Kelly Hanson is a PhD candidate in English at Indiana University, Bloomington. You can find her on Twitter during her work hours at @krh121910.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received about graduate school came during my last semester of coursework. The professor, while talking more broadly about academia, said […]
Natascha Chtena is a PhD student in Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. You can follow her on Twitter @nataschachtena
Honestly, I have a hard time understanding why barely anyone in higher ed ever talks openly about how intrinsic self-knowledge and self-awareness are to success, in grad […]
If you planned your summer like I did, you likely didn’t complete half of what you set out to do. As a graduate student, I know how difficult it can be to transition from a leisurely summer to a more structured semester. In the next few weeks people will be returning from fieldwork […]
As I prepared to write this post, I found myself distracted by dozens of “important” little things – sending text messages, reading I “should” do, and trying to plan out my week. Many of these things needed to be done, but did I have to do them today? Were they more important than writing […]
As I write this, I am stuck in a small town in Ohio after an accident on the freeway on my way home from a conference. (I hit a semi wheel that came off a truck and smashed my car’s suspension system. I’m fine but, sadly, my car is not.) Whether it’s a […]
Back in October I wrote a post on GradHacker about using checklists in research and as promised, I’m updating you on how I’ve integrated them into my data collection. In January I began to collect data for my thesis (yay!) and had the goal of using checklists […]
When asked how you’re doing on your academic work, does your heart race, adrenaline spike, or do you just go numb? If you answered, “yes” to any of these questions, you are in “triage” mode, just trying to stem the bleeding of your time and energy enough to complete your tasks and (hopefully) get a […]
My brother and I have always dealt with relaxation in very different ways. We’re both graduate students, him in his second year, and me in my fifth year. When we visited my parents for breaks like Thanksgiving and the Winter holidays during undergrad, we had extremely different reactions to the free time. He read […]
![[Image creative commons licensed by Flickr user bottled_void]](https://www.gradhacker.org/files/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2204059683_09eb09601b_m-150x150.jpg)
Have you ever been part of a similar conversation?
Colleague: Hey, I heard that you completed [insert task] (comps, proposal, thesis dissertation document)!
You: Yes, it feels great it out of the way!
Colleague: I bet. So now you just need to [insert next daunting task] (do your proposal, write your dissertation, find […]
This year, I made a fortunately successful run on the academic job market, and I’m looking forward to beginning my tenure-track position in August.
Until now, I’ve resisted posting on those experiences. I have, however, commented on the job search more broadly. For instance, I’ve discussed the need for doctoral students to simultaneously prepare […]
