Academics – Survive Grad School

E-Book for Surviving Graduate School

“For too many students, graduate school looks like a game whose rulebook they’re not allowed to see: it’s different from college, but nobody tells you how. The practical advice in David Nguyen’s little book not only will help graduate students avoid some of the common pitfalls, but will help undergraduates prepare themselves for what their advanced studies will bring them.”

Steven Justice, Ph.D.
Professor of English, University of Mississippi
Professor of English, University of California, Berkeley

This Kindle E-book has been recommended by David H. Nguyen, Ph.D at University of California, Berkeley. In light of mental health issues surrounding graduate studies, this guidebook can be useful for any post-baccalaureate students. This could be a very important book for any first-year graduate or professional students in need of skills beyond “book knowledge” and test-taking.

Get What You Pay For

It never fails that you finish school, whether it’s high school, college, or grad school, and feel like you missed out on some key pieces of the education puzzle. You arrive at your first job after graduating only to find that the boss is asking you to do something you never learned in school. You start to feel cheated because some fundamentals of doing journalism were left out of your education. How could this have happened?! This article from the Atlantic gets a survey from Journalism professionals about things that were left out of their grad school education, but would have been very useful.

While the article focuses specifically on Journalism school, I think it can help any grad school student to think about the things they aren’t seeing in the courses they are taking, but that they are seeing in the professional world of their field of study. If you don’t see those things in your courses it may be time to speak up in class or schedule more office hours with your professor, so that you can talk about what you think you should be learning in addition to what is being studied. If there is one thing I am realizing about grad school it’s that a lot of it is self-directed. As much as I like my hand to be held, I am realizing this isn’t going to happen in graduate school. So if you don’t see something, say something.

10 Tips for Surviving Graduate School – Again!

Managing your career/education/romantic life/social life/family life is effing hard.

This blog post,10 Tips for Surviving Graduate School, tells it like it is. Written in a raw, in-your-face-style, it offers some practical advice, but it’s really more comfort food. As in, “parts of grad school suck, but they suck for all of us.” It’s reassuring in a toasted-cheese-sandwich-&-tomato-soup sort of way. The blog is For Business & Pleasure: Thoughts & adventures of a twenty-something MBA student. It might be worth subscribing to, providing you have time to read a blog for pure pleasure.

12 Tips for Surviving and Thriving in Grad School

Manage your time well. Have a life outside of school. Pick opportunities wisely. These at nine other tips are fully explored 12 Tips for Surviving and Thriving in Grad School on psychcentral.com an independent mental health social network.

Tips are broken down by Academics, Thesis and Social Life. Most of us are unfamiliar with the term “social life,” but using the context of the social life tips, it will be able to construct its meaning.

Surviving Graduate School – 3 Tips for Survival & Success

Surviving Graduate School – 3 Tips for Survival & Success is like, “What? Only 3???” Yes, only three. But they are three very well-chosen tips and that have been thoughtfully elaborated on. There are even sub tips under the tips. The following four sub tips are under Tip 1: Make the most out of your relationship with your graduate advisor.

Meet on a regular basis.
Be prepared and organized.
Follow-up.
Be proactive.

It’s a very well organized, thoughtful site with a lot of really valuable information!