Student Spotlight: The First Year
The First Year of Grad School
Graduate school, no matter what came before, will be a new experience. Despite the label, parts are less like school and more like a normal job, and the parts that are school in the traditional sense of classes tend to have a narrower scope and higher intensity. Your “manager” is your advisor, with whom it is important to manage a healthy and open dynamic for your work. It’s impossible to plan out play-by-play before starting, but don’t worry: there is flexibility in everyone’s approach to tackling graduate school and you will have others to help you along the way.
Here, four Joint Program students who have just completed their first year offer a fresh set of ideas on what to look for and expect in graduate school. Rather than the normal “Spotlight” on one or two students, this article synthesizes these four sets of responses. Some of this writing is particular to the MIT-WHOI Joint Program or similar ones, but we hope that you will find it generally useful. If you want a synthesis of general advice, go ahead and scroll to the bottom.
What was different between graduate school and undergrad?
Many students come directly to graduate programs after graduating college, but many do not. Regardless, one common refrain we hear in the beginning of our program is that it “isn’t undergrad.” That’s not exactly helpful advice, but points to a general impression that students may have holdover behaviors from earlier schooling that do not transfer well. Furthermore, there is tension between the impression that graduate school is school and the reality that graduate school is also paid employment where students live like normal adults.
In the way of specific advice, however, first-year students do tend to think about classes quite frequently, as the early stages of grad school are foundational: building a specific base of knowledge for your field; getting oriented to both your new workspace and your (likely) new surroundings; and building a strong network of peers. One student noted that classes were different because of the “faster pace...and emphasis in thinking over calculating,” while another noted that while stewing with a question and thinking in fundamental terms was important, actual assignments were fewer in number.
Fewer assignments does not, of course, mean easier assignments. Reading, note-taking, and being able to consciously synthesize concepts are all abilities that are required for classes in grad school. This reality meshes well with what we heard in Issue 1 from Adam Subhas, a faculty member in the program, concerning what makes a good student-researcher. One thing that is common to all graduate students is time-management, and we saw this echoed with respect to the first-years’ attitudes about classes: three of four mentioned that graduate school requires management of your own time, and that includes being able to chip away at assignments that deal with big-picture issues in your field of study in addition to research.
What about grad student life defied your expectations?
“Life” for the first years who provided the insights here looked different than it has in previous years because of the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down both WHOI and MIT. Classes were virtual, and research shifted to computational projects where it could. Still, the students’ impressions here align well with past experience (speaking as the author).
The irony of coursework is that while graduate school isn’t as focused on rote learning, foundational classes are still important in the early year(s). Managing how much time you expect to spend on them is a skill of its own. One student put it well: “When in the thick of the semester, it was very difficult for me to actually go into the lab and get research done. I even got behind on the computational component of my research, even though I did sit at my computer 24/7.” This is a complex issue, and has much to do with who your advisor is and what expectations you collectively set for yourself. Some advisors expect next-to-no research to get done while you have a full course load so you can take classes as they are intended in graduate school--that is, taking them to learn about fundamentals, diving deep into your potential research interests, and getting a handle on the field. Other advisors have different expectations, and while these may often be practical in theory (learning by doing research) they can clash with reasonable time-management and effort between class learning and on-the-job style learning. Before selecting an advisor, examine how you think you might work best, and ask current students (hopefully in your potential lab group) what the expectations for those first years are.
The availability of classes was also an issue that came up: “There were fewer classes that I was interested in than I anticipated.” Sometimes, that is the specificity of grad school: rather than a prescribed laundry list of courses, most coursework in a Ph.D. (at least in oceanography) is selected by the student based on relevance to their research. Choosing classes takes some care, for example, taking a biochemical pathways course might not be the right option if what the student is really seeking is a course about enzyme kinetics. Even if an argument can be made for taking a class outside the scope of your research, such as making you well-rounded, graduate school classes are more like professional training than personal edification. If you worked at a bank, you probably wouldn’t ask your boss to let you attend a seminar on good babysitting practices, but it may make sense for you to go to a continuing education seminar on...new...techniques for refinancing a...car? [The author does not understand finances.] If your job interests lie outside your academic field and it does make sense for you to take non-science courses (teaching, project management, business), then being open about that with your advisor from the beginning will be helpful.
What surprises were positive and which were negative?
Maybe in college (or your other current occupation) you had a group of people you worked with on assignments, projects, or even personal struggles. The same will be essential in graduate school. Students had heartwarming things to say about their cohort (that is, a group of contemporaneous students in a program). “Whether I'm stuck on a bug in my code or just feeling burned out, I know I can rely on my fellow JP students to understand and uplift me.” Even outside of classes, when you’re doing research and can’t simply ask your fellow student if they got the same answer to a homework question, a broader kind of empathy and support can make all the difference. Many students find these kinds of relationships among their cohort, but that’s not universal; many students find that they want to “turn it off” outside of work hours so completely that they find social groups and emotional support outside the cohort. Some students are already married and find some of that in their family. It’s complex, but the key is to find people that make you feel included and heard.
For the JP in particular, students tend to feel collegial in a way that is not true for every program. One noted something we’ve heard many times, a “lack of competition between cohort members,” owing partially to the fact that everyone is guaranteed funding and doesn’t have to compete for favor in the lab or academically. So, you can take our optimistic attitudes with a grain of salt, and watch out for programs that may aggravate competition between students by making them compete for funding. None of the students brought this up, but the author (Noah) ran into this when applying to graduate school elsewhere in 2018.
The open-ended nature of graduate school (both the work and courses) can be a good example of both positive and negative surprises. As one student put it, “The emphasis of understanding concepts instead of calculating can be difficult to get used to, but is rewarding and stimulates more discovery.” Part of getting used to open-endedness is also tempering expectations of timing. There are plenty of ideas out there about how to effectively structure time when you determine your own schedule, but when boiling it down to concrete progress, research is slow. One student recalls an “expectation that I would accelerate through my research and have everything figured out on the same timeline as my undergrad thesis.” Do what works: make to-do lists, diagram out plans to your goals, estimate how much time certain things take, but know those will change over time, especially as you adjust to your new setting and fall into inevitable research holes for a while. Your advisor should understand, and take a vested interest in helping you.
Managing your expectations is harder than it sounds, especially when, even in a program where competition between students is not a central worry, you may feel “like others are succeeding with flying colors and progressing much faster than I am.” In those times it’s necessary to “remember that everyone's experience is unique.” Some students were already familiar with the field, or worked in the lab as a summer fellow, or are using a method that’s more well-developed than yours. Even barring advantages in a student’s research career, it won’t help your mental health or scientific effectiveness to be comparative. Many of us fall into this hole once in a while. Ultimately, you’re here to learn, and your peers are here to help.
What advice would you have for someone in the process of applying to programs?
Now we’ll give you a straight list of advice to think about when you’re applying and getting through that first year.
- Wisely choose an advisor. Advisor/research is really more important than the name of the school.
- Email potential advisors whose research you like and talk to them. See our guide for this here (also a part of Issue 3).
- Talk to the students of potential advisors! This will give you a clear idea of what each advisor will expect, how much you might meet with them, how much feedback you’re likely to get, etc.
- When you arrive, establish clear expectations for work boundaries (ex. “Do not expect me to respond to a 2am Slack message”), research/class balance, feedback, and advisor check-ins.
- Find your people! This might seem obvious, but it’s too easy to focus just on work in your new environment.
- Hopefully you’ve joined a cohort that you can work well with. If you can build relationships with them through coursework and commiseration about research, you’ll have a support network, as well as durable connections for your professional future.
- If you have interests that link you with people outside your cohort, pursue them. Take advantage of the school or community surroundings to find a group of people to support you.
- Be prepared to learn for a purpose that isn’t a test.
- Find courses that suit your goals for research and a career.
- Take notes on literature you read and archive it with a reference manager (Zotero, BibTex, etc.). You’ll need to recall it later.
- If something in a course interests you in a way that relates to your research, talk to your advisor/peers about it! It could turn into a part of your thesis.
- When feeling out where you want to go/what you want to research, ask current students for their opinions: How did they feel about their field before they got to graduate school? What did they know about their project before coming, and what excited them about it?
Read more of Through the Porthole Issue #3
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Learn more about the MIT-WHOI Joint Program