their programs, attend a school based on its people.

To expand: Make a really big list of schools. Rankings are good for this, as are asking your professors where they went and where decent schools are. If you know or have a good idea of what you want to specialize in, cross out the schools that don’t have it (this is obviously not a problem if your field of interest is algebra, for example). The more particular you are, the more will get crossed out this way. Unless your application is exceedingly strong, you’ll want to include a range of schools, but you can probably cross out ones that are both weak overall and weak in your field in particular. This process ensures that everywhere you apply is academically suited to you.

Next, cross out the schools that are places you wouldn’t possibly want to live – the prospect of living in a big city for six years appalled me, so I crossed out University of Chicago; I’m from Illinois, did undergrad in Virginia, and wanted to be closer to home this time around, so I crossed out everything on both coasts.

Now you have a list of schools with programs that match your interests and that you wouldn’t be unhappy at. Apply to those. If the list is still unmanageably long (I ended up applying to six schools, which I believe is the low end of average, but of course you can apply to as many schools as you have funds and patience for), it’s time to get arbitrary – high application fees and ugly departmental websites are both good criteria for bringing a list of 30 schools down to a reasonable level.

Having pre-weeded for academic interests (though later in the process you may learn things which require more weeding), you can feel comfortable choosing a school from those that accept you on purely personal grounds. Of course, don’t go crazy on it – if you are choosing between MIT and The School of Advanced Math and Potato Processing in Challis, Idaho, unless you feel you will be desperately unhappy at MIT I think the choice is clear. In general, though, don’t sacrifice quality of life for anything less than a perfect program. It isn’t worth it.

Visit the schools that accept you before you make your decision. The counter-intuitive advice I’m going to give on selecting a school is this: go where the people are most like you. If the program is large, look at the group of people who specialize in what you want to specialize in; if the program is small look at everybody. Don’t worry about an excess of homogeneity – this is mathematics grad school, at the least there will be several international students to keep things diverse. What I mean is, go where the attitude is most in line with yours. In undergrad, there are tons of people all the time, potentially a new friend around every corner. In grad school, the pool size is decreased and you will be spending a lot of time with these people. They will be your main human contacts for years, and if most of them rub you the wrong way your life will be very much unhappier than it needs to be. Go where you fit in, and you will be happier and thus more productive. Grad school is difficult and a good support system is not to be undervalued.

Incidentally, if your undergraduate school, like mine, is small with no graduate program, don’t worry. I know I felt completely in the dark, but it’s really just what you would expect. It’s a lot of work, yes, but if you’re of the caliber to be considering it at all, it won’t kill you.

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