In the weeks leading up to starting at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where I am now a first year PhD student, I often found myself – for better or worse – turning to Google for advice on navigating the next five years. I would google any anxiety-fueled question that popped into my brain, from “What is the hardest year of a PhD?” to “How competitive is a PhD cohort?” I found the best answers online were from older students, who used the space to reflect on their recent experiences and offer up what they had learned along the ride. In that spirit, I hope some recently accepted graduate student stumbles onto this as they furiously google, and that it offers comfort and (hopefully) wisdom for a fun and tumultuous transition.
Below is a list of five things I really learned – and relearned – as a first quarter grad student. I am only one quarter done with a potentially six-year degree (which if we do some quick GRE math, means I am one quarter of one sixth done, which is a little over 4 percent), so this is by no means an exhaustive list. I’m actually really interested to see which of the five becomes more important as the years go on, and please comment if as a graduate student you think I missed something important.
Five lessons from the first quarter of graduate school:
Find help. This I think was the most often repeated piece of advice I saw going into my first year, and it really holds up. Finding people who I could be myself around – to whom I could ask stupid questions and lament about failed experiments with— was essential to my first quarter survival. My best memories from a packed schedule of lab and class are from study groups and group lab coding sessions. I also got involved on campus once I felt settled, which was a great way to meet and work alongside older students and mentors.
Planning ahead saves money. I worked in a lab as an undergrad and as a tech once I graduated, but I was never in charge of purchasing lab equipment or supplies. This quarter marked the transition for me between being an ignorant consumer of lab supplies to a conscientious one, now that I know exactly how expensive it all is and how much money you can waste by doing a poorly designed experiment (extra hint: include controls!). More generally, the application process for PhDs includes applying for grants, which is just the beginning in learning to apply for and manage money as a researcher. I’ve realized I have a lot to learn about budgeting and management in my journey to become a successful scientist.
Grades aren’t everything anymore. It was a hard habit to break, but all of your time shouldn’t be spent studying for your general first year classes. I learned to diversify how I obtained knowledge. Reading scientific papers and attending seminars from visiting professors were places where I learned the most this quarter. An afternoon spent reading a paper closely related to your research or an hour attending an interesting seminar often meant more to me than studying for a midterm in my more general oceanography classes.
Say yes. I am writing this from a ship off of the coast of Antarctica, where I am conducting field work, all because my advisor asked if I wanted to go and I said yes. Saying yes to collecting samples in the field is one example, but even to something simpler but still scary – like a surfing class or going to a social event where you don’t know anyone – just say yes.
You will make mistakes. I think the biggest lesson I learned from the first few months of grad school was how often you make mistakes. It is a daily (sometimes hourly) part of life, in both lab and in class. I am still working on how to learn from and move past mistakes, both large and small.
I think since I am still in my first year I have yet to really experience burnout or writer’s block, which I know happen often to older PhD students. I feel so fortunate to be able to study and do science as a Bowman lab member at Scripps, and I hope my insight from a great first quarter help put any prospective students that are reading this at ease.
Such an informative blog post – thank you!