The Graduate School Success Blog Archive
Graduate school can feel like a lonely, isolating, and overwhelming place. Did you know that over half of all graduate students report feeling depressed and anxious? It’s pretty common to lose motivation, feel like you aren’t good enough, and worry about succeeding in graduate school. It doesn’t have to stay that way, though! While graduate school is never going to be easy, there are many things you can do to get through graduate school with less stress. If you are ready to learn tips and tricks to help you succeed in graduate school, then grab a beverage, settle in, and decompress with these time management, productivity, and motivational strategies and pieces of wisdom to help you succeed.
How to Study
How to Study Effectively in Grad School (and elsewhere) Bright students everywhere struggle to study effectively. They spend too much time reading and re-reading textbooks and journal articles, fixating on unimportant details, or feeling so overwhelmed that they avoid studying altogether. This is especially true for students in Master’s programs and course-based doctoral programs, where systems that worked before fail due to the sheer volume of material. Learning how to study using effective study techniques is vital to a lower-stress graduate school experience. As an aside, we at Grad Student Success work primarily with current and aspiring graduate students. However,…
Communicate With Your Research Advisor
How to Communicate With Your Research Advisor:5 Essential Phrases Building a Healthy Graduate Student – Research Advisor Relationship Graduate students often stress about working with their research advisors. After all, a research advisor can make or break the graduate school experience. With the student-advisor relationship being one of the strongest predictors of graduate student success, it’s no wonder students are sometimes anxious about interacting with their advisor, nervous about being perfect, and worried about being seen as incompetent. However, it does not have to be that way. If you’re a graduate student stressing over how to work with your advisor,…
Three Quick Habits to Improve Your Organization in Graduate School
3 Quick Habits to Improve Your Organization Developing organizational habits is vital to being more productive and efficient in graduate school. Every minute spent trying to locate something is a minute lost from getting things done. Plus, disorganization can lead you to feel confused, overwhelmed, and not sure where to start.1 So, here are three quick habits that will instantly improve your organization in graduate school! Habit 1. Set your meeting notifications for 5 to 10 minutes more than the time you need to prepare for the meeting. When the notification goes off, wrap up what you’re doing, get ready…
All About PHD Advisors |Part 3 | How to Choose a Ph.D. advisor
How to Choose a Ph.D. Advisor Today, we are going to focus on how to go about evaluating and choosing a thesis/research/Ph.D. advisor (we’re just going to say Ph.D. advisor from here on out, see also Part 1). The student-advisor relationship is the strongest predictor of grad. student success, so it’s vital to learn how to choose a Ph.D. advisor and the factors to consider when evaluating your possibilities. Part 3 of the All About PH.D. Advisors Series Part 1: Advisor Overview | Part 2: Reaching Out to Advisors If you’re following this series, you know about the process of…
All About PHD Advisors |Part 2 | How to Reach Out to Potential Ph.D. advisors
How to Reach Out to Potential Ph.D. Advisors Part 2 of the All About PH.D. Advisors Series | See Part 1 Ph.D. programs are more competitive than ever. More applicants are fighting over fewer spots and less funding. For many aspiring doctoral students, reaching out to potential advisors is a vital step toward investigating program opportunities, securing funding, and identifying a supportive advisor. However, emailing potential Ph.D. advisors can be an intimidating prospect to many graduate students. Students wonder how and when they should reach out to potential dissertation advisors, and what they should say when emailing potential advisors. Worry…
All About PHD Advisors|Part 1
PhD Advisors: A Primer About Advisors in Doctoral Programs We talk a lot about how confusing graduate school can be, with unstandardized procedures and vocabulary, varying dissertation requirements, and an excess of specialized jargon. Figuring out how to be a graduate student could be a degree all on its own. Nowhere is this clearer than in the uncertainty surrounding academic and research advisors. How do you get a PhD advisor? Is a PhD advisor, thesis advisor, dissertation advisor, and dissertation chair all the same thing? Do you get to choose your advisor? If so, how do you do that? What…
Wishing You the Best in Your Academic Success,
Dr. Cristie Glasheen, Your Graduate Student Success Coach.
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Want Even More?
Have you read through all of the graduate school success tips here, but are still struggling to implement them in your day-to-day life? We offer one-on-one coaching for a limited number of graduate students. So if you are an aspiring graduate student in need of admissions advisement or a current Master’s or Doctoral student, schedule a free consultation with us today!
