57 Ways to Screw Up Grad School

Starting Out

• Questions to ask yourself
  • Why do you want to go to graduate school?
  • What would you like to get out of the experience?
  • What kinds of jobs can you get with your graduate degree?
• Think in both the immediate term and the long term
• Contact the graduate chairs of the programs you’re interested in
• It’s preferable to not have all of your degrees at the same university
• You need to show that you’re a good fit for the program
• Identify potential supervisors beforehand
• If you have multiple offers, tell each university’s graduate chair about it
• The PhD must be funded
• Don’t major in interdisciplinary studies as that’s too general
• Go to your university’s writing center for help on writing your Statement of Purpose (SOP)
• Use the university’s resources for writing, job searching, resume writing, and career advice
• Keep applying for grants and scholarships in graduate school

Supervisors

• Itemize all of the attributes that you’re looking for in an ideal supervisor
• Don’t stay quiet and don’t go it alone
• Screwing up your choice of supervisor is one of the biggest missteps you can make in grad school. It’s also easy to do
• The availability of an appropriate supervisor should definitely affect your decision about which PhD program to attend
• Don’t have more than one supervisor
• Discuss expectations with your supervisor at the earliest stages of your degree
• Don’t expect people to hold your hand

Managing Your Program

• There’s more to the degree than the formal requirements
• The key with comprehensive exams is to get them done and out of the way
• Select a topic that you’re passionate about
• Get some teaching experience but not too much
• Get teacher training and keep a record of it
• Don’t leave the university before completing your degree
• Two of the things that slow your graduating progress are research ethics and research access (E.g. Resources, interviews, finding data)
• Backup your data and work to prevent data loss
• Conferences help provide motivation to write
• Committing to a conference paper on a specific date is a time-honored way of bringing closure to a specific piece of writing
• Go to conferences to learn about the cutting edge developments made by others

Your Work and Social Life

• Don’t neglect the non-academic things in life like hobbies and exercise
• Don’t expect family and friends to understand or appreciate the graduate school lifestyle
• Don’t socialize with only one group of people
• Get out of your comfort zone
• Don’t take a full time job while doing your degree

Writing

• If you want a career in research or at the university, use your time in grad school to write and publish works over and above your thesis
• Work up parts of your thesis as journal submissions. But the problem is that you likely won’t produce clean thesis chapters until late in your PhD program
• Immediately start thinking about writing works other than your thesis
• Don’t postpone publishing
• Don’t submit the same articles to different outlets at the same time. It’s viewed as double dipping
• Be cautious that you don’t try to accomplish too much with your thesis
• Be short and succinct, have focus and be mindful of time and scope
• You need to identify what not to cover in your research and to remove tangents peripheral to your analysis or argument
• A thesis, like any written work, is always stronger when you omit unnecessary sections
• You will need to compromise idealized goals in light of the pragmatic need to do the best you can with the resources and time frame available
• Whatever approach you take to your research will not be perfect. You must nonetheless align yourself with and defend you choice of topic, theory, and methodological strategy
• Your writing regime should change in graduate school
• Letting other responsibilities come before your writing is probably the most common barrier to writing a lot
• Manage the situation by setting your own deadlines and by having a daily writing schedule and sticking with it
• Write in the active voice to add life to your sentences
• While the academy often stresses the need to publish, the ultimate aim is to have your work read so that you can help shape the scholarly discussions in your field
• Hold your reader’s hand and carefully show them what you’re doing
• Eliminate jargon, strive for clear and concise assertions, compose in the active voice, and be kind to your readers.
• Above all, continually strive to improve your writing

Your Attitude and Actions

• Be kind
• Choose your battles wisely
• Have a thick skin and recognize that failure is normal. Don’t think of negative responses as personal attacks
• Be considerate
• Reputation is important
• Joint submissions are prohibited
• Do not be surprised if you have to compromise a bit on your initial vision to satisfy other people’s expectation
• Developing an ability to maintain your own vision of a piece of research while also incorporating other people’s suggestions will serve you well

Delicate Matters

• Don’t get involved in a romantic relationship with someone who has higher power or someone with lower power due to the inherent power differential
• Don’t plagiarize and don’t cheat
• Know your rights and use them when appropriate
• Try to solve conflicts at the lowest level possible
• A good supervisor is hard to find, but you can always find people to fall in love with
• Don’t have romantic relationships with any faculty
• Keep things professional
• Be humble
• Don’t cheat, plagiarize, or copy
• Don’t write someone elses work

Am I Done Yet? On Finishing

• Be sure you have completed all of your requirements to graduate
• Jobs in university, government, or industry
• Attend job talks
• Volunteer to be part of the job search committee
• Read the theses of some of your supervisor’s previous students who have landed good jobs or gone on to do a PhD
• Think long term. Jobs after graduating, networking
• Don’t get an unknown external examiner for your thesis committee
• Write your thesis with the library guidelines in mind
• Always be open with your supervisor about your problems, delays, and what’s currently going on
• Radical truth and radical openness
• When in the graduate degree, reflect on your progress and your rate of progress to determine if you should continue
• Red flags
  • Not feeling motivated
  • Being unable to write
  • Missing deadlines
  • Not keeping up with other students
  • Avoiding your supervisor
  • Failing to manage finances

Final Thoughts

• Maximize opportunities
• Takes responsibility
• Build healthy professional relationships
• Look for help
• Forge a professional reputation that you will be proud of