Planning Ahead for Graduate School

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Planning Ahead

Planning Ahead by Brian Freedman

This early in the year, it's difficult to think about the long-term ramifications of what you do now. Really, it's still practically summertime outside, your classes are just beginning to hit their stride, and the real work hasn't piled up yet. So why, most people tend to think, should you worry about the end of the term and beyond this early in the game?

Because you have to.

Whether this is your first year in grad school or your last, you know from past experience that class work has a nasty little habit of piling up faster than you can say "Finals time already!?" So what may seem like a nice, reasonable work-load in September can-and likely will-turn into a tidal wave of papers, exams, seminar discussions, and the like. So if you look at the big picture, September is the most important time of year when it comes to your grad schools work-load.

Here, then, are some suggestions for easing the burden and setting the stage for a successful year of grad-school work.

That Old Song By James Ingram
Back in the early 1990's, James Ingram released a song called Just Once. It became a chart-topping mega-hit and provided the background music for millions of slow-dances at middle-school shindigs across this big wide country of ours. The song began with the lines: "I did my best / But I guess my best wasn't good enough..." And while the song is ostensibly about a failed relationship and the pain its ultimate dissolution has caused the sappy Senor Ingram, I like to equate it with my first term in graduate school. I took it easy, did my work as it came up on my professors' syllabi, and thought it would suffice.

Well, it didn't. And as a result, I found myself slipping inexorably behind in all my classes, until it required a Herculean effort to bring myself back to even sometime around Thanksgiving. It all ended well, but I was exhausted by the time finals rolled around.

The moral of the story is this: Always work ahead. You never know when life will throw you a curve-ball and force you to step aside from your studies for a few days. And if you're ahead, you'll be able to do so without falling behind. Working ahead will also allow you to begin preparing for finals and writing your end-of-term papers earlier than your peers, thereby increasing the likelihood of your ultimately finding yourself on the good side of the grade-scale ball-curve when it's all said and done.

A subsequent line in the song goes like this: "I gave my all / But I think my all may have been too much..." Well, James-Diddy, I'd wager, was never a grad-school student, because anyone who was would know that it's not possible to give too much to your studies. Especially early on in the term.

The Second Coming
Many grad-school students end up teaching one or several sections of undergraduate classes. And whether it's part of a work-study arrangement, one of the terms of the school's financial agreement, or simply a part of the grad-school experience for everyone in the program, there is one almost-universal aspect to the experience: It's the first time many grad students will teach. As a result, most of them don't realize just how much time and effort generally go into teaching a class. They end up freaking out at some point around the middle of the term because they're suddenly finding that they can't achieve a good balance between the requirements of their class work and the planning and grading for the classes they're teaching, and, like the "turning gyre" of Yeats' famous poem, they begin to feel as if things are falling apart and the center is not holding. "Mere anarchy," it seems, is about to be "loosed upon (their) world" of studies.

All kinds of work and outside-of-class responsibilities will begin to pile up, and if you don't stay ahead of the ever-cresting wave, you may find yourself drowning. The solution is as simple and as universally applicable as any in the world of academic affairs: Just don't fall behind.

Whether this means taking a weekend in early September and planning out the entire term for the undergrad class you'll be teaching, or reading ahead for your own courses, or starting work on papers that aren't due for several months, you will benefit regardless of how you get ahead. Just do it. A little extra work this time of year will make the rest of your term that much easier. The center will hold, nothing has to fall apart: Just work ahead, and everything will be just fine.

It's Never Too Late For What!?
In college, you looked for internships over the summer and maybe even during the break between Fall and Spring semesters. Now, in graduate school, you have even better opportunities. For as you saunter down the path towards expertise in your specific field, you will have increased access to some of the best minds in it: Your professors. So whether you're in grad school for a doctorate in conceptual physics or an M.F.A. in Russian literature, you have ample opportunity to not only gain useful experience, but also to make yourself stand out among the crowd of your peers.

So though winter break may seem like a lifetime away, it's not too early to begin working towards a great experience later in the year that could lead to something bigger down the road. In other words, start asking around if any of your professors will need lab assistants for projects they're working on, or editors for papers they plan on publishing, or simply someone to photo-copy documents for them. Work now to get yourself into positions later on that will help facilitate academic and professional advancement. If a professor knows he or she will need help later on, then make yourself indispensable now. Once you do that, the possibilities are limitless.

The moral, then, is this: Always work ahead. A little pain and overworking in the beginning will reward you a million times over later on. It's worth it. James Ingram was wrong: You cannot put too much effort into an endeavor as worthwhile as this.

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