Dear Old Me and New Graduate Student

Being a graduate student is such a finite experience. If I could go back in time, and give myself advice, I would ask myself to outline my expectations from my graduate program. What do I expect from my classes? What do I hope to learn from my professors? What skills do I want to develop? What software should I learn? What should I be doing to advance my career? How do build my professional networks? What is it I want to be able to say when I leave graduate school? I would remind myself that after several years of work experience, I have useful things to contribute to many, if not all discussions, as well as much to learn.





I would ask myself what I expect graduate school would mean for my personal life, or what I hope it will be. I would make myself think about possible disappointments and happy outcomes. I would tell myself that just like life, some of it is good and other parts are shitty.

Sometimes I get upset by the fact that there is never a functioning stapler at the school, close to my desk of work, and sometimes I worry I am losing all sense of proportion. I worry that I hear the word diversity and privilege thrown about a lot but not enough honest discussions that start from the self. I worry that I hear more race and gender based stereotypes than I imagined I would. I also worry that I am trying to do too much at once and thus not learning well and doing too little and not learning as much as I should. I worry as much in grad school as I did outside of it. I try not to fall into the trap of grad school vs. the real world outside (this is very real to me, this is my life, I am real as is everyone around me).

I would ask myself to think about what I wanted from each semester and what I wanted from the degree. I would have put little reminders for myself everywhere and high-fived and smiley-faced the good things that happened. I would have reminded myself to think about how becoming a better person counts, I would have set milestones on the journey from absolute awkwardness to a quiet, firm conviction.