Tag: career

Life In Grad School Is Not Normal

I originally asked my friend Lacey to write something for the blog, but she told me her friend Linn actually had a more enticing and unique story. Linn was returning to grad school for her second time. After having such a great experience the first time, her spirits were high and she was generally calm, but as she notes in her story: No two grad school experiences are the same. She is a seasoned veteran at the grad school game, so I hope you will read on, learn from het story, and hear what great advice she has to offer.

High school was a requirement. College was strongly suggested (or rather unavoidable as long as finances lined up). And Grad school was an option, one that lay amongst other options of jobs, internships, travel, ect. Grad school was my choice. I started grad school to work on my Masters in Public Health in 2009. This choice to seek out select skills in public health made me feel like I was joining the influential in my field of choice. I spent two years learning computer software, data analysis and a list of boring (yet impressive epidemiology terms). The two years flew by, mainly due to the self-paced curriculum. Classes and exams were set on the calendar, but a majority of the training was spent on building my own research project and having it all come together for my grand finale thesis. Earning that Masters was a success in more ways than just the thesis. I scored publications, networked, gained friends with similar aspirations, and graduation opened doors to endless public health positions. I chose to spend a couple years afterwards working in the field, helping build international awareness of neglected tropical disease like guinea worm and trichamonas.

I loved the field and its intent and influence, but ultimately I didn’t see my role expanding. So, I chose to return to grad school for a 2nd Masters. Other than needing to locate additional finances, the decision to go back to school was easy because my first experience went so swimmingly. I started my Masters in Physician Assistant the summer of 2012. I was warned at both my interview and orientation that this program was grueling and to prepare both myself and my family for this taxing curriculum. I didn’t appreciate those statements at the time and started the program calm and collected in remembrance of my great first Masters experience. It only took about 6 weeks before I started to crumble under the stress and workload of the program. In comparison, the classroom hours were exhausting, exams came way too frequent and I was stuck in a classroom with 37 other students who were becoming just as cranky and defeated as I was. I wasn’t making connections with classmates as easy as I had in Public Health school.

In my first program I fell into something easy when I met a group of classmates that quickly turned into a community. We fed off each other and supported the other’s ideas. The start of PA school was in such a claustrophobic space with constant stress and demand that I don’t believe my classmates and I ever had time to build connections stronger than study groups. Time was too limited. On top of the constant studying, lack of connection with classmates, I was losing time with my community of friends outside of the program. I had to cancel dinners, excuse my self from birthday parties and when I was available to reconnect with my friends, I felt guilty for not dedicating myself to the books. I never felt settled in my skin that first year, feeling pulled in all direction, and not feeling that I was giving any one part of my life 100%. In my frustrations with the year, I remember talking to a friend back home about how my attitude was deteriorating and her words helped me pace myself to the finish of the year. She told me that the life I’m living currently in PA school was not normal. These challenges were limited to an endpoint and this torture (as I saw it) was not long-term. After giving myself some slack, my first year finished on an upswing.

Now, I’m 4 months into my second year, with 8 months to go. The structure is very different, no more class time or bi-weekly exams. This year, we are on our rotations, spending every 5 weeks at a different hospital or clinic, training and learning medicine with real patient problems. The work is more enticing, rewarding, tangible and never stagnant. This year I get to spend time with patients, doctors, PAs, nurses and hospital staff. I get to spend time with the people I never got to engage with last year and for all these reasons, my second year in grad school is exactly where I want to be. Ask me if I’d repeat that first year, and I’m sure I’d give you a resounding ‘No!’, but that’s probably because last years’ chaos is still too close to me. Give me 5-10 years before you ask me again. But what I will tell you is that grad school comes in many shapes and sizes. No one graduate program experience can allow you to make assumptions of all graduate school experiences. So instead remember these three things: (1) keep charging forward, (2) positive attitude and (3) remember that life in grad school is not normal, so give yourself some slack.

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.

Old Commitments vs. New Priorities

Some of us can slide back into school more easily than others. My friend Laurel did just that. Still, reintroducing a school schedule into your life will alter your routines and future plans in unexpected ways. She came face to face with this dilemma and was forced to make a decision that might have affected her grade. How do you decide between previous commitments and the new demands of school? Here is what she had to say: 

Fortunately, graduate school fit pretty seamlessly into my life. I had been out of college for six years and working in public schools for four of those, so I knew I was ready to get back into school and move forward in my career. After sifting my way through the various roles I could play within public education, I reached the conclusion that I wanted to be a high school counselor. The school I attended for undergrad had a School Counseling program that had an excellent reputation amongst the school staff I knew at the time so it seemed like a natural fit. Once the program accepted me, I had to make a decision about staying with my job, which had grown to play a pivotal role in both my personal and professional growth over the years. My heart would have broken to have left it any earlier than was necessary so I cut down my hours as minimally as possible in order to accommodate the internships required by my program.

 For the duration of the first semester, I was beat. I spent three days working, two days at internships and entire weekends doing homework. Having been out of school for six years, it took a bit to re-familiarize myself with study habits, balance of time and staying sane, but I have always felt at home in an educational setting, especially a small personal environment like that offered by my program. I also genuinely love the challenge of getting organized within a new system so graduate school offered me the opportunity to navigate a new level of responsibility in which I ended up thriving, especially because I simply let it knock me out in the beginning.

I remember being warned that  professors were very strict about how many classes you are allowed to miss each semester. So when I realized that prior to my acceptance into the program, I had already planned a trip only a couple months into the term, I was stressed about having to give a first impression that seemed to demonstrate a lack of dedication. However, it was important to me to keep my life going when I take on any commitment, rather than just stopping everything to let one facet of my life take over. Fortunately, counseling programs frequently emphasize self-care and balance so it never became a problem. Another moment, about a year into the program, that always stuck with me, was when I enrolled in an evening course in early June that only lasted a month or so, but which is the time of year high schools hold their graduation ceremonies. I had a student whose family I knew extremely well and who I had been working with since she was in middle school so attending her graduation was incredibly important to me and to her family. I told the teacher on the first day of class, to which she responded that my grade would automatically drop one letter grade because that was the school’s policy on a short term course such as this one. Incredibly disappointed and somewhat shocked that a program teaching us to be caring, committed educators would punish me for doing so, I went with my gut anyway and missed the class to attend her graduation. On the last day of the course, the professor pulled me aside and told me that she wasn’t going to enforce the policy because of my performance in the class and because I did the right thing. This was one of the more powerful moments for me in the entire program because I had chosen my life and prior commitments over fulfilling some small requirement.

Mine was only a two year program, and I was fortunate to get a job using a transitional license during my second year, instead of completing another internship, which was an exciting but stressful challenge. Diving in and being able to bring that real experience back to my peers in the program built my confidence and still allowed me the safety net of continuing to receive support from my professors while performing the work. Although that job was not my ideal introduction to the career for a variety of reasons, it threw me in and taught me some of the complexities of working in public education. Considering that it landed me where I am now, I have no regrets.

A Rewarding Challenge

My friend Michelle did what I wasn’t able to: She left Portland for Graduate School. All her friends were here. Her life that she had known for the previous 10 years was here. I was impressed that she was able to do this, so I wanted to find out what she had to say about making the decision and whether or not she thought it was the right one. Here is what she had to say:

The moment I knew I would be attending graduate school over 5,000 miles from my home, my friends, and the life I’d worked so hard to build, I was standing in a park staring into my best friend’s eyes. I’d met Sarah for her lunch break across the street from the hospital where she was working. It was a beautiful late summer day in Portland, and we had been walking in the park, appreciating the weather. We’d stopped to face each other, and her hands were on my shoulders. “Yes, you can. You have to. It’s only two years, and we will all be here when you get back. I want to tell you to stay, but we both know you have to go.”

By this time I’d already completed all the legwork involved in order to make the move happen. I’d applied, I’d been accepted, I’d contacted the admissions department and confirmed that I would be attending. I’d done all of the financial research involved and I discovered that I was ineligible for any aid. So I swallowed my pride and asked for my help. My parents scraped together what extra money they could spare (and some that they couldn’t). I had cashed out my own retirement fund. And perhaps the hardest things I have ever done, I asked a close friend who had recently come into some extra money to loan me the $6000 I needed to meet the baseline financial requirements for the move.

In retrospect, it’s obvious that this amazing, supportive network of family and friends was the single greatest contributing factor to my success in grad school. However, leaving that network is what led to the second biggest factor in my success: developing a new community through engagement with my colleagues. I chose an international program because it was the best choice in regard to my field. My degree is in Public Policy, with a focus on International Affairs and Non-Profit and Public Management. No program within the United States could offer me the practical experience of studying with the diverse student body that my program in Germany provided. But I did not foresee the benefit that completely leaving my community and putting myself far outside my comfort zone would have for my future. I doubt that if I had gone into school with strong local ties, I would have formed the bonds I did with my fellow students, and it was these bonds that led to my professional success after graduate school.

My class consisted of about 60 different people from over 30 countries. Even though the program was in Germany, only four of us were German. Since we were all completely out of our element, we worked together not only to get through the program, but to cope with the day-to-day trials of living in a new country. We shared knowledge and went in groups in order to navigate the bureaucracy involved with obtaining our visas. We went grocery shopping together, sharing whatever language skills we possessed in order to buy what we needed. We shared in each others’ cultures in order to create a sense of home by hosting themed-nights and cooking traditional meals for each other. Since I had the advantage of being one of a handful of native English speakers attending an English-based program, I considered it my responsibility to edit the papers of any of my colleagues who asked. We all did what we could to make a rewarding, but difficult experience easier for each other, and the shared challenge bonded us irrevocably.

Though at times I struggled, if I could go back to that fatal moment in the park with Sarah, I wouldn’t change anything. Graduate school is meant to be a challenge. The sacrifices are great for anyone who chooses that path, whether it be in their hometown or across the globe. I remember how scared I was when I got off the tram and walked up to the front of my school to meet my colleagues for orientation. A woman approached me and asked if I was also a new Willy Brandt School student. I indicated that I was, and we exchanged names and countries. Then Edith, my first friend at grad school laughed, and told me that I was the first native English speaker that she’d ever spoken to. I was immediately in awe at the thought of this woman starting an arduous graduate program in a foreign country in a language that was not her own and which she had very little opportunity to practice. That put my own struggle into perspective and inspired me when I felt discouraged by reminding that I am–that we are all–capable of so much, if we only try.

High Importance, High Urgency Vs. High Importance, Low Urgency

Everything is important, but in Grad school some things definitely seem to be more important. When there are deadlines it’s hard not to feel the pressure to prioritize a task. Yet, the projects or activities that we find important, but don’t have an immediate deadline or earn us a grade in Grad School still need a place in our lives. This article from a professor at the University Washington gives some insight in how to manage tasks of high importance, high urgency vs. tasks os high importance, low urgency.

http://www.grad.washington.edu/mentoring/memos/time-management.shtml