The 2nd of a 40- Year Career

When I get cranky and frustrated with grad school, one of my friends reminds me that it is a learning process, an apprenticeship, and that I am only in the 2nd year of a 40 year career. This makes me feel a lot better, since I have a lot of time to hone my skills and make progress. So, I'd like to share a few reflections of the 2nd of my 40 year career. I don't pretend to know all the answers, but these are some things that have helped me through the past year.

Reflections of the 2^nd year:

Be yourself. Totally and completely. I'm a little quirky and unconventional (after all, I am a grad student). Yet, I have decided that this is my grad school experience, and I’m going to totally and completely be myself. I laugh a lot. Loudly. I crack funny jokes, with my professors and even during class presentations. Sometimes (or a lot of the time) I am unprofessional, inappropriate, and seemingly not academic. I sent a photo of myself in my Hooters costume to the director of graduate studies for our department webpage. I gave condom party favors from our end of the year party to the department chair. I make up funny nicknames for some of my professors, and I share these with them. I made a soundtrack to my qualifying paper, and I even gave it to my readers.

Be confident in yourself. I used to stress out (a lot) before submitting papers to professors. My stomach would be in knots, and I would worry that they would think that I was an idiot. Well, it has taken me a while, but I'm over this. Seriously. Grad school is this super long learning process and an apprenticeship. We learn from our professors, and they don't expect us to have all the answers. If we already knew how to do research, how to write papers, and how to publish, well, we would be professors. For me, it helps to think of my professors as coaches. I treat grad school as though I'm learning a new sport, a musical instrument, or a new skill. It's like when I learned how to dive in high school: I didn't walk into the pool already knowing how to dive. My coach didn't expect that. All he expected was that I would work hard in practice and try to do my best. At each practice, my coach would tell me what I was doing well and what I needed to improve. Same thing with grad school. Except that I wear more than a Speedo now.

Compare yourself to no one. It is very easy to start comparing yourself to those around you, but grad school is not a uniform experience. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with this one. I could easily feel anxious that my 1st qualifying paper isn't signed off yet while others in my cohort are already moving on to their 2nd. But I'm not. Seriously. Instead, I remind myself of all that I've learned and how I've developed such great relationships with KB and DM. They are grooming this paper for possible publication, and all of this is more valuable than a quick sign off.

Make sure that you have a couple cheerleaders- people on your side and there to support you, both professors and grad students. This year had a lot of ups and downs, and I could not have survived without a solid network of fellow grad students and professors. It sounds cliche, but they are my sounding board, the shoulder to cry on, and the people that I go to with good news. They get me through the times when I'm not sure that I can do this, when I don’t know if I want to do this, and when I don’t know if I’m cut out for academia.

Live your life. Lots of times, people ask me how I have time to bake, knit, and be social. This strikes me as odd, because it's not as though I'm going to put my life on hold while I'm in grad school. I try to have some sort of balance in my life (even if it's not an exciting one) and I refuse to work all of the time.

Focus on your progress. We receive a lot of feedback on our papers, and there is always room for improvement. Sometimes, I get really bogged down by all of this and discouraged. Yet, I try to remind myself of how far I've come and how much I've learned.

Be nice. To everyone. That is all.

Ask for help and you shall receive. Before I took statistics, I was clueless and completely dependent upon older grad students to help me out when I had to write papers using statistical analysis. Even though I have a clue now, I still find myself going to them when I want to learn more advanced statistical methods. Other examples: I constantly ask older grad students for advice on how to navigate the program, I ask them to read my papers and give me feedback, and I go to them for pep talks. If anyone can turn a usually isolating grad school experience into a social one, well, it's me.

Be your own agenda. I think that I mentioned this in an earlier post, but it is worth mentioning again. This is advice that I got from DM. Many times this past year, I have felt pushed and pulled in different directions, at the mercy of various persons' agendas. I have felt the tug of war between the quantitative and qualitative camps, and I refuse to be forced into a methodology. I also dislike feeling as though research agendas are being pushed on me as well. At the end of the day, I stay true to myself and do the research that I want to do and choose the method that I want to use.

So, that's all that I've got for now. I'm having a great summer so far. I had a leisurely afternoon of grading at the pool last weekend, I baked a fabulous marble cake for a friend's birthday (it was the envy of everyone at the bar), I went shopping with a friend, I ate some yummy cake batter ice cream at Cold Stone, and I drank some awesome beer at the Yard House. And, I'm off to a great week too. Today I had a productive work day, and I baked cookies. I'll write about that tomorrow!