Graduate Student Planner

Feb 25

I don’t know what I don’t know and that isn’t my fault. I want you to know it isn’t yours either.

However, we also are not going to let that discourage us, or make us feel as if we are not able to complete our milestones, present our research at conferences, and graduate with a doctoral degree.

I will be transparent: I actually do not have the hang of this at all. However, however, HOWEVER, (everyone… pause), I have gathered one or two tools from my time here at the ivory tower that I think fall under two categories: the “fucking duh” and the “no one told me this! Oh, fucking DUH!” categories. That is partly because I am learning as I go, and also because a lot of this stuff genuinely no one told me about and once I went through all possible hoops and fruity loops, I was annoyed as fuck.

I also, will (manifesting) become a professor someday, and I will be expected to be a mentor. How I navigate my graduate experience will have a tremendous impact on the ways I nurture and care for my future mentees.

So, for the introduction and first post of this section, let’s start off with the “fucking duh” category: you need an agenda. I know, I know. You know. I said what I said: you need an agenda, a graduate school student agenda. You need to keep track of it all, all the things! Mostly because you need to compile a master collection of your entire experience in graduate school, and ya know — having this already from the beginning will help you when you need to fill out all kinds of different and various forms and applications. From fellowships to grants, to future job opportunities, you will need to keep track of your growing accomplishments.

Your graduate school agenda contains some of the following: