This document is a highly personalized sense of what I, as your advisor (or potential advisor), expect of you, and what you can expect of me as your advisor.  It also contains my sense of what you should be doing in your graduate career, although this is admittedly a pretty broad range of activities that does not fit in a one-size-fits-all document...

1. Introduction

1.1 Advising

2. Doing Research
2.1 The Daily Grind
2.2 Staying Motivated
2.3 Getting to the Thesis
2.4 Getting Feedback
2.5 Getting Financial Support

3. Becoming Part of the Research Community
3.1 Attending Conferences
3.2 Publishing Papers
3.3 Networking

4. All Work and No Play...

5. References

1. Introduction

The two main things that make graduate school hard are the unstructured nature of the process and the lack of information about what you should spend your time on.  This article lays out information for you, the graduate student, that will help make the process less painful.

As your advisor (or potential advisor) I fully expect you to read and understand everything in this document.

1.1 Advising

If you are looking to have me as an advisor, give me a copy of a research proposal if you have a good idea of what you want to work on, and ask for comments.  Importantly, don't just walk into my office or ambush me after class and ask me to be your advisor, since neither one of us should enter into this relationship lightly.

The roles of an advisor include:

1. Research: helping an advisee to select a topic, write a research proposal, perform the research, evaluate it critically, and write the thesis or dissertation.
2. Mentoring: provide technical assistance and help advisee find resources (financial, psychological, or otherwise).
3. Broader community: introducing advisees to colleagues, collaborating on research projects, encouraging them to publish papers, nominating them for awards and prizes.
4. After graduation: helping advisees to find and apply for postdoctoral positions, faculty positions, and/or jobs in industry or government.
5. Administrative aspects: helping advisees with the administrative aspects of graduate school by promptly submitting paper work and knowing the appropriate people to refer advisees to for assistance.

The roles of an advisee include:

1. Research: advisees are ultimately responsible for selecting a topic, write a research proposal, doing the research, and writing the dissertation or thesis
2. Broader community: introduce yourself to potential colleagues, collaborate on research projects, attend conferences, work on publishing papers, and apply for awards and prizes.
3. Support: do your best to research funding opportunities such as assistantships, internships, grants, and fellowships.  It is largely up to you to identify what you need to succeed.
4. After graduation: advisees will be doing most of the leg work for finding and applying for postdocs, faculty positions, and/or jobs in industry and government.
5. Administrative aspects: it is primarily the responsibility of the advisee to understand the administrative aspects of his or her degree program.

This said, the type of relationship that each student needs with an advisor will be different. Some students prefer to be given more direction, to have frequent contact, and to be "checked up on.'' Others are more independent. Some may need contact but be self-conscious about asking for it. Other things that vary include what kind of feedback is preferred, working individually vs. in groups, working on an established research project vs. a new, independent effort; working in the same area as your advisor or doing an "outside'' project.

You may find that, in general,  your thesis advisor doesn't always give you all of the mentoring that you need. Multiple mentors are common and useful; they may include other faculty members in your department or elsewhere, senior graduate students, or other colleagues. You may want to seriously consider changing thesis advisors if your advisor is inaccessible or disinterested, gives you only negative feedback, or doesn't have the technical background to advise you on your thesis.

The most important thing is to ask for what you need.  I am responsible for anywhere from 10 to 200 students at any give time, ranging from undergraduates to graduate students.  Of course, the advising relationship tends to be a different kind of animal than many other kinds of university relationship, but even then, I am not a mind reader.  I expect you to bring issues to my attention.  If you have been waiting a week or so for an article that I promised you, for instance, just send a quick email saying "Hey, do remember saying you would send that paper..."

2. Doing Research

For many new graduate students, graduate school is unlike anything else they've done. Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what it is you're supposed to be learning. Yes, you have to complete a dissertation or thesis, but how do you start? What should you spend your time doing?  The following sections talk about the day-to-day process of doing research, criticism and feedback, working on the thesis, and financial support for research.

2.1 The Daily Grind

Graduate school is a very unstructured environment in most cases.  Graduate students in general typically take nine hours or less of coursework per semester, especially after the second year.  For MA/MGIS, the time spent in class can vary a bit more.  For many PhD students, the third year - after coursework is largely finished and preliminary exams have been completed - is a very difficult and stressful period. This is when you're supposed to find a thesis topic. Once you do find a topic, you can expect two or more years until completion, with very few landmarks or milestones in sight.  For MA/MGIS students, the time frame can be even shorter.

Coming up with ideas.  Being a good researcher involves more than "merely'" coming up with brilliant ideas and implementing them. Most researchers spend the majority of their time reading papers, discussing ideas with colleagues, writing and revising papers, staring blankly into space - and, of course, having brilliant ideas and implementing them.

Community: A later section discusses the process and importance of becoming part of a larger research or work community, which is a critical aspect of being a successful researcher, inside or outside of academia.  It is important for you to keep track of where you're going, and where you've been, with your research, stay motivated, and spend your time wisely.

Reading: You'll have to read a lot of technical papers to become familiar with any field, and to stay current once you've caught up. You may find yourself spending over half of your time reading, especially at the beginning. This is normal. It's also normal to be overwhelmed by the amount of reading you think you "should'' do. Try to remember that it's impossible to read everything that might be relevant: instead, read selectively.  This is especially important for MA/MGIS students since your time lines can be very short.  When you first start reading up on a new field, ask me or a fellow student what the most useful journals and conference proceedings are in your field, and ask for a list of seminal or "classic'' papers that you should definitely read. Start with these papers and the last few years of journals and proceedings.

See the "Resources: Writing a literature review" for other tips on reading for your project.

Writing: One of the most damaging myths in grad school is the idea that complete pieces pop out of your head in an inspired frenzy. While there is a grain of truth to this idea, in general you need to get into the habit of writing regularly for at least forty minutes a day. Yes, this will likely involve forcing yourself to do so more often than you would like, but the majority of successful writers do so as well. By the same token, you are never 'ready' to write. Sure, you need to have a sense of the big picture, but resist trying to get your entire project and all of its details worked out in your mind before you sit down. Just start writing and the rest will come. And finally, do not keep looking for that one, last perfect article that will fully fill out your arguments - there is always another.

2.2 Staying Motivated

At times, particularly in the "middle years,'' it can be very hard to maintain a positive attitude and stay motivated. Many graduate students suffer from a gamut of emotions ranging from anxiety to boredom. While grad school can offer a great time, it can also be pretty tough, marked by feelings of powerlessness and insecurity. This may be the first time when you realize that you are not the smartest person in the room!

First of all, realize that these are normal feelings. Try to find a sympathetic ear - another graduate student, your advisor, or a friend outside of school. Next, try to identify why you're having trouble and identify concrete steps that you can take to improve the situation. To stay focused and motivated, it often helps to have organized activities to force you to manage your time and to do something every day. Setting up regular meetings with your advisor, attending seminars, or even extracurricular activities such as sports or music can help you to maintain a regular schedule.

There a number of "immobilizing shoulds'' that can make you feel so guilty and unworthy that you stop making progress. Telling yourself that you should have a great topic, that you should finish in X years, that you should work 4, or 8, or 12 hours a day isn't helpful for most people. Be realistic about what you can accomplish, and try to concentrate on giving yourself positive feedback for tasks you do complete, instead of negative feedback for those you don't.

Setting daily, weekly, and monthly goals is a good idea, and works even better if you use a "buddy system'' where you and another student meet at regular intervals to review your progress. Try to find people to work with: doing research is much easier if you have someone to bounce ideas off of and to give you feedback.  In particular, I don't want you sitting at home in front of the computer all the time - sure, you need some good alone thinking time, but seek out contact with others.

Breaking down any project into smaller pieces is always a good tactic when things seem unmanageable.  The divide-and-conquer strategy works on a day-to-day level as well. Instead of writing an entire thesis, focus on the goal of writing a chapter, section, or outline. Instead of implementing a large system, break off pieces and implement one module at a time. Identify tasks that you can do in an hour or less; then you can come up with a realistic daily schedule. If you have doubts, don't let them stop you from accomplishing something - take it one day at a time. Remember, every task you complete gets you closer to finishing.

PhD students:  At a meta level of divide-and-conquer, doing a master's project before diving into a Ph.D. dissertation is generally a good idea and is in most cases the case here at UMN. A master's gives you a chance to learn more about an area, do a smaller research project, and establish working relationships with your advisor and fellow students.

2.3 Getting to the Thesis

The hardest part of getting a degree is writing the dissertation or thesis. The process of finding a topic, doing the research, and writing is different from anything most students have done before. If you have a good advisor and support network, you'll be able to get advice and help in setting directions and goals. If not, you may need to be more independent. If this is the case, don't just isolate yourself from the world: try to go out and find the resources and support you need from professors, other graduate students, mailing lists, friends, family, and publications.

2.3.1 Finding a Thesis Topic

A good source of ideas is the future work section of papers you're interested in. Try developing and implementing an extension to an existing system or technique.

PhD students: Consider extending your master's project since you will get a head start on the Ph.D., or may decide that you're not interested in pursuing the topic after all and saving yourself a lot of work and grief farther down the road.

Generally speaking, a good topic is interesting to you, to your advisor, and to the research community. As with many aspects of graduate school, the balance you find will depend at least in part on the relationship you have with your advisor. Some professors have well defined long-term research programs and expect their students to contribute directly to this program. Others have much looser, but still related ongoing projects. Still others will take on anyone with an interesting idea, and may have a broad range of interesting ideas to offer their students. Be wary of the advisor who seems willing to let you pursue any research direction at all. You probably won't get the technical support you need, and they may lose interest in you when the next graduate student with a neat idea comes along.

If you pick a topic that you're not truly interested in simply because it's your advisor's pet area, it will be difficult to stay focused and motivated - and you may be left hanging if your advisor moves on to a different research area before you finish. The same is true for choosing a topic because of its marketability: if you're not personally excited about the topic, you'll have a harder time finishing and a harder time convincing other people that your research is interesting. Besides, markets change more quickly than most people finish dissertations, and sometimes even MA/MGIS research.  The important issues is finding a topic that will keep you interested. 

Try to become aware and stay aware of directly related research - but if you see new work that seems to be doing exactly what you're working on, don't panic. It's common for graduate students to see a related piece of work and think that their topic is ruined. If this happens to you, reread the paper several times to get a good understanding of what they've really been accomplished. Show the paper to your advisor or someone else who's familiar with your topic and whose opinions you respect. Introduce yourself to the author at a conference or by e-mail, and tell them about your work. By starting a dialogue, you will usually find that their work isn't quite the same, and that there are still directions open to you. You may even end up collaborating with them. Good researchers welcome the opportunity to interact and collaborate with someone who's interested in the same problems they are.

To finish quickly, it's usually best to pick a narrow, well defined topic. The downside of this approach is that it may not be as exciting to you or to the research community. If you're more of a risk-taker, choose a topic that branches out in a new direction. The danger here is that it can be difficult to carefully define the problem, and to evaluate the solution you develop. If you have a topic like this, it helps a lot to have an advisor or mentor who is good at helping you to focus and who can help you maintain a reasonably rigorous approach to the problem.

In the extreme case, if your topic is so out of the ordinary that it's unrelated to anything else, you may have difficulty convincing people it's worthwhile. Truly innovative research is, of course, exciting and often pays back in recognition from the research community - or you could just be out in left field. If you have a far-out topic, be sure that people are actually interested in it, or you'll never be able to "sell'' it later, and will probably have trouble getting your work published and finding a job. In addition, it will be hard to find colleagues who are interested in the same problems and who can give you advice and feedback.

In any case, a good topic will address important issues. You should be trying to solve a real problem; you should have solid theoretical work, good empirical results or, preferably, both; and the topic will be connected to - but not be a simple variation on or extension of - existing research. It will also be significant yet manageable. Finding the right size problem can be difficult. One good way of identifying the right size is to read other dissertations.

Remember that a thesis is only a few years of your work!  Graduate students in general pick overly ambitious topics.  Don't overestimate what other people have done. Learn to read between the lines of grandiose claims.

PhD students: depending on your future plans, your research career may continue for another 30 or 40 years, so don't be afraid to leave part of the problem for future work, and don't compare yourself to senior researchers who have years of work and publications to show for it.  By the same token, be realistic on how important this stuff is. You are probably going to dislike your dissertation topic for a while after you finish, and odds are against anyone, including you, caring about your dissertation research in a few years.  This fact does not minimize the great importance of dissertation research as such, it just sends you a signal the dissertation is not the be all and end all of your existence.

MA/MGIS students: this thesis length issue is especially important.  To be honest, in most situations most people, including you, are not going to be particularly interested in thinking about your thesis work within a few months of completion.  Get in, get it done, and get out to further education, your career, your BBQ, or whatever else makes you happy.

Once you have come up with an initial idea, you will have to write a thesis proposal.  The proposal is critical, and in some senses more difficult than doing the rest of the work.  This is where you lay out the big picture and get focused on your question.  The proposal is also essential to get funding. It forces you to define the problem, outline possible solutions, and identify evaluation criteria; and it will help you to get useful feedback from your advisor and other colleagues. Writing a good thesis proposal can take up to several months, depending on how much background work and thinking you've already done in the process of choosing the topic.

Make sure you check out the research section to get more information on writing a proposal.

The proposal should provide a foundation for the dissertation or thesis. First, you must circumscribe the problem and argue convincingly that it needs to be solved, and that you have a methodology for solving it. You must identify and discuss related work: has this problem been addressed before? What are the shortcomings of existing work in the area, and how will your approach differ from and be an improvement over these methods?  Present your ideas for solving the problem in as much detail as possible, and give a detailed plan of the remaining research to be done. The proposal should include, or be structured as, a rough outline of the thesis itself. In fact, unless your final topic differs significantly from your proposed topic, you may be able to reuse parts of the proposal in the thesis.

PhD students: While we do not have a proposal defense as such, many people like  to use the latter half of their oral prelim exam to focus on the proposal.  Be sure that your committee members are as familiar as possible with your work beforehand. Give them copies of the proposal, and talk to them about it. During the exam, don't panic if you don't know the answer to a question. Simply say, "I'm not sure'' and then do your best to analyze the question and present possible answers. Your examining committee wants to see your analytical skills, not just hear canned answers to questions you were expecting.  Remember that the idea here is that you know more about your thesis topic than your committee; you're teaching them something for a change.

2.3.2 Writing the Thesis

Graduate students often think that the thesis happens in two distinct phases: doing the research, and writing the dissertation. This may be the case for some students, but more often, these phases overlap and interact with one another. Sometimes it's difficult to formalize an idea well enough to test and prove it until you've written it up; the results of your tests often require you to make changes that mean that you have to go back and rewrite parts of the thesis; and the process of developing and testing your ideas is almost never complete (there's always more that you could do) so that many graduate students end up "doing research'' right up until the day or two before the thesis is turned in.

The divide-and-conquer approach works as well for writing as it does for research. A problem that many graduate students face is that their only goal seems to be "finish the thesis.'' It is essential that you break this down into manageable stages, both in terms of doing the research and when writing the thesis. Tasks that you can finish in a week, a day, or even as little as half an hour are much more realistic goals. Try to come up with a range of tasks, both in terms of duration and difficulty. That way, on days when you feel energetic and enthusiastic, you can sink your teeth into a solid problem, but on days when you're run-down and unmotivated, you can at least accomplish and few small tasks and get them off your queue.

It also helps to start writing at a coarse granularity and successively refine your thesis. Don't sit down and try to start writing the entire thesis from beginning to end. First jot down notes on what you want to cover; then organize these into an outline (which will probably change as you progress in your research and writing). Start drafting sections, beginning with those you're most confident about. Don't feel obligated to write it perfectly the first time: if you can't get a paragraph or phrase right, just write something and move on. You can always come back to the hard parts later; the important thing is to make steady progress.

When writing any technical paper, realize that your audience is almost guaranteed to be less familiar with your subject than you are. Explain your motivations, goals, and methodology clearly. Be repetitive without being boring, by presenting your ideas at several levels of abstraction, and by using examples to convey the ideas in a different way.

Having a "writing buddy'' is a good idea. If they're working on their thesis at the same time, so much the better, but the most important thing is that they be willing to give you feedback on rough drafts, meet regularly to chart your progress and give you psychological support, and preferably that they be familiar enough with your field to understand and review your writing.

2.4 Getting Feedback

To be successful at research, it is essential that you learn to cope with criticism, and even that you actively seek it out. Learn to listen to valid, constructive criticism and to ignore destructive, pointless criticism (after finding any pearls of wisdom that may be buried in it).  In order to get feedback, you have to present your ideas. Write up what you're working on, even if you're not ready to write a full conference or journal paper, and show it to people. Even for pre-publishable papers, write carefully and clearly, to maximize your chances of getting useful comments (and of having people read what you wrote at all).

I cannot emphasize this point enough - you need to be consistent in submitting material to me and getting feedback from me.  I am not going to chase you for proposals, papers, etc. - you can figure out what schedule works for you.   It is also very, very important for you to fully appreciate the fact that I am not going to judge you.  I want you to be successful and happy.  To this end, I do not expect you to come up with perfectly planned and executed ideas, but I do expect you to create something on a consistent basis and that we can  work together on making it a viable project.  The worst-case scenario here, and I have seen it all too often, is a student believing that his or her advisor thinks unkindly of them, to the point where the best strategy is to avoid the advisor as much as possible.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Attend conferences and talk about your research. When you meet someone new and they ask you what you're working on, seize the opportunity. Don't just say "I'm doing my thesis on a bunch of applications of some algorithms'' - tell them as much as they're willing to listen to. You should have 30-second, 2-minute, 5-minute and 10-minute summaries of your thesis ready at a moment's notice (but not memorized word-for-word; nobody wants to listen to a canned speech).

Talking to other people will help you to realize which aspects of your research are truly different and innovative, how your work fits into the current state of your field and where it's going, and which aspects of your work are harder to sell (and, therefore, which aspects you need to think more about justifying).

Giving feedback to other students and colleagues is useful for many reasons. First, it helps you to polish your critical skills, which are helpful both in understanding other people's work and in evaluating your own. Second, it helps you to build a network of people who will be your colleagues for years to come. Finally, if you give useful feedback, those people will be more likely to make an effort to do the same for you.

It will be helpful (to you and to the person whose paper you're reviewing) to organize comments on a paper in descending order of abstraction: high-level content-oriented comments, mid-level stylistic and presentation comments, and low-level nitpicky comments on syntax and grammar. Try to keep your comments constructive ("this would read better if you defined X before introducing Y'') rather than destructive ("this is nonsense'').

You'll want to read a paper at least twice - once to get the basic ideas, then a second time to write comments. High-level comments describing your overall impression of the paper, making suggestions for organization, presentation and alternative approaches to try, potential extensions, and relevant references are generally the most useful and the hardest to give. Low-level comments are more appropriate for a paper that is being submitted for publication than for an unpublished paper such as a proposal or description of preliminary research.

2.5 Getting Financial Support

Although nobody ever got rich being a graduate student, you probably won't starve either. Sources of funding include yourself, fellowships (from NSF, universities, foundations, government agencies, and industry), employer support, research assistantships (i.e., money from a faculty member's research grant), and teaching assistantships.

Start looking for support early. Many departments, ours included, arrange support in the form of an RA or TA position for at least the first year, but in many cases, you're on your own after that. Even if you have a three-year TA deal, for example, look for your own funding. Acquiring external support is an essential skill, makes you hone your proposal, and gives you considerably more time and freedom to do your work. Deadlines for applications vary, and if you miss one, you'll probably have to wait another year. After you apply, it can take six months or longer to review the applications and several more months to actually start receiving money.  The key lesson here is to plan early.

Ask faculty members, department administrators, and fellow graduate students about available funding.  Go to your university's fellowship office or its equivalent (see the list of funding resources to see what we have here at UMN). Also look through the listings found in publications such as "The Annual Register of Grant Support", "The Grant Register", "The Chronicle of Higher Education", and "Foundation Grants to Individuals". Look into NSF grants (there are several different programs, but pay particular attention to those designed for graduate students, such as NSF fellowships or Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants). Most universities have fellowship programs that may be administered through individual departments or may be campus-wide.  Also consult departmental information (e.g., the geography department keeps track of funding opportunities).

If you haven't yet begun actively doing research, getting an RA position from a faculty member may be a good way to become involved in a research project. Working on an existing research project by maintaining or developing hardware or software, writing reports, and running experiments will give you a feel for what it's like to do research - and you may even find a thesis topic. Ask around to see what's available, and go talk to professors whose work you find interesting.

For a research grant or fellowship, you will probably have to write a proposal, so the more you've thought about potential thesis topics, the better off you'll be. You may need to tailor your proposal to the interests and needs of the particular funding agency or program you're applying to, but stick to something you know about and are sincerely interested in.

3. Becoming Part of the Research Community

One of the most important things a graduate student should do is to become established as part of the research community or work community, depending on orientation and goals after graduation. Your advisor can help with this process by encouraging you to publish research results early, collaborating on joint publications, introducing you to colleagues, and promoting your work.

In turn, you can make yourself more visible by participating in conferences and workshops, publishing papers on your work, and meeting and maintaining contact with colleagues.

3.1 Attending Conferences

Attending conferences and workshops is valuable whether you present a paper or not. Some of the reasons to do so are:

1. You'll meet people and have a chance to discuss your ideas and to hear theirs.
2. You'll get a good sense of what the current state of research is, and will learn more about how to write conference papers and give talks (sometimes by counterexample).
3. You'll probably realize that your ideas are more significant, relatively speaking, than you thought. A common reaction is "I could write a better paper than this!''

Make sure you check out the presentation section to get more information on conducting a presentation.

3.2 Publishing Papers

Publishing your ideas is important for several reasons: it gives you a source of feedback from people who read your papers; it establishes you as a member of the research community (useful for getting a job down the line); and it forces you to clarify your ideas and to fit them in the context of the current state of research in your field.

There are two key properties of a good paper: significant content - original, important ideas that are well developed and tested - and good writing style. The degree to which the paper's content has to be "significant'' depends on where you're submitting it. Preliminary ideas and work in progress are more suitable for a workshop or symposium; well developed, extensively tested ideas are more appropriate for a journal. One way to decide where your paper should be submitted is to read papers in potentially appropriate publications (e.g., last year's conference proceedings or current journal issues). Another method to show a draft or outline of the paper to your advisor or other colleagues and ask their advice.

If you have a great idea, but present it poorly, your paper probably won't be accepted. Be sure you know what the point of the paper is, and state it clearly and repeatedly. The same goes for the key technical ideas. Don't make the reader work to figure out what's important - tell them explicitly. Otherwise, they might get it wrong, if they bother to finish reading the paper at all. State the problem you're addressing, why it's important, how you're solving it, what results you have, how other researchers have addressed the same or similar problems, and why your method is different or better.

Make sure you check out the writing section to get more information on writing a paper for a journal.

3.3 Networking

One of the most important skills you should be learning in graduate school is how to "network.'' Breaking into the research community requires attending conferences, meeting established researchers, and making yourself known. Networking is a learned skill, so you shouldn't expect to be an expert at it immediately; but it is also a skill that you can, and should, learn in order to be a successful member of the research community.

Just going to conferences and standing in the corner isn't enough. Especially if you're not normally an outgoing person, you have to make a conscious effort to meet and build relationships with other researchers. Presenting papers is a good way to do this, since people will often approach you to discuss your presentation. Introducing yourself to people whose presentations you found interesting, and asking a relevant question or describing related research you're doing, is also a good way to meet people.

Have summaries of your work of various lengths and levels of detail mentally prepared, so that you can answer the inevitable "So what are you working on?'' intelligently and clearly. If someone expresses an interest in your work, follow up! Send them e-mail talking about new ideas or asking questions; send them drafts of papers; ask them for drafts of their papers and send them comments.  Bring business cards with your e-mail address to conferences to help new acquaintances jog their memory.

Maintain the relationships you form via e-mail, and by re-establishing contact at each workshop or conference you attend. If you work at it, and use your initial acquaintances to meet new people, you'll find that your "network'' grows rapidly.

Sometimes these contacts will grow into opportunities to do collaborative research. Seize these opportunities: you will meet more people, often become exposed to new methods of doing research or new subfields within your research area, and the responsibility you feel towards your collaborator may give you more of an incentive to stay motivated and keep accomplishing something.

Other professional activities can bring you into the research network as well: volunteer for program committees, send your resume to a book review editor, offer to give seminars at other universities, write conference and workshop papers and send them to people you've met or would like to meet, or organize a workshop on your subfield at a larger conference. Mentoring junior graduate students and undergraduates is a good investment in the long run (besides providing them a valuable service and making you feel useful and knowledgeable).

Finding specific mentors can be very useful. Especially if you feel that you are isolated at your institution, having a colleague at another institution who can give you advice, feedback on drafts of papers, and suggestions for research directions can be extremely valuable.

4. All Work and No Play...

Finding a balance between work, play, and other activities isn't easy. Different people will give you very different advice. Some people say you should be spending eighty or ninety percent of your waking hours working on your thesis. Others (myself included) think that this is unrealistic and unhealthy, and that it's important for your mental and physical health to have other active interests.

If you have a family, you will have to balance your priorities even more carefully. Graduate school isn't worth risking your personal relationships over; be sure that you save time and energy to focus on the people who matter to you.

One of the keys to balancing your life is to develop a schedule that's more or less consistent. You may decide that you will only work during the days, and that evenings are for your hobbies. Or you might decide that afternoons are for socializing and exercising, and work late at night.

Many graduate students hit the doldrums around the end of the second or beginning of the third year, when they're finishing up their coursework and trying to focus in on a thesis topic. Sometimes this process can take quite a while. Try to find useful, enjoyable activities that can take your mind off of the thesis. Sing in a choir, learn a foreign language, study the history of ancient Greece, garden, or knit. If you schedule regular activities (rehearsals, tennis lessons), you will probably find it easier to avoid drifting aimlessly from day to day.

In the final push to finish your thesis, though, you will almost certainly have less time for social activities than you used to. Your friends may start to make you feel guilty, whether they intend to or not. Warn them in advance that you expect to turn down lots of invitations, and it's nothing personal - but you need to focus on your thesis for a while.

5. References

Heavily adapted from Marie desJardins' "How to be a graduate student"

Books you may find useful:

Martin S. Kenzer, ed. (1996). On Becoming a Professional Geographer. Merrill Publishing Company.

Emily Toth (1997). Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia. University of Pennsylvania Press

John A. Goldsmith, et al. (2001). The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career: A Portable Mentor for Scholars from Graduate School Through Tenure. University Of Chicago Press

Kjell Erik Rudestam and Rae R. Newton (2001). Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process. SAGE Publications