Resolutions for Graduate Students
New Year's Resolutions to Help You Through Grad School
Nov 12, 2007
Hey, grad student, Happy New Year! Hopefully you're taking time out from your studies to celebrate properly. If you're looking to make some New Year's resolutions, this is a doubly good time for you, as you're about to start a new semester as well as a new year. Here are some suggestions for resolutions that will help you get the year and semester off to a great start.
Study Tips for Grad Students
Like all students, grad students need a kick in the pants once in a while to repair dysfunctional study habits and establish some healthy new ones. Take some time to assess your study weaknesses, and create some realistic resolutions. Here are some resolution suggestions.
- Stop procrastinating!
- Create a realistic but strict study schedule that you'll be able to follow
- Keep up with all the readings for all of your classes
- Look over your class notes regularly
- Always meet your deadlines
- Proofread all of your work meticulously
- Organize your time better with a desk calendar or computer program
- Organize your hard drive
Keeping Things in Perspective
Graduate school isn't everything. It's easy to get so caught up in your academic identity that you forget about the other parts of life. It's also easy to be your worst critic. Take the time to keep things in perspective and to be kind to yourself! Here are some resolutions that may help out.
- Get involved in a weekly activity that has nothing to do with grad school.
- Take the time to read the daily newspaper, novels and any other reading you enjoy.
- Spend time with your loved ones, no matter what.
- Stop comparing yourself to other graduate students.
- Stop beating yourself up over A-minuses and other tiny disappointments.
- Lose the "impostor syndrome"-- the feeling that everyone else belongs here but you, and that they're going to find you out eventually.
- Keep in touch with friends who you know from somewhere besides academia.
- Go to the gym or do some sort of moderate exercise on a regular basis.
- Stop eating like a graduate student and put healthy things into your body.
- Turn off your computer for an entire day!
Professional Development
Sometimes classes feel so overwhelming that you forget about doing the other things you need to do as a grad student to develop yourself professionally. This will always be a challenge, but to the best of your ability, resolve to accomplish academic goals outside of the classroom. Here are some suggestions.
- Submit at least one paper-- and preferably more-- to the next major conference.
- Make a strong effort to network at the next conference.
- Skim the contents of the important journals in your field when they come out, and read the articles most relevant to your research.
- Fix up a paper and submit it to an academic journal.
- Fix up a paper that's been rejected by an academic journal and submit it somewhere else.
- Discuss with a professor the possibility of collaboration.
- Spend some time getting to know your graduate advisor.
- Read The Chronicle of Higher Education and other pertinent publications regularly.
- Visit a campus career counselor to discuss options.
Best of luck to you in the New Year! For more tips, here's some info on how to choose a graduate advisor and how to survive your first academic conference.
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