Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Making the Most of Graduate School: A Practical Guidebook for Students in Applied
Linguistics, Education, and TESOL © 2024 by Matt Kessler and J. Elliott Casal is
licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
This book serves as a guide for assisting new graduate students in socializing into
graduate school in the fields of applied linguistics, education, and TESOL. Because
graduate school is a challenging endeavor for almost everyone, this book covers
common issues that most students face throughout their programs. Such issues
include: dealing with imposter syndrome; learning how to develop effective study
habits and routines while striving for work-life balance; developing teaching,
research, and professional interests; learning how to network and build relationships;
coping with personal crises; dealing with failure and rejection; and more. As a result
of reading this book, the goal is for both master’s and doctoral students to experience
less stress and anxiety, and to walk away from this text with concrete tips and
strategies for successfully navigating their respective graduate school experiences.
iv
Acknowledgements
Like many books, this book too could not have come to fruition without the
efforts and support of numerous people. First and foremost, we would like to thank our
own advisors from our respective master's and doctoral programs. They not only served
as mentors who shepherded us through our degree programs, but they also served as
positive role models more broadly in areas beyond work and academia. In this vein, we
must also thank and recognize many of our own graduate student peers. Together as
students, we spent many long nights in labs, in libraries, and elsewhere. During these
interactions, we learned a great deal from each other and formed tight-knit bonds, some
of which continue to this day. Notably, these experiences have informed the various
stories and bits of advice that we provide throughout this book.
Relatedly, we would also like to thank the current graduate students who
contributed their personal narratives to this book. We sincerely appreciate their
willingness to share such personal accounts, which we hope will have the capacity to
help others in the future as well.
Lastly, we would like to thank Luke Plonsky. Admittedly, this is a book that we
had been wanting to write for some time. However, it was Luke's encouragement that
ultimately made it happen.
In closing, we hope that you will enjoy this book. We note here that any errors or
omissions are our own.
vi
Foreword
Luke Plonsky
The idea behind the press was also bolstered by the open science (aka. ‘open
scholarship’) movement, which has been underway now for approximately a decade.
Among other tenets, and as the name implies, this movement seeks to increase the
transparency and accessibility of research materials and findings to the scholarly
community as well as to the public (see, e.g., Bolibaugh et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2023;
Marsden & Plonsky, 2018).
As for Matt and Elliott’s book, well, you already know how the story ends. In fact,
you’re now part of it!
Matt and Elliott took a chance on me and on the experiment that is Applied
Linguistics Press (ALP). More importantly, their choice to publish with ALP is a sign of
their sincere care for the development of current and future graduate students and,
hence, for the field. If even one student accesses and benefits from this book, I’m calling
it a success. And I’m sure that many will! This text is full of insights that are actionable,
empirically-informed, and broadly relevant. But it’s also concise-by-design. Matt and
Elliott strike the friendly tone of trusted allies but with the time-tested wisdom of
scholars who have not only survived but thrived throughout and beyond graduate
school. I hope and believe that by reading this book you will be one step closer to doing
the same.
References
Bolibaugh, C., Vanek, N., & Marsden, E. J. (2021). Towards a credibility revolution in
bilingualism research: Open data and materials as stepping stones to more
reproducible and replicable research. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition,
24, 801–806. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728921000535
Liu, M., Chong, S. W., Marsden, E., McManus, K., Morgan-Short, K., Al-Hoorie, A. H.,
Plonsky, L., Bolibaugh, C., Hiver, P., Winke, P., Huensch, A., & Hui, B. (2023).
Open scholarship in applied linguistics: What, why, and how. Language
Teaching, 56, 432–437. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444822000349
Marsden, E., & Plonsky, L. (2018). Data, open science, and methodological reform in
second language acquisition research. In A. Gudmestad, & A. Edmonds (Eds.),
Critical reflections on data in second language acquisition (pp. 219-228). John
Benjamins.
Plonsky, L. (Ed.) (2020). Professional development in applied linguistics: A guide to
success for graduate students and early career faculty. John Benjamins.
viii
Table of Contents
Contents
Front Matter………………………………………………………………………………………………………..i-v
Foreword, Luke Plonsky……………………………………………………………………………….…..vi-vii
Chapter 3: Developing Your Study Routine and Strategies, While Making Time for Yourself .. 21
Establishing a Dedicated Work Schedule ................................................................................. 22
Making Time for Yourself, Both Personally and Professionally .............................................. 26
Breaking Down Projects into More Manageable Chunks......................................................... 29
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 30
Tips for Developing Your Study Routine and Strategies, While Making Time for Yourself .. 30
Chapter 4: Carving Out Your Research, Teaching, and Professional Interests ............................ 34
Exploring and Gaining Experience with Different Research Topics and Methods .................. 35
How Your Future Career Interests May Factor into Your Decisions ....................................... 37
How to Adapt to a Teaching Assignment and Find Something Meaningful Within it............. 39
Seeking Additional Teaching Opportunities ............................................................................. 41
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 43
Tips for Carving Out Your Research, Teaching, and Professional Interests ............................ 43
ix
Chapter 5: Seeking Out (But Not Over Relying On) Your Advisor’s Input ................................ 47
Your Advisor’s General Role ................................................................................................... 48
Your Expectations as a Student and Advisee ........................................................................... 49
Learning How to Be Independent and to Take Initiative .......................................................... 52
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 55
Tips for Seeking Out (But Not Over Relying On) Your Advisor’s Input ................................ 55
Chapter 6: Building Relationships: How to Network, Network, and Network Some More! ....... 60
The Importance of Finding a Close Confidant ......................................................................... 61
Building Relationships by Being Professional and Having Something to Offer ...................... 63
Reaching out to Those Beyond Your Own Institution and Inner Social Groups...................... 64
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 68
Tips for Building Relationships and Networking ..................................................................... 69
Chapter 9: Conclusion................................................................................................................... 99
The Important Role of Kindness in Achieving Success ......................................................... 100
How Kindness Manifests During Graduate School ................................................................ 101
Concluding Remarks............................................................................................................... 103
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Opting to enroll in graduate school is a significant and life-altering decision. For some
people, making the decision to pursue a graduate degree is a ‘no-brainer’ in the sense
that it is something they have reflected on over a long period of time. Conversely, for
other people attending graduate school may be something that they began to consider
shortly before applying. Perhaps they started thinking about it as they neared the end of
their respective undergraduate program, master’s program, or even after being out in
the workforce for some time. Regardless of which group you fall into personally, we
think that it is not particularly controversial to state that graduate school itself can
represent an exciting yet also uniquely challenging time period for many (if not most)
people.
In terms of being exciting, graduate school is a time in which many people make
life-long friends, expand their knowledge base, and receive hands-on training in a
specific subject or area that they have an immense passion for. In fact, we agree that our
time in both our master’s and doctoral programs were rich, stimulating, and even fun.
And yes, it is often a key step towards achieving broader academic and professional
goals. Despite these positives, graduate school may also pose considerable challenges for
many. Such challenges range from dealing with imposter syndrome (i.e., feeling like you
do not belong) (Clance & Imes, 1978), to managing the increased workload, to wrestling
with issues involving socializing into a new community whose practices may be
idiosyncratic, unfamiliar, and even cryptic (Fernandez et al., 2019). Unfortunately, the
Kessler, M., & Casal, J. E. (2024). Introduction. In M. Kessler & J. E. Casal, Making the most of
graduate school: A practical guidebook for students in applied linguistics, education, and TESOL
(pp. 1-7). Applied Linguistics Press.
2
sum of these issues can sometimes lead to negative outcomes such as stress, an
unhealthy work-life balance, and eventually attrition, with some students embarking on
yet never completing their graduate degree programs (see Cassuto & Weisbuch, 2021).
In order to help students overcome some of these issues and achieve their
maximum potential, a number of books have been published that focus on different
aspects of graduate student professional development. Many of these books are
extremely helpful. However, they often fall into two primary categories, focusing on
either 1) helping students transition from graduate school into a full-time academic post
(e.g., Plonsky, 2020), or 2) developing individuals’ general academic skills during their
studies in terms of learning how to read or write (e.g., Shore, 2016; Swales & Feak,
2012). Related to this second category, some books even focus on assisting students with
preparing for specific time periods and seminal events of their graduate studies, such as
the dissertation (see Casanave, 2014 and 2020, Before the Dissertation and During the
Dissertation).
Again, while these texts can be immensely helpful for assisting students with
specific academic tasks and transitioning out of school, when we were graduate students
at both the master’s and doctoral levels, we recall wishing that there was some sort of
practical guidebook intended for incoming and new graduate students. In particular, we
wished that there was a guidebook that offered helpful advice, relatable stories, and tips
on how to deal with different situations that are likely to arise during the first year of
most graduate school programs, along with guidance on how to succeed, generally
speaking. Both of us eagerly sought out advice and stories throughout our MAs and
PhDs to inform the processes of making our own decisions. These stories and
perspectives were useful (and variably inspiring, entertaining, or disappointing).
However, not everyone was willing to share their experiences, understandably.
Additionally, many of those around us had completed graduate school a number of years
before (e.g., instructors, professors), which typically limited the types of insights that
they could offer with regards to life as a student.
This is why we wrote this book. Specifically, we wrote this book to serve as a
guide for incoming master’s and doctoral students, but also for those graduate students
who are newly enrolled and within the first year or so of their programs and are looking
for practical tips and advice on how to make graduate school one of the most fruitful and
enjoyable experiences of their lives. When developing this text, we specifically had in
mind students who are studying in the United States and North American contexts in
disciplines related to applied linguistics, education, and TESOL. That being said, many
of the tips and advice we provide here are more broadly applicable to numerous
3
disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and beyond (e.g., topics such as
networking and dealing with personal crises are not discipline-specific). As such, large
parts of each chapter are supported by empirical research from a variety of academic
disciplines, and importantly, they are also supported by the voices of current graduate
students whose stories are integrated throughout each chapter. Many of these stories,
tips, and advice that we share are based on our own experiences and those of our peers
from when we made our respective journeys through our MA and PhD programs.
One key point that we would like to bring up here is that the fields of applied
linguistics, education, and TESOL are highly interdisciplinary. Thus, the combination of
our own graduate studies, plus those of our peers whom we draw upon, are quite
diverse. This diversity includes voices from individuals who not only differ in terms of
research and teaching interests, but also in terms of gender, first language,
socioeconomic status, and more. The sum of these voices and perspectives, we believe,
enables us to speak to a broad number of topics and issues that reflect the diversity of
life histories, experiences, and challenges that different student populations may face
during their time in graduate school.
Important to note as well is that during our own respective graduate studies, we
were constantly seeking out best practices by engaging in reflective activities and by
contemplating our own actions (see Farrell, 2019). We also frequently sought out the
advice of more senior graduate-student peers and faculty. When doing so, one key
question that we constantly asked ourselves throughout our studies was: How can we be
more efficient and more effective in everything that we do? We strongly believe that it is
this type of attitude and openness that enabled both of us not only to successfully finish
our MA and PhD programs, but perhaps even more crucially, to truly love our time in
graduate school.
Following the introduction section of each chapter, chapters are then broken
down into three or four different sub-sections, where a myriad of sub-topics are
discussed pertaining to the overarching chapter theme. For instance, Chapter 2, which is
titled Dealing with your imposter syndrome: You belong here!, has four sub-sections
that cover how different actions or activities during graduate school can contribute to
you experiencing imposter syndrome, such as: 1) being admitted into graduate school,
2) meeting your new classmates, 3) engaging in coursework and attending academic
lectures, and 4) achieving academic success.
Within each chapter as well we offer the reader breakout stories that appear in
boxes which are titled Personal Reflections: Stories From Current Graduate Students.
As the title suggests, these breakout stories draw upon the experiences of currently
enrolled MA and PhD students as they relate to the chapter content. Not including our
own stories (which occasionally appear as well), there are multiple current graduate
students who have contributed short reflections on various topics. (In many cases, the
names are pseudonyms). The goal of these reflections, which are written in a narrative
journal style, is twofold: the first purpose is to highlight specific instances of how these
challenges might manifest into actual real-life accounts during others’ graduate
programs; the secondary purpose is to highlight the commonality of encountering such
issues, and thereby, to help the graduate-student reader feel more at-ease when
navigating similar challenges in their own academic lives. Everyone’s experiences will be
unique, but we suspect that many of these stories will be relatable.
While the aforementioned personal reflections are sprinkled intermittently
throughout each chapter, all chapters close with a series of practical tips that the reader
can use for addressing the chapter’s subject matter. Crucially, these practical tips fall
into a number of different areas, including those that are meant to be: interpersonal in
nature (i.e., discourse-based recommendations for interacting with other graduate
students or faculty); self-reflective in nature (i.e., questions to consider on your own); or
strategy-based in nature (i.e., specific tactics one can try out on their own when
approaching different school-related tasks).
personal crises during your education) to those that are more public and program-
related (e.g., interacting with your academic advisor and other faculty).
The first content chapter, Chapter 2, as briefly described earlier, covers the
widespread academic phenomenon of feeling like a ‘fraud’ that many students
experience throughout graduate school. In this chapter, we examine potential triggers
for imposter syndrome that range from meeting your new graduate-student peers, to
engaging in coursework, to attending public lectures, conferences, and more.
Importantly, we discuss imposter syndrome as a pervasive and public feeling (Breeze,
2018) rather than something that is unique to one individual.
Chapter 3, which is titled Developing your study routine and strategies, while
making time for yourself, outlines a number of practical suggestions that many
incoming and new students will find especially useful. Covered are topics such as
establishing a dedicated work schedule, making time for yourself (both professionally
and personally), breaking projects down into smaller, more manageable tasks, and
crucially, tips for avoiding procrastination (the great and formidable nemesis of all
people within academia).
The next chapter, Chapter 4, discusses the important yet related topics of
Carving out your research, teaching, and professional interests. In terms of research
interests, included are topics such as how to gain experience with different
methodologies (e.g., through term papers and other experiential learning
opportunities), and how your future career interests may factor into such decisions. For
the section on teaching interests, we discuss how to adapt to your given teaching
assignment and find something meaningful within your teaching (e.g., integrating your
own interests into your syllabus design), and how to seek additional opportunities
outside of your designated graduate assistantship (i.e., things you can do if not given the
opportunity to teach).
Chapter 5 moves on to discuss a topic that is typically of great significance to
most graduate students. In particular, it is a topic that is vital to those who are pursuing
a degree that requires the completion of either a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation.
Titled Seeking out (but not over relying on) your advisor’s input, this chapter provides
information about your advisor’s general role (i.e., the types of things they typically do
and do not do as advisors), your expectations as an advisee, and also, learning how to be
independent and to take initiative.
Chapter 6 is called Building relationships: How to network, network, and
network some more! As the title suggests, learning how to establish relationships with
your graduate student peers and other faculty is instrumental, both in terms of
6
achieving current and future success. Therefore, in this chapter we cover a number of
sub-topics, including why it is critical to find a close confidant (i.e., typically a peer you
can speak to openly), how to build relationships by being professional and by having
something to offer others, and how to reach out to those beyond your own institution
and inner social groups.
The next two chapters, Chapters 7 and 8, deal with slightly more sensitive issues,
which sometimes have the capacity to derail students during their studies. Chapter 7 is
called Coping with crises, and it outlines a number of personal and academic challenges
that may arise during one’s studies. Discussed are how being a graduate student can put
stress on relationships (e.g., friendships, romantic relationships), how managing
finances during graduate school may cause stress, how an unexpected personal crisis
may occur over the course of a multi-year program (e.g., a death in the family), and
crucially, how you can learn to expect the unexpected challenge, especially when it
comes to teaching or conducting research. We also touch upon how to seek guidance or
other counseling services when a situation or experience becomes overly difficult
psychologically or emotionally. Such services are often free and confidential across most
university campuses, and they can be very high quality.
Chapter 8 then covers issues related to Dealing with failure and rejection. In this
chapter, we explain how failure is a normal part of graduate school. However, this is
often a very difficult thing for new students to deal with (especially since many are high-
achieving pupils who are accustomed to being the best in their classes). Thus, we discuss
sub-topics such as taking feedback in stride (even if it is harshly delivered), recognizing
and getting over your ego, and knowing when it is simply time to move on from an
endeavor. Notably, in our discussion of taking feedback in stride, we discuss the vital
issue of how to know if the feedback you are receiving is crossing a line and what to do
about it (that is, understanding when an advisor’s comments may go beyond what is
normal or appropriate).
Finally, Chapter 9, the Conclusion, reviews some of the major topics that were
discussed. In addition, there is a brief discussion of the important role that kindness
plays in achieving any high degree of success. In this final chapter, we discuss related
sub-topics such as taking time to help others with their work, and being kind to
everyone who crosses your path, including your peers, university/program staff, and
your own students.
7
Closing
Before venturing into the first full content chapter, we would like to remind the reader
that there are undoubtedly other issues that will arise during your respective graduate
studies. After all, each person’s life is unique. That being said, this book attempts to
highlight some of the primary concerns and issues that likely will be applicable to new
graduate students across both master’s and doctoral levels, and also, to those across a
variety of disciplines related to applied linguistics, education, and TESOL. Thus,
whether you are only beginning to think about graduate school, whether you are about
to start your program, or whether you are already partway through your program, we
hope that you will find this book to be a useful and practical guide as you progress
through school. We sought out as much advice as we could during our own graduate
school experiences (even from each other), but we should always make our decisions for
ourselves.
References
Breeze, M. (2018). Imposter syndrome as a public feeling. In Y. Taylor & K. Lahad
(Eds.), Feeling academic in the neoliberal university (pp. 191-219). Palgrave
Macmillan.
Casanave, C. P. (2014). Before the dissertation. University of Michigan Press.
Casanave, C. P. (2020). During the dissertation. University of Michigan Press.
Cassuto, L., & Weisbuch, R. (2021). The new PhD. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women:
Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy Theory, Research and
Practice, 15(3), 1-8.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2019). Reflective practice in ELT. Equinox.
Fernandez, M., Sturts, J., Duffy, L. N., Larson, L. R., Gray, J., & Powell, G. M. (2019).
Surviving and thriving in graduate school. SCHOLE: A Journal of Leisure Studies
and Recreation Education, 34(1), 3-15.
Plonsky, L. (2020). Professional development in applied linguistics: A guide to success
for graduate students and early career faculty. John Benjamins.
Shore, Z. (2016). Grad school essentials: A crash course in scholarly skills. University of
California Press.
Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2012). Academic writing for graduate students (3rd ed.).
University of Michigan Press.
CHAPTER 2
Kessler, M., & Casal, J. E. (2024). Dealing With Your Imposter Syndrome: You Belong Here! In M.
Kessler & J. E. Casal, Making the most of graduate school: A practical guidebook for students in
applied linguistics, education, and TESOL (pp. 8-20). Applied Linguistics Press.
9
populations (e.g., Bothello & Roulet, 2019; Wilkinson, 2020). Additionally, it often does
not dissipate as greater levels of academic success are reached. In this chapter, we
discuss the broader issue of imposter syndrome and related negative mindsets that may
take up residency in graduate students' psyches, with attention to how these issues may
change over time. We begin by discussing how such ideas develop upon students’
admittance into their respective programs. Then, we move on to discuss the beginning
of graduate-level coursework and other activities that may occur during the first year of
students’ programs.
program’s strengths, needs, and the particular views of those on the selection
committee.
The point is: The review of your graduate school application was likely very
similar to what we have described here. Multiple faculty members with experience
conducting such searches and a clear idea of what the committee is looking for reviewed
and selected your application from a pool of applicants. You were chosen, rather than
randomly selected. Additionally, you were not chosen as a ‘finished academic product’ –
(after all, you are enrolling in a multi-year educational endeavor marked by close
apprenticeship with experts). Instead, based on what you put forward in your
application materials, your faculty saw potential in you as someone who has the capacity
to succeed both now and in the future. They may have been impressed with what they
saw, but overall, they likely saw something (and someone) they ‘can work with.’
This also brings us to another important issue which, early on, can often fuel
feelings of being a fraud and nurture imposter syndrome. As is common with numerous
graduate school programs across the U.S. and beyond, many students may be offered
funding packages from a variety of sources (Jongbloed & Vossensteyn, 2016), which may
include a tuition waiver and even a living stipend. For those who do not receive funding,
this itself can further fuel feelings of anxiety. In fact, we both had to seek creative ways
of obtaining funding during the first year of our master’s studies. Although students who
do receive funding opportunities are typically pleased by the prospect of not having to
finance their own postgraduate education, the response to seeing your specific Graduate
Assistantship (GA) assignment can trigger immense feelings of anxiety and self-doubt as
well (we return to this topic later).
In both master’s and doctoral programs alike, when it comes to teaching or
conducting research, it is usually the case that graduate students have limited
background experiences from which to draw. Therefore, being assigned a GA-ship where
you will conduct research with a faculty member might be an intimidating prospect.
Similarly, receiving a Teaching Assistantship (TA-ship) to instruct a university-level
course may not only prompt you to question your existing subject knowledge (e.g.,
Swabey et al., 2010), but it may also cause you to question your general preparedness for
handling a classroom full of undergraduate students (e.g., Giallo & Little, 2003).
What is important for all graduate students to remember is: Your faculty in your
new program are already aware of this. After all, you are probably not their first
graduate student. Additionally, they have read your application. Thus, your faculty know
if you have limited (or no) experience in teaching, research, or in a specific subject-area
that will eventually prove crucial to your GA- or TA-ship. Because of this, you should
11
note that many graduate programs have existing mechanisms built-into their programs
that provide students with the support they need. Depending on the program you enter,
such support opportunities may come from the faculty or even from other graduate
students, and they may include things such as: recurring one-on-one faculty-student
mentorship meetings; student- or faculty-led reading groups on certain topics;
informational/training sessions for new or returning TAs; and more. If they do not, then
it is highly advisable that you seek assistance from your peers to address the problem. If
you ever find yourself feeling unprepared or uncertain, remember that you are in most
cases not the first graduate student who has been asked to navigate the situation you
find yourself in. You can reach out for help from other generations (or cohorts) of
graduate students who often received help from those before them.
In a sense, the logical problem with feeling like a fraud in these situations is that
you are not supposed to be a professor-level expert to begin with. Even after you begin
to feel comfortable with teaching and other assistantship activities, you may wish to seek
out and participate in college, university, or discipline-wide activities. For example,
many universities have teaching-oriented workshops and learning communities to
support educators at any point in their careers.
they have received; or, the different theories or methodological approaches that they
adopt when conducting research (which as a new student, you may or may not have any
understanding of). When listening to these introductions, it may be difficult to avoid
comparing your achievements to those of your new peers. Additionally, there is often a
tendency to focus on those specific experiences or skills that you lack, rather than on
how your experiences and abilities may be novel and complimentary.
I could not help but to compare myself to others. We were all in our first semester,
and yet somehow others were able to draw deeply on their prior knowledge of our
discipline in highly eloquent ways. I read widely and carefully, but I felt like a lesser
student, and I will admit that I struggled with the thought that I was not intelligent
enough. I often had moments of fear and panic, worried that my professors wouldn't
be willing to serve on my committee.
Moving forward two years, I am pleased to say that I have formed a committee full
of the same professors I thought were disinterested in my abilities. They have been
supportive and strongly committed to my success. My colleagues have congratulated
me for 'overcoming' a switch to a new discipline and 'making up so much ground,’
and some have even admitted that my considerable experience as a language teacher
was intimidating to them. Looking back, I can still feel the anxiety and fear, and it
strikes me how blind I was to the foolishness of defining my abilities through what I
could see in others. There was a feeling of helplessness that drew my attention to my
comparative weaknesses.
13
This is also why it is important for you to pay careful attention to those things
that your new peers are not saying aloud and to consider how your past experiences and
accomplishments may be viewed by your peers. For example, you may be in awe of a
classmate’s teaching experience, and you may be in awe of another classmate’s research
history or publications. However, it is unlikely that each person possesses such a
balanced set of experiences and/or talents across-the-board. What we mean by this is:
The person with teaching experience actually may have little experience with research;
conversely, the person with a research publication(s) may have limited or no teaching
experience. You, too, likely possess some unique talent or experience that your new
peers do not. Even if your new cohort member does have an impossibly rich set of
experiences, they are on their own academic path, and you are not in a deficit to their
accomplishments.
Thus, as you listen to your peers’ introductions, the feelings of being an imposter
that arise inside you are likely not specific to you alone. Instead, it may be an unspoken
‘public feeling’ (Breeze, 2018) that is pervasive among all of the accepted students who
are entering a new intellectual community. Importantly, it is crucial to remember that
you made it into graduate school because you have shown some evidence of talent and
experience. However, it is also crucial to remember that possessing one experience alone
(e.g., research experience) does not necessarily translate into stronger academic
performance and being a ‘better’ graduate student (e.g., Miller et al., 2020).
but there are texts which discuss these issues in great detail (for more, see Swales &
Feak, 2012).
Similarly, when it comes to master’s students who enter PhD programs, there is
typically a shift in personal responsibility and reading materials. This shift often comes
as students move from reading textbooks to consuming published research articles, a
new genre which may prove quite challenging for many. Again, although students may
be relatively familiar with numerous foundational concepts within their respective
fields, they may struggle with understanding the intricacies of specific theories, various
research methodologies, or as Kim (2011) has noted, even in understanding things as
basic as commonly used acronyms, which may be unique to a particular sub-discipline
within their field. The sum of these things – experiencing an increased workload, a
change in teaching style, and reading new genres and hearing the names of foreign
acronyms (which everyone else appears to know) – may cause a great deal of stress early
on. For those students who move directly from BA to PhD programs, these feelings may
be even stronger. In some programs, MA students often take courses with PhD students
as well, compounding these stresses further.
As you progress through the early days of your program, those of you suffering
from the fear of being an imposter will likely encounter plenty of opportunities to
nurture such fears. Apart from coursework, one such activity might be attending your
first public research lecture or academic conference. In terms of attending a public
research lecture, you may end up seeing a talk by an established academic or perhaps
even a peer who is in a later year of your program. However, as you sit in the room with
the other audience members, despite listening intently, you may find yourself struggling
to understand much of what the presenter is saying. While there is a tendency to feel
like a fraud in this type of situation, in reality, this is a common problem that many new
graduate students experience. Coming to understand the practices and field-specific
jargon in one’s discipline takes time. As Rhoads et al. (2017) have noted, though, over a
period of time, students gradually do become socialized into their new communities,
and they gain this knowledge through a variety of sources, including coursework,
interactions with peers, and collaborations with faculty. Therefore, it is important to
remember that although you may feel like an imposter during a class or a public
departmental lecture, the other first-year students (and other graduate students) are
likely experiencing many of these same feelings as they wrestle with an influx of new
information. Perhaps more importantly, if the presentation is by a peer, you can view
that student’s success as an encouraging indicator of the strength of your program in
transforming students into effective scholars.
15
Some people may feel more legitimized and comfortable within academia as they
receive positive feedback. Conversely, others may feel increasingly like a fraud. For
me personally, when I saw an ‘A’ on the very first assignment of my doctoral study,
knowing that some of my American cohort mates were graded lower, instead of joy,
I immediately experienced panic. I ran to my graduate student mentor and asked
her if I did not actually deserve the ‘A’ but was given one because I was an
international student. My mentor had to assure me that based on what she knew of
that professor, she would hold equally high standards for everyone. Nonetheless, I
remained skeptical. I felt like an imposter, and it was hard to believe that my first
attempt at ‘joining the conversation with current literature’ deserved a
complimentary grade. Afterall, who was I to join the conversation of well-known
scholars? Then, it might not be surprising that I became obsessed with the more
critical part of my essay feedback which was on accuracy of language use.
Therefore, for the second class assignment, I went to the writing center to have
English native speakers ‘fix’ my language use. However, I then received a ‘B’ on my
second assignment! The reason? When I went to discuss the assignment with the
professor, the moment I sat down she asked, “Did you go to the writing center?” She
explained that she could tell because my second essay didn’t sound like me, as I was a
cautious writer attending to nuances when developing my arguments, but this merit
was lost in my second paper. She went on to advise that I should not allow anyone
else to override my integrity – and particularly, my voice – as an author. This
conversation struck me; instead of collaborating with the writing tutor to improve
my writing together, I merely took their suggestions. It was an effective prescription
for my imposter syndrome as an academic writer.
However, for others, achieving some level of success feeds their concerns and
discomfort, particularly if it comes early. Academia is built around the community-
driven construction of academic knowledge, and developing an academic career
17
Conclusion
Throughout this chapter, we have attempted to highlight some of those activities that
may cause you to experience imposter syndrome throughout the first year of your
graduate studies. In particular, we want students to step away from this chapter
understanding that this sense of imposter syndrome is not something that they are
experiencing alone. Instead, such feelings of self-doubt, anxiety, and fear are likely a
pervasive public feeling among most (if not all) of the graduate students, to some extent,
and this likely even extends to some of the faculty. Therefore, during your graduate
studies, you need to constantly remind yourself of this fact. You can also engage in
particular behaviors that may help alleviate some of these feelings. Thus, we close this
chapter with a number of practical tips that may help in this regard.
Tip #1: Keep in Mind That Feeling Like There’s Room to Grow is Not the
Same as Having Imposter Syndrome.
We previously introduced the idea that imposter syndrome is not the same as healthy
and realistic humility, or the understanding that you have limitations. The boundary
between these concepts is likely the individual-specific point at which it impacts mental
health and your ability to navigate professional life. You want to be aware of your
strengths and hone them, and you want to identify your weaknesses and work on them.
But, you should also monitor your reflection and ensure that it does not become
18
obsessive. Having identifiable areas for improvement and realistic goals does not make
you a fraud, and having an exceptional raw intellect does not make you a community
member. Rather, your membership to a disciplinary community will be based on and
legitimized through your ability to contribute within your local, institutional, and
broader academic societies.
Tip #2: Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions and Say You Don’t Understand.
This may seem like a fairly obvious tip. However, in our experience, there is a tendency
for many students to avoid asking questions in the early stages of their programs.
Students often fear that if they ask a question publicly (e.g., in a class or during a
conference), they may be exposed as a fraud or look/feel stupid to peers and professors.
Our advice is: Don’t be afraid of asking. In fact, if you are wondering about something, it
is likely the case that someone else around you also has the same question. If you are
still too afraid to ask your question publicly, be sure to take note of it. Then, ask the
professor (or the presenter) afterwards. You can also seek guidance from a more senior
peer who is in a later year of your program. Usually, they are very happy to help, as they
likely had the same question when they started the program.
As you progress through your program, it is important to remember that your own
actions play a prominent role in the culture of the program itself. In particular, you may
recall how severely you experienced imposter syndrome during the first year of your
master’s or doctoral program. Therefore, as you inevitably learn more and secure
different achievements during the program, keep in mind that many of your peers are
actively experiencing imposter syndrome to differing degrees. Thus, for example, if you
personally reach a major milestone such as publishing a research article, you should be
very proud of this accomplishment! That being said, you probably should not wander
through the halls announcing it to everyone in your program. Remember: Your actions
can both fuel or quell others’ feelings of imposter syndrome, and even good-natured and
justifiable actions can have a complex impact on the culture of your community.
Researchers such as Ramsey and Brown (2018) have noted that those who experience
imposter syndrome have a tendency to overwork or spend more time than necessary on
certain tasks. We have certainly witnessed many graduate student peers struggle with
19
this. For example, we know of particular students who spent nearly 20 hours working on
a class presentation that was worth only 5% of their overall course grades, as compared
to other peers who spent 5 hours on the same task. There are two follow-up points here:
The first is that it is important to note (as Tip #2 also discusses) that even for classroom
presentations and other class-related activities, it is okay to admit to yourself that you
do not understand a certain aspect of a reading, presentation, etc. You should only
spend additional time working on something if it is essential to your task. Secondly,
although it is (obviously) important to work hard during graduate school, you should be
strategic about the assignments that you invest a significant amount of labor into. We
return to this point in Chapter 3 when discussing specific strategies for managing
graduate-level workloads.
Tip #5: Understand That Everybody’s Path Into, Through, and Out of
Graduate School is Distinct.
Perhaps the most important tip and takeaway of all is that you are on your own
academic path. The differences between your peers’ trajectories and your own (into
graduate school, through the program, and into an academic community or industry) do
not make you a fraud. You can learn quite a bit from discussing other people’s
experiences and plans, and while these discussions can help you reframe and work
towards your own goals, they should not determine your goals or how you go about
them. Graduate school is about training independent scholars, not about preparing you
to chase the CVs/résumés of others, useful guides though these documents may be. So
the service records, grant activity, teaching styles, writing habits, and publications of
your peers can and should inspire you, and it is advisable to periodically rework your
goals and plans (in conjunction with your family and mentors). However, you owe it to
yourself to be yourself.
References
Bothello, J., & Roulet, T. R. (2019). The imposter syndrome, or the mis-representation
of self in academic life. Journal of Management Studies, 56(4), 854-861.
Breeze, M. (2018). Imposter syndrome as a public feeling. In Y. Taylor & K. Lahad
(Eds.), Feeling academic in the neoliberal university (pp. 191-219). Palgrave
Macmillan.
Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women:
Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy Theory, Research and
Practice, 15(3), 1-8.
Cowie, M., E., Nealis, L. J., Sherry, S. B., Hewitt, P. L., & Flett, G. L. (2018).
Perfectionism and academic difficulties in graduate students: Testing
20
Kessler, M., & Casal, J. E. (2024). Developing Your Study Routine and Strategies, While Making
Time for Yourself. In M. Kessler & J. E. Casal, Making the most of graduate school: A practical
guidebook for students in applied linguistics, education, and TESOL (pp. 21-33). Applied Linguistics
Press.
22
side effects. As Swanson et al. (2022) have noted, this can result in students
experiencing stress, a decline in mental and physical health, and, as many graduate
students report, a sense of feeling overwhelmed either “frequently” or “all of the time”
(p. 2227).
Although completely avoiding stress is not a possibility, there are a number of
things that graduate students can do to effectively manage the workload in their
programs, and ultimately, to achieve greater work-life balance. In this chapter, we
discuss some of the strategies for dealing with the heavy workload that you are likely to
experience in graduate school. We begin by discussing the important topic of how to
establish a dedicated work schedule. Then, we explain the importance of making time
for yourself, including the concept of ‘no time’ for boosting personal productivity and
creativity. Finally, we address how to take larger projects and break them down into
smaller, more manageable chunks as a means of reducing the feeling of being
overwhelmed.
and how much of your life the work plan represents, as well as to evaluate and modify
the work plan as time passes.
It is useful to consider each of these three reflection topics in a bit more depth.
Regarding ‘what is important to you professionally and personally,’ we recommend that
you resist the urge to take the personal reflections out of the initial equation. It is
essential to have a clear vision of your career goals and what will be needed to get there
(perhaps some programing skills for an industry job, or a publication for a tenure-line
job), but opportunities to enhance your CV may be nearly endless during your graduate
studies. Our view is that medium- and long-term professional goals should be developed
alongside personal health, family, and other goals. For us, we both placed considerable
importance on our families and friends, which meant that we were extra careful when
allocating time for new projects or taking on new and unpredictable activities. And on
the other hand, it is important to establish a list of professional sub-goals (in
conjunction with advisors or other knowledgeable experts, ideally) that set you up
realistically for your longer-term professional goals. The personal and professional
balance we mentioned before was neither constant nor easy, and our work plans were
customized to meet term paper crunches or to make room for high-impact projects from
time-to-time, as they fit our goals and values.
Regarding ‘what is and is not working for you,’ we advise that you attend to your
performance and productivity, as well as your mental and physical well-being. We
provide some guidance on creating a work schedule below, but it is important that you
monitor the effectiveness and suitability of your work plan over time. So while you may
find that experimenting with an evening writing schedule increases productivity, is it
cutting into your sleep or impacting relationships that you value? Similarly, while you
may find that it is more time efficient to schedule as many meetings as you can in a row
on a particular day, are you okay with the impact it has on your eating schedule or with
your alertness and attentiveness? Trade-offs aside, it is important to assess your plans
after you enact them. For example, Elliott generally prefers to work on single tasks for
long periods of time, but he found it to be difficult to maintain long hours of focus when
providing feedback in graduate writing courses while also reading for coursework.
Against his normal preferences, he found that implementing a ‘few papers at a time’
every day policy required a unique kind of discipline, but it also made the task more
manageable and enjoyable.
Regarding ‘what is the most urgent to complete,’ we direct readers to Covey’s
(1994) now infamous quadrant system that helps planners plot and consider activities in
terms of urgency and importance. Details of the system aside, the lesson here is that
24
tasks which are both urgent and important may be worth shuffling up a schedule or
making an exception for. Doing so seamlessly will require an awareness of how tasks
and events interrelate and pile up with the passage of time (which is harder than it
sounds).
Personal Reflections: Stories from Current Graduate Students
I typically work at my home, but I felt that a change in environment was needed to
increase my productivity. I used the library, and it was good. However, in my second
year, I discovered a place called the Technology Hub at my university. There are
different working areas that resemble professional work environments, and the view
is spectacular since it is located at the heart of the university. Now I have a few
options for work environments, which allows me to work for extended hours.
We are all human, so we often feel overwhelmed and stressed due to commitments
beyond our academic tasks. To manage these feelings, I developed a habit of writing
about my experiences, emotions, and achievements in a document. I consider this
practice as a form of meditation that clears my mind and helps me redirect my
energy towards what truly matters. I engage in this practice occasionally, while
enjoying a cup of coffee and my favorite chocolate bar, with relaxing nature sounds
playing in the background on YouTube. It sounds very specific, but this has had a
significant impact on keeping me motivated and dedicated to my daily routine, and
it creates moments of reflection where I can see how far I have come.
25
Based on these reflections, we recommend that you develop realistic plans and
make earnest efforts to stick to them, until it becomes clear that you need new plans.
With your long-term goals in mind, establishing a dedicated work schedule involves
careful consideration of (a) the non-negotiable commitments (e.g., classes), (b)
predictable and regular commitments (e.g., reading for courses and preparing for
teaching), (c) predictable one-off or intermittent commitments (e.g., a class
presentation or an event such as a wedding), (d) the work required to meet longer term
goals (e.g., working on term papers throughout the term or analyzing data for a research
project), and importantly, (e) unpredictable commitments. Some people can make it
through graduate school without a plan (particularly at the master’s level), but our
conversations with successful graduate students who are also happy is that they have
strategies and plans for dealing with workloads. By the end of the first week of classes,
much of your work for a given term can be mapped out broadly already, highlighting
when you will likely want to start particular tasks, when you are likely to struggle to
meet overlapping deadlines, and when you can make extra time for important personal
matters. A strong work plan takes these things into account and makes it easy for you to
assess when new activities can fit in or when you have to say ‘no,’ reschedule, or make a
short-term sacrifice to get through a tight window.
Of course, when it comes to planning, the granularity (broad daily objectives vs.
micro-level planning to the hour) and format (printed vs. digital agendas) are up to you,
and we recommend experimentation. For example, Elliott uses both a paper and digital
planner (divergent, but also admittedly somewhat redundant) so that he has the
satisfying experience of scratching things off his list, without losing out on the
productivity boons of email-calendar integration. It works for him, and ‘setting his
calendars right’ at the end of the weekend was a graduate school habit that helped him
make reasonable plans in his professional and personal life while managing
expectations – both his own and those others have of him.
Before moving on to the next topic, we offer a few more tips. First, and returning
to the idea of unpredictable commitments, we caution you to pay close attention to the
amount of time you spend with emergent tasks such as emails, paperwork, and even
journal reviews/revisions. These unpredictable tasks can become major time sinks, and
they can even be spontaneous tasks with both high importance and high urgency. To
this end, we recommend planning in non-specified work time a few times a week that
can be readily dedicated to emergent tasks but otherwise used for regular important
activities, such as writing. As a separate point, we highly advise all graduate students to
26
consider carving our regular writing time and protecting it (see Tip #4 at the end of this
chapter). These habits will become essential. Lastly, we encourage you to consider the
value of a wide range of activities when putting your work plan together, reminding you
that the professional development and moments of creativity associated with ‘tiny talks’
with peers between classes (Zoshak, 2016) can be worth including in a schedule.
instance, if you are someone who is likely to become tired after eating lunch, then that is
precisely when you should plan to take an extended break each day, rather than trying to
push through your tiredness (which is unlikely to be effective anyway).
Clearly, establishing personal time is important, both in terms of improving your
productivity throughout the day and also in terms of helping to reduce stress and
improve your own health. But what can you do to help ensure that you take an
occasional break, particularly if you are someone who has trouble doing so? One
effective strategy is to make joint plans with others, for example your significant other
or with some of your fellow graduate student peers. This way, you can hold each other
accountable. For example, when we were both master’s students at Ohio University, we
recruited several of our peers, and we joined an intramural indoor soccer league that
played games once per week in the evenings (shoutout to our old team, the Glottal
Stops!). Admittedly, we were pretty bad. But hey! It got us away from our desks and out
exercising. Another example – one that is much less healthy, but fun – is that when Matt
was a PhD student, he and some of his peers would hold a ‘Classy Cocktail Night’ once
every few months. The location of the event would rotate from apartment-to-apartment;
however, each event had a featured cocktail and a bartender (i.e., one of the students)
who would make drinks for everyone. This was a nice way to connect with one another
outside of school, and importantly, to force ourselves to step away from work for an
evening. Elliott and his doctoral student peers had regular social events as well,
including attending college sporting events, taking local day-trip hikes, and organizing
seasonal or cultural cooking events. Of course, for some people attending social events
can itself be a source of stress, but regardless, it is important to make time for yourself,
as well as your personal hobbies and activities.
Apart from setting aside personal time, as a graduate student, it is also typically
important for you to set aside some professional time. By this we mean dedicating
specific time to work on your own professional project(s) of interest that are separate
from your coursework and GA-ship. In fact, one of things that many faculty strongly
encourage is for graduate students to take initiative and to develop their own interests (a
topic we return to in Chapter 5 when discussing how to navigate the relationship with
your advisor). This professional time may be devoted to working on your own research
project, volunteering for professional organizations (e.g., at a conference or in another
service capacity), or doing something else pertaining to your future career goals (e.g.,
learning a new skill such as coding).
During a busy academic semester, it can be quite challenging to find the time for
your own professional projects. Therefore, what many students will do is to work on
28
such projects during major break periods such as winter or summer break. Both we and
other graduate students we know have done this as well. Importantly, it is possible to set
aside some professional time (e.g., 2-4 hours per weekday) during these extended break
periods while still reserving a significant amount of time for personal rest and
relaxation.
During the first few weeks of my MA program, I shuttled between three spaces: my
apartment, the building where I had my classes on campus, and the library. This
narrow locality was an adequate representation of my headspace: my primary
concern was keeping up with schoolwork. The rest of my limited time went towards
making sure I had enough energy to do so.
As you can imagine, it did not take long for me to start feeling overwhelmed and
fatigued. I have always taken pride in being sincere and hardworking, so the idea of
working smart, so to speak, did not occur to me at first. It wasn’t until I realized that
I didn’t have enough time on a given day to sit down for a half-hour to read a book
or watch an episode of a TV show that I realized something was missing from my
time management skills: prioritizing time for myself. Any journey in graduate school
comes with its set of responsibilities: classes, reading, research, and teaching are
everyone’s bread and butter. The problem is that those things are hard to do when
it’s all you’re doing.
I learned that the life of a budding scholar is rigorous and demanding, but it’s
important to make sure you’re getting enough water, air, and sunlight to grow and
reach your full potential.
29
would set another goal for the purposes of completing the third and final stage of writing
and revising your literature review.
Lastly, it is also worth noting here that it is crucial to know yourself and to set
realistic and achievable goals. For example, based on experience, Matt knows that when
writing a paper, he can realistically write between two and two-and-a-half good pages
per day. (The keyword in the previous sentence is the word good, since the quality of the
writing tends to decline with anything beyond two-and-a-half pages). If you are
someone who happens to be similar, then setting a goal of writing four pages in one day
would not be a particularly smart goal. By setting an unrealistic goal, this also may have
negative consequences, perhaps causing you to feel like you have failed for the day and
that you are behind, thereby leading to even more stress and anxiety. Conversely, by
setting (and achieving) a realistic goal, you are far more likely to feel a sense of
accomplishment, self-satisfaction, and to be less overwhelmed in the long run.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have discussed some of the work-related challenges that are likely to
cause graduate students to experience stress and anxiety during the first and second
years of their studies. We hope that you will walk away from the text with a better
understanding of the importance of establishing a dedicated work schedule, in addition
to making time for your own personal and professional activities. Additionally, we hope
that you will attempt to envision your future assignments and projects as a series of
steps, breaking them down into manageable tasks with realistic goals and corresponding
timeframes for completion. Finally, to further assist graduate students with various
challenges related to developing a work schedule and making time for oneself, we close
this chapter with five practical tips.
Tips for Developing Your Study Routine and Strategies, While Making Time
for Yourself
Tip #1: Keep in Mind That It’s (Often) Not Possible to Read Everything.
In most graduate programs, students take classes for approximately two years.
Typically, this consists of students taking three courses each semester. Although we are
not expert mathematicians, some basic math tells us that if you work 20 hours per week
as a GA and also attend classes for 9 hours per week, this means you are already
working/studying for 29 hours, (not including any commuting time to-and-from class).
On top of this, you will often be assigned between two and three readings per class, in
addition to an occasional presentation and project. Regardless of how fast a reader or
31
worker you are, this means that you are easily exceeding 40 hours of work per week,
and perhaps reaching 50 or 55 hours in some cases if not careful. As such, unless you
want to spend every waking moment of your life working, it is not realistic for you to
read every word of the 6-9 articles that you have been assigned each week. You should
know and understand this. However, you should also consider Tips #2 and #3 below.
Tip #2: Know What You Must Read In-Full Versus What You Can Skim.
Because it is often impossible to read every single article that you have been assigned
from beginning-to-end, this does not mean that you should simply skim every article.
Instead, you must be strategic about what you read carefully, as opposed to what you
skim to get the gist of. For instance, imagine you are taking three courses during one
semester, including (1) Second Language Reading and Writing, (2) Psycholinguistics,
and (3) Syntax. If you are someone who is specializing in teaching reading and writing,
then you should absolutely strive to read all of those articles in the Second Language
Reading and Writing class carefully from beginning-to-end. Conversely, you might want
to devote much less time to reading in your other two courses, unless those readings for
a certain week happen to touch upon issues related to reading or writing. (Of course, the
opposite of this applies if you are specializing in either Psycholinguistics or Syntax, in
which case, you would devote less time to the other courses). The point here is: Do not
skim everything. Otherwise, you run the risk of becoming an expert in nothing.
Tip #3: Try Setting a Timer to Avoid Spending Too Much Time on Reading
Tasks.
Although it is important to carefully read those articles in your primary area(s) of focus,
you still should attempt to skim, scan, and gain an understanding of those articles in the
other courses you are taking. You are still responsible for and hopefully learning from all
course content, and this is important for developing a holistic sense of your field,
including how your own teaching and research fit into the existing landscape. But how
can you avoid spending too much time on reading-related tasks? Something that has
worked for us and for others in the past is to set a timer. For example, consider setting a
timer for 60 minutes (or shorter or longer, depending on your preferences) for each
article you are assigned. When the timer goes off, that means it is time for you to stop
and move on to the next article. Over time, this can help you become a more efficient
reader in terms of moving through articles and searching for key information.
Importantly, using a timer can also save you from overworking and spending too much
time on assigned readings.
32
Tip #4: Do Not Compromise the Time Period(s) in Which You Are Most
Productive.
For many graduate programs, self-motivation is a major key to success, as students are
often required to complete lengthy projects over multiple weeks without much constant
supervision. As such, when developing your dedicated work schedule, it is important to
know yourself, and particularly, to know those periods of the day when you are most
focused and productive. For instance, if you are a morning person (like Matt), this
means that you might be most productive when drinking your morning coffee between
8:00-10:30am. If you are a night person (like Elliott), then you might be most
productive in the evening. The point here is: Whenever you are at your best, you should
make sure to reserve this time each day for the most important task(s) that you need to
perform. In many cases, this is likely something related to writing, such as composing a
course paper. Importantly, you should not compromise this time unless it is absolutely
necessary. This means that if your peak hours are between 8:00-10:30am and someone
asks you if you are available for a meeting at 9:00am, you should say ‘no’ and ask to
meet at a different time. (After all, you typically do not need to be at your absolute best
to attend a meeting). On the other side of the day, if you are regularly working in the
evenings, then you will want to consider leaving time for other activities during the
traditional workday, as discussed above. Of course, in rare circumstances you should say
‘yes’ (e.g., a required meeting set by your department). However, you should make every
effort possible not to compromise your peak productivity hours, at the very least to
reinforce the habit.
Tip #5: Remember That Things Typically Get Easier as You Progress.
This tip is one of the most important pieces of advice that we frequently tell new
graduate students. For many students, the first year is the most challenging, with things
getting progressively easier as you move on to your second year (and third or fourth year
in PhD programs). This is because the learning curve is tremendously steep during the
first year. As discussed, during year one, in addition to grappling with new concepts,
theories, methods, and genres, you likely will also be struggling with how to manage
your time, including all of the work that you have been assigned. However, keep in mind
that over time, you will become smarter, and you will also become more efficient,
especially as you discover the time management and study strategies that work best for
you. You will develop genre awareness and read faster and better, not to mention write
with more intentionality. As such, during your first year (and particularly during your
first semester), don’t despair. Know that it will not always be this difficult.
33
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CHAPTER 4
Kessler, M., & Casal, J. E. (2024). Carving Out Your Research, Teaching, and Professional
Interests. In M. Kessler & J. E. Casal, Making the most of graduate school: A practical guidebook
for students in applied linguistics, education, and TESOL (pp. 34-46). Applied Linguistics Press.
35
your programs (Austin, 2002). That being said, since teaching is typically of great
importance in graduate programs and for many people’s future careers, we explain how
to adapt to a given teaching assignment if provided a teaching assistantship (TA-ship).
Also discussed is how to find something meaningful within your teaching, particularly if
you are assigned a course that may be of little interest to you. Lastly, we discuss what
you can do in the event that you are not given a TA-ship yet are still interested in gaining
teaching experience.
are typically expected to show an advanced understanding and exhibit personal growth
(since the beginning of the semester).
Apart from coursework, in many graduate programs, there are additional
opportunities to participate in research projects and gain hands-on experience. For
example, a faculty member might be working on one or more research projects in which
graduate student assistance is required or possible. In some cases, a professor might
directly ask you if you are interested in collaborating or working on their project.
Typically, however, you should know that you are much more likely to be asked to
participate if (a) you have taken a class with that professor before, and (b) you worked
hard and performed well. That being said, it is also acceptable for you to ask your
professors and to express interest in their work (see Tip #2 at the end of this chapter).
In addition to potentially working with a professor, both we and other faculty
often encourage graduate students to collaborate with their peers. That is, if you can
find another student who shares similar interests, then it is acceptable for you to take
initiative and conduct your own research, assuming that you still go through the proper
institutional channels when necessary (e.g., applying for IRB approval when your
research involves human subjects). You might even meet a graduate student at a
conference from another university and try to connect with him/her about the
possibility of collaborating (also see Chapter 6 on the topic of networking). Over time,
this combination of coursework, experiential research projects, and peer collaborations
should assist you in developing your professional identity (Sweitzer, 2009). This
includes solidifying what your primary research interests are, along with the specific
method(s) you want to adopt.
Before moving on to the next topic, it is important to make another point here.
Since you will likely enter your programs with relatively broad interests, it is also crucial
not to be negatively influenced by those around you. What do we mean by this?
Specifically, when it comes to the topic of research methods, new graduate students
should note that tensions have long-existed surrounding quantitative and qualitative
research paradigms for decades in many fields (Brannen, 2007). As such, some people
may believe that their chosen paradigm (i.e., quantitative or qualitative) is superior to
another. Some people may even use positioning statements regarding the assumed rigor
of one approach over another, the perceived ease of publication, and more. As a student,
you are likely to be exposed to such rhetoric. To highlight this possibility, for this book,
we surveyed a total of 94 current doctoral students within the domains of applied
linguistics and TESOL. Of those surveyed, 52.1% stated that during their graduate
programs, they had been asked if they were either “a quantitative or a qualitative
37
person.” Additionally, 82.9% stated they had witnessed their graduate student peers
dichotomize quantitative and qualitative methods, with 19.2% stating they had even
witnessed peers refuse to participate in coursework (e.g., refusing to read) due to such
beliefs.
We strongly discourage you from holding or promoting such views and from
assigning your peers to one ‘side’ or the other. This polarization of research and
researchers not only perpetuates harmful dichotomies, but it also leads to insular
thinking that has the potential to limit your development. We revisit this issue in Tip #1
at the end of this chapter.
How Your Future Career Interests May Factor into Your Decisions
The expectations are less pervasive in master’s programs, but hanging over doctoral
programs in the social sciences and humanities is the pressure to work towards a
tenure-track faculty position. For many, this may indeed be the professional goal that
motivates graduate study, but it is important to point out that expectations are
changing, and it is becoming more acceptable in many contexts to discuss and prepare
for non-academic careers. Identifying an advisor and building a professional network
that are supportive of your professional goals and help you prepare for your goals will be
highly beneficial. Regardless of why you are pursuing a graduate degree, if you plan on
seeking employment based on your degree, you will benefit from developing a clear
understanding of how the degree will prepare you for success in your desired field. In
this section, we outline a number of activities and strategies for maximizing the benefits
of your graduate degree for your eventual post-degree search.
Firstly, we highly recommend speaking to senior graduate students who are on
the job market about their experiences, and also, watching the calls for jobs in your
desired area (at least a little, even in your first year!). This will help you familiarize
yourself with the types of skills and qualifications that you will want to develop. For
example, if an industry job of interest requires a design portfolio or leadership
experience, then you can prioritize summer projects or pursue service roles that allow
you to develop and demonstrate those specific skills. On the other hand, if you notice
that calls for academic jobs specify the minimum number of years one must have with
teaching experience, you will have more power to hit that target if you are aware of those
expectations early. This also allows you to plan research projects in advance to be able to
make a strong case for future hiring committees or recruiters.
Beyond these practical concerns, monitoring the job postings over the years will
help you gain an awareness of what the market is like in your area, including how many
38
jobs are typically available, what the application requirements tend to be, and how the
calls change over time and trend towards favoring certain skills over others. Gaining
these valuable insights early in your program allows you more time to strategically
Before grad school, I always had a passion for teaching, which was one of the
driving factors that led me to embark on a graduate program, an important step
towards realizing my aspirations in academia. As a master’s student, my teaching
ambitions were crystal clear, but the path I’d take in research and professional
development wasn’t. I knew I wanted to teach, but I wasn’t sure about my research
focus and other professional options.
During my master’s program, I got interested in the way people talked about
protests and activism, and it formed the foundation of my master’s dissertation. This
was the point where I began constructing my academic identity and engaging in
academic tasks such as presentations and publishing. My interactions with the
academic community also exposed me to the value of diversifying my skill set as I
started to develop an interest in technical writing, fueling my determination to
broaden my skills for potential roles beyond teaching. I took some free online
courses in technical writing just to learn more about it.
After my master’s, I had some job opportunities outside academia, but I decided to
follow my passion for teaching and joined a university to teach. This path naturally
led me to embark on a PhD program. At the start of my PhD, I thought I had a firm
grasp on my research interests and dissertation plan. However, the academic
environment had a way of awakening curiosity in me. Attending classes made me
find new interests. For instance, I used to focus on qualitative research, but I became
curious about quantitative methods and became open to both. Also, engaging in
discussions with my professors allowed me to refine my interests and seek valuable
advice.
cultivate a CV or résumé that is not only filled with ‘academic stuff,’ but rather
tailored to the career you are seeking and the case you are making for yourself. This is
not to say that you should only pursue activities which direct you towards those goals,
but you should note that you can gain useful information by reading the calls.
To this last point, you may want to make decisions about which activities to
invest in during your graduate program so that you are advancing towards your goals
without shutting down other opportunities. Circumstances may change, and you may
change. To this end, even if you are confident that you are not interested in pursuing an
academic role in the future, it may not be in your best interest to avoid teaching
experience altogether, as those experiences can be challenging to secure after graduation
if you end up changing your mind. Plus, there are other valuable skills that you can gain
through serving as an educator. More broadly, it is advisable to develop back-up plans,
as securing competitive positions – whether within academia or on the outside – is
always uncertain. If you find yourself unable to secure a job in your desired area (or are
anxious while navigating the slow academic market), you may be happy that you had
considered an alternative career path in advance.
When I began teaching some years ago before I started my master’s program, I did
not know much about language teaching methodologies, but I always knew that I
wanted to teach French in a fun and engaging way. So, when I began teaching
French while doing my master’s, I started learning a lot about different language
teaching methods and approaches, and then I created my teaching philosophy based
on the Communicative Language Teaching approach.
However, in my first year of teaching French, it was difficult because the assigned
French curriculum was primarily grammar-based. I was torn between changing my
teaching approach and focusing almost exclusively on grammar, or adapting my
preferred teaching approach to my lessons. It took a while, but I had to find a way to
ensure that while a lesson can be focused on a grammar topic, students can also be
engaging in activities that encourage real life and authentic communication in the
classroom.
One way I was able to achieve this was to ensure that I adapted both receptive and
productive activities (speaking, listening, writing, and listening skills) into my lesson
plans. That means that if I was going to teach a grammar topic like passé composé
(past tense) in French, students will start by reading a text conjugated in the past
tense (text about the life of a famous French writer like Victor Hugo), then in
addition to explaining the grammatical structure to them, I would also ask them to
listen to a French song, write down verbs that were conjugated in the past tense
after listening to the song, and I would also put students in groups to talk about the
things they did before coming to class and the previous weekend. After the lesson,
students would have not only learnt the grammatical structures required by our
French program, but they would also develop linguistic fluency while talking about
their experiences.
For me, it took a lot of effort and intentionality to adapt to my teaching assignment
and to balance what the program required with what I felt made for good
instruction. However, I love it now, and I teach all my classes enthusiastically.
in a course that does not connect with our ultimate goals directly (and especially
in a course we have taught many times), there is generally room for educators to
41
South Florida, some of the doctoral students in education and applied linguistics joined
forces to create a weekly ESL program for the university’s facilities staff (e.g., assisting
staff members in learning English for specific job-related tasks and daily interactions).
The program ran for a trial period before eventually being funded by both the university
and an external grant. Thus, it is possible that you can create your own opportunities
(and be paid for them!). You just need to consider (a) what your skills are, and (b) how
you can apply your skills to an existing need within your university or local community.
Conclusion
This chapter covered some of the challenges that graduate students may face in the
process of developing their research, teaching, and professional interests. We have
attempted to provide some potential solutions for the types of issues you are likely to
encounter, particularly when it comes to grappling with research topics and methods,
gaining (and enjoying your) teaching experience, and more. However, apart from issues
pertaining to research and teaching, we hope that graduate students will walk away from
this chapter with the understanding that their career interests may change during the
span of their graduate school studies, and that it is certainly normal and acceptable. As
such, there are numerous options beyond academia that students might pursue post-
graduation. Lastly, to further assist you with the challenges you may face with carving
out your research, teaching, and professional interests, we close this chapter with a
series of five practical tips.
Tips for Carving Out Your Research, Teaching, and Professional Interests
Tip #1: Keep an Open Mind About Different Research Topics and Methods.
As discussed in this chapter, some people may have a tendency to pit researchers against
other researchers, particularly when it comes to adopting quantitative or qualitative
methods. When we were students, we certainly observed some first- and second-year
students who quickly became entrenched in such dichotomous thinking, as they
disparaged (and sometimes even refused to read) research involving a particular
method or approach. However, by engaging in this type of dichotomous thinking, you
will only perpetuate these false binaries and construct your own developmental
obstacles by missing out on large bodies of influential research that have the potential to
inform your current and future activities. Instead, you should know that you will
strongly benefit from reading quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods works by
prominent scholars and others who have helped shape current understandings and
discourse surrounding your topics of interest. Speaking to this point, as Harden and
44
Thomas (2005) have rightly pointed out: “much research in the ‘real world’ does not fit
into neat categorizations of ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’” (p. 257). Thus, if you truly
wish to become a thoughtful, contributing member to your academic community, then
you need a holistic understanding of the broad spectrum of research that has been
conducted within your area, including how different schools of thought have differed
and converged to shape one another.
Tip #2: Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Your Professors (And Peers) to Collaborate
on a Research Project.
If you are interested in gaining research experience beyond what is offered via your
coursework, in many cases, you will need to take the initiative and make it happen. In
terms of approaching a peer, most students find it relatively easy to ask another student.
However, it is also possible for you to ask one of your professors to collaborate on
something. Although this may feel somewhat uncomfortable, you can approach a
professor in multiple ways. One option is to tell your professor something along the
lines of: I am interested in your research. In the future, if you have a project that you
need support on, please let me know. I would love to have an opportunity to work with
you. A second option is to ask your professor about a specific project that you have in
mind. For instance, perhaps you have a research proposal that you developed in that
professor’s class. If this is the case, you might say something like: In your class, I
developed a research proposal on X. I am interested in pursuing it further, but I don’t
feel comfortable executing the project on my own. If you have time and are interested,
would you be willing to help me and be a co-author? Of course, the key phrase in the
previous sentence is “if you have time.” As such, do not be offended if the professor says
“no” to your request, as they simply may not have the capacity to take on another project
at the moment.
We discussed this above, but teaching is a real responsibility that should always be taken
seriously. Aside from the value of educational work, teaching affords important
opportunities to develop a variety of social skills, acquire and sharpen your own content
knowledge, gain leadership experience, and grow as a person. It can be difficult to get
university teaching experience once you graduate, so you will want to pursue some
opportunities to teach even if you are not considering an academic career. In most cases,
teaching your own classes allows you at least some freedom to experiment with
pedagogies and educational technologies in a way that can genuinely be fun and even of
45
scholarly merit! Also, over time the ability to demonstrate that you are an effective
educator across a variety of subject domains and contexts will allow you to convincingly
articulate a teaching philosophy.
Tip #4: Don’t Save the Job Hunt for the End, (Sort Of).
Each of us in our first year looked at calls for jobs we wanted in academia and imagined
what we would write in our cover letters if we were to apply. It was not much, but the
value of this exercise is that we started to identify areas where we were already
developing strengths and areas where we really needed to shore up weaknesses in our
applications. As we stated earlier, this helped us make decisions regarding the types of
activities we wanted to take on and seek out. At the same time, this sort of activity helps
you think of how you want to present yourself and what you are trying to get out of your
graduate degree. While we do not recommend applying for jobs before you are ready, we
certainly recommend keeping an eye on the market that you seek to enter. You do not
want to be surprised by what job posts are requesting only when it is too late to do
anything about it. Relatedly, if you are able to attend any job talks at your university
while you are a student, you should strongly consider attending them in order to learn
about the expectations and to start considering how you would tackle the opportunity
and what you would like to be able to say when you are one day in that position.
Elsewhere in this book, we recommend that you attend thesis and dissertation events as
often as possible, and that same advice applies here.
No, really. You absolutely need to do this. As you are accumulating teaching and
research experiences, you should add all of the relevant activities to your CV or résumé
documents (and preferably, immediately after an event or experience happens).
Practically, this is a suggestion that builds a good habit and saves you time, but it is also
relevant to the themes of this chapter. While you have your own goals and project an
identity of who you want to be at the end of your program, it is important to pay
attention to who the paper says you are. Keeping these documents up to date during
your graduate studies allows you to notice areas of emerging expertise or themes of
activity that you may not have noticed on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps you notice a string
of technological projects across the sections of your CV? Or maybe you note a
documented willingness to take on mentorship roles? These trends can create important
opportunities to cultivate interests that can be showcased to differentiate your
candidacy for positions later, while also helping you develop your interests now. At the
46
same time, perhaps you start to notice developing trends that you want to shy away
from. A current CV or résumé can be an important resource to stimulate reflection and
help you see your profile from a somewhat external perspective, which can be essential
when you are still developing a sense of your identity in your program or broader field.
References
Austin, A. E. (2002). Preparing the next generation of faculty. The Journal of Higher
Education, 73(1), 94-122.
Brannen, J. (2005). Mixing methods: The entry of qualitative and quantitative
approaches into the research process. International Journal of Social Research
Methodology, 8(3), 173-184.
Ding, A. & Bruce, I. (2017). The English for academic purposes practitioner: Operating
on the edge of academia. Palgrave Macmillan.
Garcia Alonso, A. (2022). Narrative-based mentorship and mediation in an English for
Academic Purposes context. European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL,
11(1), 151-167.
Grady, R. K., La Touche, R., Oslawski-Lopez, J., Powers, A., & Simacek, K. (2013).
Betwixt and between: The social position and stress experiences of graduate
students. Teaching Sociology, 42(1), 5-16.
Harden, A., & Thomas, J. (2005). Methodological issues in combining diverse study
types in systematic reviews. International Journal of Social Research
Methodology, 8(3), 257-271.
Roulston, K., Preissle, J., & Freeman, F. (2013). Becoming researchers: Doctoral
students’ development processes. International Journal of Research & Method
in Education, 36(3), 252-267.
Sweitzer, V. (2008). Towards a theory of doctoral student professional identity
development: A developmental networks approach. The Journal of Higher
Education, 80(1), 1-33.
CHAPTER 5
Kessler, M., & Casal, J. E. (2024). Seeking Out (But Not Over Relying On) Your Advisor’s Input. In
M. Kessler & J. E. Casal, Making the most of graduate school: A practical guidebook for students in
applied linguistics, education, and TESOL (pp. 47-59). Applied Linguistics Press.
48
these two different perspectives is crucial since frequently, issues that may arise
between students and their advisors stem from unrealistic expectations (Tenenbaum,
2001). When addressing these topics, we also discuss the issue of how to go about
finding and selecting an appropriate advisor to guide your graduate studies. Finally,
before providing a series of tips, we discuss the importance of learning to take initiative.
As a graduate student, developing personal independence and a willingness to take
(calculated) risks is not only critical, but it is also something that most advisors value.
So, what are faculty advisors not expected to do? For one, many graduate
students have the misconception that if they ask a faculty member to serve as their
advisor, this means that their advisor will tell them what their thesis or dissertation
should be about. This is not the case (in many social sciences, at least). Instead, it is an
advisor’s job to help guide you and your ideas by giving you helpful suggestions and
noting potential issues that may arise. Many students have the wrong idea that their
advisor should always tell them what to do and exactly how to do it. (We return to this
topic later in this chapter when discussing the importance of taking initiative).
Relatedly, some graduate students believe that if they select an advisor, this means that
their advisor should collaborate with them on research projects and presentations. This,
also, is not necessarily the case. That is, faculty members may be happy to collaborate
with you, but only if you have clearly demonstrated to them that you are responsible,
reliable, and hard-working, among other traits. So be forewarned: selecting an advisor
does not necessarily grant you the right to collaborate with them on research- and/or
teaching-related activities.
Notably, some students also have misconceptions about an advisor’s capacity to
impact monetary and funding-related outcomes, such as GA-, RA-, and TA-ship
placements. As Tenenbaum (2001) has noted: “From a mentor’s point of view,
difficulties can also arise when protégés’ have unrealistic expectations about the
mentor’s power to affect outcomes within an organization” (p. 327). That is to say: if you
would like to have a GA-ship or a different position within your university, you can
absolutely broach this subject with your advisor so that they can advocate for you in a
program or departmental meeting. However, you should also note that your advisor may
not be the person who ultimately makes such decisions within the department. These
decisions may be driven by basic factors such as availability, need, and fit. Thus, just
because your advisor makes a request on your behalf, it does not mean that your request
will (or should) be granted.
in psychology programs. The results of the study suggested that students tended to be
more satisfied with their working relationships with their advisors and if they perceived
them as being (1) an expert, (2) attractive (in terms of their supervisory style), and (3)
trustworthy. Thus, you may want to consider the extent to which a potential advisor
exhibits such traits as well. You can learn this information in multiple ways, such as
taking a class with the professor, and also by asking some of their current advisees about
their experiences.
After asking a faculty member to serve as their advisor, graduate advisees are
equally expected to engage with their advisors in a respectful manner that reflects the
university and departmental ethical guidelines. This means that you, too, are
responsible for learning about department policies and making progress towards
graduation. As we have discussed, the advisor is expected to guide and facilitate, but
they are not responsible for making all your decisions for you along your journey
towards receiving your graduate degree. And while your advisor is expected to provide
you with timely feedback and mentorship, you are also expected to be reasonable
regarding your expectations and demands of your advisor’s time. Not only are they likely
teaching courses, conducting research, and engaging in service activities (e.g., serving
on university committees and editorial boards), but they are also likely to have other
students who ask for meetings, guidance, and feedback.
Of course, your advisor is a person, too. This means that they also have the right
to balance work and personal time while being attentive. Research has documented that
feelings of “perceived poor supervisor availability” (Cornwall et al., 2019, p. 372) can be
a major source of stress and anxiety for doctoral students, particularly at early stages,
but some flexibility is expected both ways. A common example of this is when you are
ready to request letters of recommendation. A general rule of thumb is that you should
leave at least two weeks between requesting a letter and the due date, allowing ample
time for your advisor to write/adapt your letter and submit it. And one of the most
important expectations is that you maintain clear communication with your advisor
regarding any difficulties that arise, your progress towards completing work and other
checkpoints, and any major change that may need to be made (for more, see Tip #3 at
the end of this chapter).
As one final note to this section, we do want to point out what may be obvious to
many readers: Building a strong professional and academic relationship with an advisor
takes time and energy, particularly when both parties have busy schedules and time is
limited. You should keep in mind that it can take many meetings to build trust and
familiarity, and more introverted or private individuals may take even longer than
51
A year ago, I was so enthusiastic about starting my PhD journey. I had high
expectations of the program as the study plan aligns well with my research interests.
During my coursework, I worked closely with my advisor and discovered the
research area that I am interested to explore more in my dissertation. The weekly
discussion posts, readings, and the research project tasks were the cornerstone of
that discovery. Besides that, the learning environment was fun, exciting, and
inspiring. I learned so many things from my classmates and benefited a lot from
their experiences in research and teaching.
Based on that, my role as a student centered around reading, writing, and asking
questions about research, understanding and applying research methods, and
finding my place in the academic world. On the other hand, what has been generally
expected from the advisor is to take time to get to know the student’s academic
interests, strengths, weaknesses, and more. Thus, if my advisor knows who I am
well, his guidance can meet my interests and needs. I was pleased to see that my
expectations were definitely exceeded! My advisor has been a supportive mentor,
always there to give advice whenever I faced difficulties or challenges. At the same
time, I aimed to demonstrate self-motivation and the ability to work on my own. I
wanted to show that I was ready to take ownership of my education and future. I see
our advising relationship as a collaboration, with responsibilities on both sides.
During this journey, I was thrilled to be one of the founding members of a lab,
including my advisor and a classmate. Within this lab, we started a reading group
that regularly meets to discuss topics aligned with our research interests. More
importantly, we collaborated on research projects and participated in conferences.
These experiences have provided me with valuable insights and practical skills that
will have a positive impact on my academic and professional journey.
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readings from your courses, but you do not want to wait for your advisor to recommend
readings to you or only read what is necessary for completing coursework. We provide
more guidance on this below in Tip #4. However, we highly recommend that you read (a
bit) widely to keep an open mind and to sharpen your interests. Similarly, you should try
to keep up to date with new contributions in areas you are already interested in. It may
be a good idea to build a reading list with your advisor, but this is not necessarily
something that is going to be exhaustive.
And this all builds towards one of the central goals of many master’s and doctoral
programs: building independent thinkers, teachers, and researchers who can make
meaningful contributions to their field. Many scholars in higher education have noted
that the transition from the more structured stages of coursework to the more fluid
stages of the thesis and dissertation work rely on personal initiative and creativity (e.g.,
see Lovitts, 2008, who offers a model for creative performance and degree completion).
Such research underscores the “individualized nature of doctoral study” and the “need
for greater responsibility and creativity on the part of the student” (Gardner, 2008, p.
327). In part, this is due to the difficulty involved in conceptualizing a significant piece
of scholarship, and also in part due to the difficulty involved in executing and writing up
such work. The advisor generally plays a major role in guiding an advisee through the
difficult decisions involved in developing meaningful questions, formalizing a rigorous
design, and other important deliberations in social sciences. But, as referenced earlier,
their role is not to provide the plan directly.
In order to thrive during these stages, it is important for graduate students to
begin taking intellectual risks (perhaps in term papers or in discussions) and thinking
creatively about research questions and design, rather than waiting until they are
‘ready,’ as there are skills involved in research innovation and design that develop over
time. We both have master’s and doctoral students who have identified their research
(and teaching) interests rather early, but it is not uncommon for many of these issues to
be resolved over many rich discussions across several meetings. In our experiences as
former students and in serving as advisors, such meetings are enjoyable as long as
students are committed to taking intellectual initiative, thinking carefully with advisors
and on their own.
As we discuss elsewhere in this book, initiative also means taking charge to
develop your own interests, working hard to build professional relationships, and
seeking out opportunities to engage in teaching, research, and professional development
practices on your own. When we were graduate students, we both had success when
54
bringing ideas for projects to our advisors, professors, and peers for collaboration, and
this success was founded both on the contributions of our collaborators and our efforts
Starting my PhD journey, I was constantly scared of not measuring up. Over time, I
learned that this fear was okay because it pushed me to improve. As my confidence
grew, I began to envision my future self, a time when I should step out of my comfort
zone, surrounded by individuals who might not always be willing to offer
unwavering support or guidance. This vision urged me to reflect on my desired
identity as a researcher and my place in academia. This planning is not set in stone,
but it helped me set goals. From that moment on, I started looking up role models,
studying people’s CVs(!), and jotting down research ideas as well as pondering their
feasibility and collaboration potential. I also started saving tons of screenshots of
interesting opportunities shared on social media and taking plenty of notes at
conferences about research gaps, professional associations to join, and further
potential opportunities out there. I keep organized files in my Google Drive with all
this info.
This whole process of finding my own path motivated me to take initiative. For
instance, I began connecting with like-minded peers and organizations, seeking
advice on research ideas, approaching professors and fellow students to collaborate
on research projects or other initiatives. For example, I reached out to a peer for a
project, bringing together our research interests and skills. I am confident we will do
some awesome work together. Also, I approached my advisor with a research idea.
He helped me refine the focus, and now we are working on something truly exciting
together.
I got to learn that professors are not mythical creatures with all the answers. They,
too, have their gaps in knowledge and are open to learning from students. Exchange
of ideas are always mutually beneficial. The worst-case scenario typically involved a
simple “I'm not sure if this would work,” followed by constructive feedback, or a
polite decline, both perfectly acceptable outcomes. After all, being within the
supportive ‘academic bubble’ is the best time to take risks, like having a parachute
while free-falling.
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to take initiative on our own. Initiative, in this regard, does not necessarily mean doing
things completely on your own, but your advisor should be able to give you a task in
planning, reading, or collaborating that you can carry out to some degree on your own.
Likewise, your preparation for meetings and discussions will go a long way towards
building your independence, making the most of advisor-advisee time, while also
building respect.
Conclusion
This chapter covered some important components of the advisor-advisee relationship,
including expectations and recommendations. We have discussed some of the
reasonable expectations you can have of your graduate advisor, the expectations that an
advisor may have of you as a student, and the importance of taking personal initiative to
build this relationship and grow towards independence as a teacher, scholar, and
professional. The advisor-advisee relationship is a long-term and high stakes
relationship across graduate programs, and it can be a tremendous source of
mentorship and opportunities for growth and career-building, but research has also
shown that it can be a major source of stress and anxiety. For these reasons, we
recommend that graduate students take care when entering into such relationships,
work hard to cultivate and appreciate such relationships, while also keeping an eye open
towards discussing problems or changing advisors if it becomes clear that something is
not working. We are personally very grateful for our advisors as professionals,
academics, and people, but the relationships we developed with them were built over
time. We conclude this chapter with five practical tips for making the most of advisor-
advisee relationships and taking initiative in graduate school.
Tips for Seeking Out (But Not Over Relying On) Your Advisor’s Input
Tip #1: When Asking Someone to Be Your Primary Advisor, Be Polite, but
Also Be Observant.
students’ beliefs, faculty do not get paid extra for each advisee that they have! In light of
these issues, when asking, you should be polite. It can be as simple as meeting with
them and asking: I was wondering, would you be open to serving as my advisor for my
thesis/dissertation? I know it’s a big commitment, so please feel free to consider and let
me know later. That being said, in addition to asking politely, you should also be
observant. What we mean by this is that you should look for whether the faculty
member exhibits any hesitation or pushback (e.g., saying: Are you sure? Have you
considered XXX [faculty member]? It seems like they might be a better fit). This does
not mean that it is a definite no; however, it may mean that you should not push them
too hard to agree to be your advisor. And as hard as it is to keep in mind, a faculty
member may say no for a variety of reasons that do not have anything to do with you.
This could include currently having too many students, personal health reasons, and a
lengthy upcoming sabbatical or field work that could cause long periods of difficult
communication.
Once a faculty member has agreed to serve as your advisor, we strongly encourage you
to have an open and honest conversation with them about their expectations. Just as
students often have fears about the nature of the mentor-mentee relationship, so do
many faculty, since they may not know the student all that well. For instance, faculty
may struggle with trying to navigate the boundary between being a professor and being
a friend who can provide advice on issues that go beyond classroom-related activities
(Hart-Baldridge, 2020). As such, you should ask your advisor: For your advisees, what
are your expectations? What can I do to meet your expectations and to succeed? Not
only will faculty appreciate this question, but they will also know that you are serious
and professional about your desire to succeed. Importantly as well, this question might
subsequently prompt some faculty to discuss related topics, such as how they typically
try to help their students, and perhaps even asking you what your personal preferences
for advising are (e.g., the frequency of meetings, the nature of the feedback that you
would like to receive, and more).
During the time in which you are working with your primary advisor, it is critical that
you keep lines of communication open with them. What we mean by this is that you
should communicate with your advisor as often as necessary, particularly when you
need to discuss a number of scenarios. For instance, if you and your advisor tend to
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meet less regularly, be sure to occasionally check in with them and tell them what you
have been doing. This also goes for any successes that you may experience (e.g., being
accepted to present at a conference). Conversely, if you have an issue or problem (e.g.,
with a student in a class you are teaching, or with how to approach researching a specific
topic), you should not be afraid to communicate this to your advisor. Ask them if they
have any insights involving how to solve the issue. Similarly, if there is something
personal going on in your life that is affecting you and your ability to perform (e.g., an
influx of work that is causing stress, or a death in the family), be honest with your
advisor. Depending on the problem, your advisor might be able to help you by taking
some work off your plate or by referring you to more professional counseling services
who can help. Finally, if a deadline has been set by you and/or your advisor and you
know that you cannot meet it, just tell them. Do not simply hope that they will forget.
And don’t avoid communication out of shame for not having met the deadline. The main
point here is: If your advisors do not know that there is an issue, then they cannot
possibly help you.
This tip is associated with the section on initiative. We cannot stress enough how
valuable it has been for us and for others we know (including our current students) to
read beyond what is assigned in their courses and as part of collaborations with
professors and advisors. In fact, many of the projects we began during our doctoral
years were based on our reading of research articles we had read of our own initiative.
At the same time, we know that reading loads for graduate students are already heavy,
so we recommend that you start small. We both advise that you select a small number of
journals (potentially 5, but perhaps 3 during course work) that you plan to stay up to
date with. In applied linguistics, education, TESOL, and related fields, journals might
only publish a handful of issues per year. Depending on the journal, there also may be a
relatively small number of articles per issue, so staying up to date is not a tremendous
amount of work. For these journals, we recommend selecting at least one highly ranked
journal with a broad focus in your field, and other journals that are somewhat more
closely focused on your specific areas of interest. Typically, most journals enable readers
to sign up for automatic e-notifications when a new issue is published, so you might
consider signing up for your selected target journals. In terms of keeping up with recent
publications and trends, this can be as simple as reading over the new abstracts of the
articles in each new issue that is published. Then, you can take more time to read
specific articles that closely match your interests. An alternative option is to set a
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designated time (e.g., every 2-3 weeks) to search for articles to add to your reading list.
For example, during his doctoral studies, Elliott made a Friday morning habit of starting
his day with a cup of coffee and a quick scan of his target journals for new abstracts. He
read all the abstracts as they were posted, but he saved and read the papers he thought
would be related to his work.
Tip #5: Reflect on Your Learning and Work Style Early and Often.
References
Cornwall, J., Mayland, E. C., van der Meer, J., Spronken-Smith, R. A., Tustin, C., &
Blyth, P. (2019). Stressors in early-stage doctoral students. Studies in Continuing
Education, 41(3), 363-380.
Gardner, S. K. (2008). “What’s too much and what’s too little?”: The process of
becoming an independent researcher in doctoral education. The Journal of
Higher Education, 79(3), 326-350.
Hart-Baldridge, E. (2020). Faculty advisor perspectives of academic advising. NACADA
Journal, 40(1), 10-22.
Lovitts, B. E. (2008). The transition to independent research: Who makes it, who
doesn’t, and why. The Journal of Higher Education, 79(3), 296-325.
Mousavi, M. P. S., Sohrabpour, Z., Anderson, E. L., Stemig-Vindedahl, A., Golden, D.,
Christenson, G., Lust, K., & Bühlmann, P. (2018). Stress and mental health in
59
Kessler, M., & Casal, J. E. (2024). Building Relationships: How To Network, Network, and Network
Some More!. In M. Kessler & J. E. Casal, Making the most of graduate school: A practical
guidebook for students in applied linguistics, education, and TESOL (pp. 60-72). Applied
Linguistics Press.
61
In the current chapter, we address this topic, first by discussing the importance of
finding a close confidant – typically a peer, but perhaps a faculty member as well –
whom you can speak to openly and seek different types of support from. Afterwards, we
discuss how graduate students can foster relationships by being professional and by
having something to offer those around them. And finally, the chapter closes with a
discussion of why it is critical to reach out to those beyond your own institution, and
particularly, how doing so can increase your chances of success in your future career.
more broadly. Additionally, while we do not encourage gossip and actively discourage
you from spreading rumors, it can be important to discuss difficult experiences or
positive impressions of colleagues, advisors, and professors through interactions.
Overall, a close confidant can be an excellent partner for conversations involving
concerns, plans, and discoveries that are not yet ready to be shared widely but that may
warrant discussion, or for even more sensitive topics that are best kept private in
general.
While it may sound like the alternative to having a confidant is to simply avoid
oversharing, the reality, which has been demonstrated by abundant research across
disciplines, is that there are considerable benefits to externalization and self-disclosure.
Within applied linguistics and TESOL, for example, Edge’s (1992) Co-Operative
Development framework foregrounds the important role that a listener/understander
can play in guiding reflection and self-discovery, and the popular work of Vygotsky
(1978) can recast such interactions as being mediational in nature. Such conversations
can be developmental without the repercussions of having these discussions shared with
others or even worrying that they will be shared at all. These relationships and safe
discussion spaces are particularly important during periods of high stress and
uncertainty. During these times, communication and friendship are extremely
important for many, but we are also realistically more prone to making comments about
ourselves or others that we may later regret or would prefer not to share. Ideally, these
types of comments are kept private, but more realistically, they are made from time to
time. Unfortunately, the matter of finding a close confidant is not straightforward. Trust
is built over time, so it is important to keep in mind that it may take a semester or more
to find a peer (or a faculty member) with whom you feel comfortable sharing your
thoughts.
Nevertheless, if you are fortunate enough to build a strong relationship with
someone close to you, then an important result is having a person who potentially
knows you well when you are in need of advice regarding major decisions or difficult
situations. That is, a close confidant is often a person who has a relatively good idea of
what is important to you, what stands out to you from positive and negative experiences,
and what types of things are prominent enough to share frequently over time. They are
also someone who might be comfortable when it comes to providing you with an open
and honest assessment of a situation, particularly in the event that you need to ask
either: Am I doing the right thing here? or Am I overreacting? Sometimes, certain
situations can be difficult to monitor by ourselves. Thus, having a close confidant can be
essential when it comes to assessing situations and making rational decisions.
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For me, it has been very important throughout my graduate studies to have close
friends and a large support network. In particular, it has been essential for me to
have trusted friends who I can talk to about my experiences, ideas, concerns, and
even fears in safe ways where I know they will not share what we have talked about
with other people. I had some relatively negative experiences early on in my
graduate studies, where people who I thought I could trust shared details of things I
had talked about with people I would not have shared as much information.
Fortunately, it was never anything private, important, or negative, but it made me
feel uncomfortable to know that my discussions with other people weren’t always as
private as I would have preferred or thought.
I am lucky that my husband and I work in related areas and have a supportive
relationship that allows us to talk about academic and professional matters
productively without concerns about things becoming public. This has been an
incredible source of support for both of us, but as our careers have progressed, we do
find ourselves talking less about work - which is also nice!
during graduate school. It is true that many graduate students will be looking for friends
during the course of their programs, but graduate students are (of course) studying,
teaching, and working as and among professionals in university contexts. That is to say,
many long-lasting and valuable relationships that you develop during your graduate
studies will revolve around your academic and professional activities, but these
relationships often emerge through the academic and professional capacities that you
demonstrate.
Your professors, supervisors, and fellow graduate students may (or may not)
want to work with you specifically because you are punctual, respectful, and keep
deadlines. However, they are certainly likely to notice if you regularly do not exhibit any
of these characteristics. And thoughtful questions, strong listening skills, and careful
responses when asked for your opinions are a good way to build a reputation during
graduate work. It is important to keep in mind that both graduate students and faculty
members are generally busy people – and certainly the amount of work can exceed
reasonable levels at times – but there is a difference between asking for help and
extensions when feeling overloaded and mismanaging your time or constantly
complaining about being ‘busy.’ We feel that it is important to be serious and respectful
of all the activities you engage in during graduate school, and this spans teaching,
engaging in coursework, and even to attending meetings as well.
This is all to say that strong professional and academic relationships can be
established and cultivated on the basis of the respect and professionalism that you
demonstrate to others. Doing good work, contributing to collaborative endeavors,
speaking carefully and thoughtfully about ideas and others, and treating others with
respect can all signal to your peers, professors, and supervisors that you may be a good
person to invite to a project or have scholarly talks with. Importantly, such habits are
also likely to help you build positive relationships over the course of your academic
career. This includes both during graduate school and beyond.
What I consider to be the most vital decision I’ve made in my academic career was
joining a research lab as an undergrad. Through this, I was able to build a close
relationship with my supervising professor, which ultimately allowed me to make
connections and network even prior to applying for graduate school. I came from a
different field of study in my undergrad degree, and students in the department
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I do want to note that it is incredibly important to find a professor that you ‘vibe’
with so that your job is not completely insufferable. I think that it is important to
become involved with research as it can be hard to get a proper feel of what
methodologies you prefer if you are only writing research papers within your
courses. It also allows you to better understand whether you would rather work in
academia or in industry within your field. Having a professor you work for in a
professional capacity allows you important professional opportunities, which are
crucial since graduate programs are competitive.
Through being in a lab, I have been able to learn a new skill set and improve
preexisting skills such as taking different approaches to data analysis. And,
ultimately, I have been able to contribute to ongoing research.
Notably, a reputation for being professional is something that you build up over
time, so you may see the results of professionalism paying off later, rather than during
the first year of your program. This is because, in most cases, professional and scholarly
relationships are initiated because all parties have something to offer (of course,
students do get invited to collaborate on research projects for educational reasons and
as part of GA-ships, too). We note here that we certainly are not encouraging you to
speak out loudly about your capacities and ability to contribute to research projects.
Instead, you should seek to demonstrate that you are collegial, professional, diligent,
and looking to grow. Additionally, if your work in a graduate-level class, conference
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presentation, and/or teaching are of high quality and demonstrate professionalism, then
you may stand out as a potential candidate for future opportunities.
Relatedly, if you are interested in attempting to initiate research collaborations,
then it is important that you have something to offer as well. This can be something
relatively small and simple, such as having a general idea of a potential research topic or
question(s). For example, you should know that faculty are frequently approached by
graduate students about potential research collaborations. In some cases, the faculty
have not had these students in class and/or do not know them all that well, yet these
students say something akin to “I would love to collaborate with you on something,” or
more directly, “Can we do a research project together?” In response to such a request,
when faculty ask “What are you interested in?” or “What type of project do you have in
mind?”, oftentimes, students have no ideas. This is a prime example of not having
something to offer.
Yet, importantly, having something to offer can go beyond simply having an idea
for a research project. For instance, it can be something more prominent, such as having
a dataset, or something less tangible but still highly valuable, like skills or experience
with a particular method or knowledge of a teaching context or content area. Regardless,
when contacting others such as faculty (and even your peers) to initiate collaborative
projects, it is important that you have something meaningful to offer your collaborators.
Otherwise, you are essentially asking them to tell you what to do, or to do most of the
work themselves.
Reaching out to Those Beyond Your Own Institution and Inner Social
Groups
The previous two sections of this chapter focused primarily on developing relationships
within your own institutional context. However, this section now turns to a discussion of
the critical role of connecting with those beyond your own university and graduate
program. Specifically, networking with people outside of one’s own academic context
can be a challenging endeavor for many students. In some cases, this is because
graduate students may not see the inherent value in it. In other cases, it may be because
some students simply do not know how to go about the process of networking.
In terms of its value, researchers have stated that broad networking is important
because it increases the likelihood of a number of positive outcomes. For instance, not
only can networking lead to increased visibility and power, but it can also lead to
increased access within one’s own organization and beyond (Gibson et al., 2014).
Related to this point, in a meta-analysis of 216 studies by Ng and Feldman (2014), the
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market in the future. For example, when you meet faculty from other institutions, they
might subsequently think of you when their universities have positions that become
available. If this person recognizes your name from having met you – (and also
assuming that they perceived you as a kind and responsible person in your previous
encounters) – this could cause your application to rise to the top of the pile and help you
secure an interview. In some cases as well, by meeting other graduate students, such
students might complete their programs before you do. These people might
subsequently serve on search committees at the universities or companies you hope to
work for. If they know you and can recommend you, oftentimes, this can be enough to
help you get your foot in the door.
For these reasons and more, attempting to network and forge connections with
those beyond your own university is instrumental. And, if you ask your faculty or
graduate peers who are in the later stages of your program, they will likely have a story
about how networking helped someone secure an internship or job interview. As such,
you should make a concerted effort to network when possible, and particularly at
conferences and other social events (see Tips #1-3 at the end of this chapter for more
specific recommendations).
Conclusion
In this chapter, we addressed the importance of building relationships and networking.
Thus far, we have attempted to provide some basic information as to why graduate
students should do so. This included discussing why it is important to foster
relationships with those in your own program (e.g., finding a close confidant) and why it
is important to be professional and have something to offer those around you. In
addition, we addressed why it is critical to try to connect with those beyond your own
university, particularly since doing so may lead to future career opportunities. That
being said, one of the main issues that many graduate students have is knowing how to
network and what is appropriate in terms of approaching others. As such, we close this
chapter with a series of practical tips to further assist readers in building relationships
and networking. We encourage you to try out some of these strategies when able, but
also, to ask your peers and faculty for any other tips and strategies that might have
worked for them in the past.
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As mentioned, apart from connecting with those within your own university and
program, it can also be extremely beneficial for you to network with those beyond your
immediate social groups. One of the best ways to do this is by attending a conference
either locally or nationally (if able). As other scholars have noted, when attending a
conference, there are a number of things that you might consider doing before, during,
and afterwards in order to maximize your conference experience (see De Costa, 2020).
However, one of the main reasons to consider attending a conference is because it
provides you with a forum for meeting and networking with others in your field. But
how do you go about meeting new people at the conference itself? For starters, many
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larger conferences have events that are specifically geared towards graduate students
(e.g., a ‘Graduate Student Mixer’ or a session on how to get published). Many
conferences also typically have a first-night welcome event for all conference-goers.
These events can be a great way to meet new people, and it is also the primary reason
such events are held. Apart from these events, you should not be afraid of introducing
yourself to someone at the conference. For instance, when getting something to drink or
eat during a scheduled coffee break, just smile and introduce yourself to the person
standing next to you in line. You can ask them where they are from, and if they have
attended any interesting presentations thus far. Relatedly, another easy way to meet
people is to approach someone who recently finished presenting. Simply walk up to
them and say: Hi. I am XXX. I just wanted to introduce myself and say that I really
enjoyed your talk. If you have a quick question to ask them about their presentation as
well, even better! The point here is: Making a new connection can be as easy as
introducing yourself and then paying someone a compliment. Elliott has also made a
point of thanking those who have been supportive of him for their kindness years later.
His experience has been that no one has reacted negatively (so far!) to a short and polite
comment, such as: Many years ago, you said this nice thing to me. It meant a lot, I’ve
thought about it several times, and I have always appreciated it.
Tip #3: Introduce Yourself (Virtually) to Someone Whose Work You Have
Read.
Apart from attending a conference, what else can you do to network and make new
connections? One easy strategy, which does not require conference registration fees, is
to introduce yourself via email or social media (e.g., direct message) to the author of a
recent article that you read and enjoyed. Similar to the previous tip, this can be as
simple as (a) introducing yourself, and (b) stating that you enjoyed their article and
found it useful for the teaching or research that you are currently doing. We promise you
that no one – (no one we know, at least!) – will ever be annoyed by receiving a
compliment about the work they have done. That being said, apart from introducing
yourself and paying a compliment, you should be careful about asking for anything from
people you do not know. If it is another graduate student who wrote the article you
enjoyed, then they may be open to (and even excited by) the prospect of chatting with
you about their study in further detail. However, if contacting a faculty member, it is
likely best to avoid making requests. In this vein, it is also best to avoid asking faculty
members you have not met to collaborate on a project. The answer is typically no since
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they have their own students to work with, and also because they are unlikely to know
much about you and your capabilities.
In The New York Times, a well-known article discussed the 21st American tendency to
live within the “Busy Trap” (Kreider, 2012), in which a dedication to business and
dialogue surrounding business offers a sort of reassurance that we are successful and
perhaps even important. It is true that academic schedules can keep us all rather busy,
and there is certainly an endless amount of work we can be doing at all times. Notably,
we have dedicated considerable attention elsewhere in this book to the importance of
making time for yourself and balancing work and life (see Chapter 3). The tip here is not
to avoid being busy, but rather to do your best, perhaps in pursuit of professionalism, to
avoid fixating on being busy or presenting yourself as busy all the time. It is often the
case that graduate students feel obliged to discuss their packed schedules and weekend
work plans as a means of proving their commitment, but just as we recommend that you
set and respect work boundaries, we also recommend that you avoid falling into the
conversational busy trap. Of course, during particularly busy times (such as term paper
season), discussing the crunch is likely unavoidable. In the spirit of this chapter, if you
present yourself as busy all the time, you also may be less likely to be invited to social
events and professional opportunities.
One of the most obvious tips that we offer in this book (and with perhaps the silliest
label) is that a great way to network in graduate school is to go to things. Of course, you
should likely be going to class and any mandatory activities associated with your
program and department. However, we also recommend making an effort to attend
invited speaker events in your department or related departments, interdisciplinary
university events, workshops, and other activities whenever possible. These are all
learning opportunities, but they also represent chances to meet other students and
faculty. These events can create formal or informal spaces to talk with others – either on
the way to the events or during them – which can be valuable for cultivating
relationships. At the same time, and resonating with our professionalism theme from
above, faculty who attend such events invariably notice the students who attend the
events. Importantly, these events are often valuable in and of themselves, and some of
the anxiety of meeting new academics and being in large academic spaces may fade over
time through experience and participation. We both made regular efforts to attend,
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participate in, and even help organize various events on campus during our graduate
studies – in our departments and across campus – which were valuable professional
activities and opportunities for networking.
References
Kessler, M., & Casal, J. E. (2024). Coping with Crises. In M. Kessler & J. E. Casal, Making the most
of graduate school: A practical guidebook for students in applied linguistics, education, and TESOL
(pp. 73-85). Applied Linguistics Press.
74
discuss the issue of how managing finances during graduate school can be a difficult
endeavor. At the end of the chapter, we address two additional interrelated topics. These
include the issue of how an unexpected personal crisis may occur over the course of a
multi-year program, and lastly, how you can learn to expect the unexpected challenge,
particularly when it comes to your teaching- and research-related activities.
This led to a memorable conversation where Elliott’s friend called him selfish for
investing so much of himself in his studies; however, it also created a space for Elliott to
talk about the efforts he was making to spend time with his friend and how much he
valued that time, infrequent as it was during the school year. The friendship survived
and grew, but the point here is that friends and family may react to and interpret your
investment in your graduate studies in different ways. Communication can be an
important means of staying on the same page. Of course, even if we make time for our
friends and family during graduate school, there is another common complaint.
Sometimes graduate students invest themselves completely in academia and graduate
work, as we discussed in previous chapters, which can make them rather one-
dimensional conversation partners.
On the topic of time, it is obvious that those in longer-term partnerships and/or
with children have the challenge of balancing family duties with their graduate studies.
For example, Crawford and Windsor (2021) argue that the reality for many parents,
“especially mothers, is that the work-life balance is a myth” (p. 91), although they do
provide research-backed best practices from experienced PhD-holding parents. Some of
the major takeaways from their survey study include the individual nature of long-term
relationships, the difficulty of managing high-demand identities simultaneously, and
stigmas that exist in academia towards those with children. As with all matters related
to time, planning is key. Another dimension of family-related stress is financial in
nature, which is the topic of the next section more broadly.
These are often housed at centralized offices or in units that do not have their own
graduate students, and in many institutions, open positions may be advertised and even
hosted through the Graduate School. There can be opportunities that students can
negotiate for themselves, and in fact, we both found our own internal funding during the
first year of our MA programs. Although we recommend being vigilant when it comes to
searching for and seeking out funding opportunities, we recommend against sending out
mass generic emails to chairs/directors of all units on campus, as some students tend to
do. And while more competitive, external fellowships and funding sources do exist!
To all students who face economic stress during graduate school, summers
represent a major opportunity to earn income. Many universities hire graduate students
to teach classes, grant-funded scholars may hire research assistants, and other
opportunities often arise from time-to-time. This is especially important for students
who are not working, but rather depending on stipends which are paid monthly during
the academic year. In this regard, it is not uncommon for graduate students to live
‘summer to summer’ rather than ‘paycheck to paycheck.’ For example, we both took
advantage of summer opportunities during our master’s and doctoral years to teach
courses and take on paid research work (both in the US and abroad), and Elliott and his
partner in particular depended on this work, as they were simultaneously enrolled in
doctoral programs. Our experiences underscore the importance of learning about the
various programs, community partnerships, and research centers or projects your
department may have to offer. Importantly, these programs may not come looking for
you, but opportunities may exist if these programs and administrators know you are
interested and are a good fit. Additionally, sometimes shorter summer projects can turn
into longer term opportunities, assistantships, or even full-time jobs post-graduation. It
is also worthwhile to check for summer adjunct pools at nearby universities and to
monitor local community colleges or technical schools for summer term opportunities.
These can be meaningful opportunities to gain teaching experience (also see Chapter 4
for a related discussion).
It is also possible that you find yourself financially stable in graduate school, but
disadvantaged when it comes to opportunities for conference travel, computers, and
research supplies. Candidly, we are often surprised by the number of students across
universities who are not aware of department or college travel funding for students.
While not all universities have funds available, and not all available funding is
significant (e.g., perhaps only enough to cover a conference registration fee), it is not
uncommon for graduate programs or departments to have some limited funding
available for graduate (and especially doctoral) students for conference travel if they are
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presenting. This can be a major opportunity, and it can often be combined with other
college or university-wide funds that may be available via application.
The grants which I received for my doctoral studies from a scholarship were
sufficient to cover my educational expenses. However, since I could only depend on
the monthly stipends from this scholarship for both my living costs and family, I
used to have a hard time making stress-free financial decisions for my basic needs.
In my first year, I decided to live in on-campus accommodation for safety and
convenience. As soon as I realized that I spent more than 50% of my monthly stipend
on housing, I became obsessed with the idea that I could have saved more. I could
not stop blaming myself for the decision. Then I began to blame the situation. All I
could think was that if only I had been awarded a scholarship with a bigger
allowance, if only I had a relative or friend who could provide me with a loan, if I
only had more money… All these financial-related hypothetical scenarios only
served to exacerbate my anxiety and made me feel even more stressed.
However, after one year, I saw that I had been worrying too much. The university
provides grants and scholarships for PhD students in Applied Linguistics, and I am
pleased to share that I have availed myself of these opportunities to supplement my
one and only financial resource.
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How an Unexpected Personal Crisis May Occur Over the Course of a Multi-
Year Program
As mentioned, the strains that you might experience in terms of personal relationships
and finances represent two major issues that you should be prepared for (both mentally
and strategically). However, for many students, occasionally there are also unexpected
personal crises that may pop up during the span of their studies. After all, whether you
are pursuing a master’s or a doctoral degree, such programs are typically multi-year
endeavors, which means that there is a distinct possibility that something unexpected
might occur.
According to a survey of earned doctorates conducted by the National Center for
Science and Engineering Statistics (2021), the median age of those who completed their
doctorates was approximately 34 years old, and those who graduated with degrees in
education tended to be even older, with a median age of approximately 38. A sizable
percentage of these graduate students are either married or have a romantic partner,
and many students have children as well (either when entering their programs or during
them). In terms of how these data relate to crises, oftentimes, this means that apart
from the possibility of you falling ill, there is also the likelihood that your partner and/or
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child may suffer from illness at multiple points during the span of your studies. Of
course, sickness is to be expected. Yet, in most cases, the timing or the duration of the
illness is unexpected and may be less than ideal. For instance, you or a family member
may become ill during a time when you are scheduled to teach a class, to write an
important term paper, or something else.
Additionally, because many graduate students tend to be in their early-to-mid
30s, unfortunately, this also means that they may have elderly grandparents or perhaps
even parents who are older and in poor health. When we were graduate students, we
personally experienced losses in our own families. We know of multiple graduate
student peers who did as well. Similarly, as faculty now, we have seen some of our own
graduate students have to deal with the challenges of losing their parents, grandparents,
and sadly, even friends in rare cases. Although death is ultimately a part of life, such
occurrences have a tendency to be sudden, unexpected, and upsetting.
Broadly speaking, because there is a possibility that an unexpected personal crisis
might occur during your graduate studies, it is important to have a contingency plan in
place. By this, we mean that if you are serving as a TA and you are the sole instructor for
that course, you should seek out the support of a peer (or two) in advance. Specifically,
you might consider asking them: “In case of an emergency this semester, would you be
willing to cover my class?” You might also offer to return the favor in case they ever need
support. Additionally, apart from planning ahead in terms of covering your TA- or GA-
ship duties, this is also why it is vital to be proactive and to avoid procrastinating. We
have seen multiple students wait until the last moment to do something important such
as writing a term paper or parts of their dissertations, only to unexpectedly fall ill. Then,
they were put in the uncomfortable position of having to ask for an extension, which
sometimes was or was not granted based on the nature of the assignment.
Of course, even with planning and contingencies, the suddenness and severity of
many crises can leave graduate students in difficult positions. It is understandable for
sudden personal matters to take precedence over academic duties, but if possible, it is
generally better if you can take the time to notify your professors and supervisors. In
these cases, it can be difficult for some students to ask for extensions or time away.
However, in most cases, this type of accommodation is routinely provided for students.
It may be frantic, but there are ways of covering a class or research obligation at the last
minute. That being said, we note that covering responsibilities in the short-term is often
easier than getting back on-track later on. Graduate students can find that their courses
and peers have advanced, that they are behind the goals they have set for themselves
and with their advisors, and that it is hard to get back into the rhythm and pace of
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graduate work. Thus, we recall a tip we offered earlier in Chapter 2 of this book: keep in
mind that everyone has their own path.
There are a lot of challenges that come with being a graduate student. It is a
balancing act to make time for academics, teaching, and your personal life, and
sometimes, the latter may intrude on your scholarly journey in unexpected and
unpleasant ways.
That being said, there were things that helped. Slowly, I began to talk to fellow
classmates and people in my program, which helped me make connections in this
new space I was learning to occupy. I made time to speak to all the people I missed
from my home country – my parents and friends – and having them support my
journey made the distance easier to bear. Spending time doing something enjoyable,
both on and off-campus, such as going to an event held by a student organization, or
trying a new restaurant, made a new city feel more welcoming.
Aside from having a support system, the final key that helped me was time. By
taking everything one day at a time, I learned to move on from the homesickness
and build a niche for myself in a new community.
family-related matters. However, this is also something that applies more broadly to
your teaching- and research-related activities.
In terms of teaching, for many new students, being awarded a TA-ship may be
the first opportunity that they have had to serve as the lead instructor of a university-
level course. Unquestionably, this assignment may evoke a mixed set of emotions,
including being both excited and terrified at the same time (see Richards, 2022).
However, something that many new teachers are not prepared for are some of the
unexpected challenges that will inevitably arise during their first year of teaching. For
instance, some of these challenges may consist of struggling to learn the subject matter,
in addition to learning how to handle difficult questions that you do not know the
answer to (see Tip #4 at the end of this chapter for more).
Apart from these issues, another relatively common challenge that many new
teachers face pertains to timing out their lessons. That is, many novice teachers struggle
with lesson planning and judging how long certain activities will take in the classroom
since they do not have experience with the target learner population. Sometimes, this
leads to a class period that is significantly shorter than they expected. We note here that
although occasionally letting students out early is (typically) okay, it is not something
that you want to get in the habit of doing. Thus, during your first year of teaching, you
should always be prepared by having a backup activity ready-to-go or by planning a
flexible activity that can scale up for the final part of class. By expecting this type of issue
in advance, it can alleviate some of your anxiety in the event that a lesson unexpectedly
runs short.
In addition to teaching, conducting research can also present its own distinct
challenges. Importantly, if you have ever read any research studies that were published
in academic journals or books, then you may have the impression that such studies went
well and according to the researchers’ original plans. In most cases, however, this is far
from the reality. In fact, research in the real world is often messy and fraught with a
number of obstacles. Scholars who work in numerous disciplines such as education and
applied linguistics have documented some of the challenges that researchers are likely to
face when pursuing different topics (e.g., Drew et al., 2008; Kessler & Polio, 2024), and
so it should come as no surprise to you that such challenges are often experienced by
those in doctoral programs as well (also see Golde & Gallagher, 1999). For instance,
although you may come up with an exciting new research proposal, you may
subsequently find yourself struggling to execute your plan. This may be due to a lack of
available funds for your project, a smaller number of consenting participants than
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originally expected, or other issues such as your data being messier and more difficult to
interpret than you had anticipated.
The point here is: When it comes to research- and teaching-related challenges,
you should learn to expect an unexpected issue to emerge occasionally. Or rather, you
should avoid expecting things to run smoothly. Although it may seem like a crisis in the
moment it is happening, you should also know that in most cases, what you are
experiencing is not new. If you are experiencing something, it is highly likely that
another graduate student – and even a faculty member – has experienced it as well.
Therefore, try your best to stay calm. Ask for help and guidance, and also know that
there is likely a solution at-hand.
Conclusion
Graduate school is a multi-year commitment, and over such a span, it may be expected
that you change, that people in your life change, and that difficulties emerge. This
chapter covered some of the characteristics of graduate school, such as the time
demands and limited compensation that may put stress on you and those around you. In
this chapter, we also discussed ways of dealing with unexpected occurrences in your
personal life that may occur during your studies. Communication goes a long way
towards setting expectations, working through difficulties, and managing relationships.
In this regard, we encourage you to seek support from within your personal and
professional networks, and we hope that emerging difficulties are not insurmountable.
However, we also note that sometimes, events and factors in our lives lead to changes in
our personal goals. Thus, it is important to keep an open mind and recognize that
changes in timelines and plans are not necessarily failures.
Clearly, there are a number of crises that may emerge during the span of one’s graduate
studies, which have a tendency to induce stress, anxiety, and a range of other negative
emotions. Of course, although you can prepare for some of these crises and combat
them by trialing some of the strategies and tips we discuss in this chapter, there may be
instances in which a certain situation – either program-related or personal – becomes
overly difficult psychologically or emotionally. In such an event, your fellow peers and
faculty may not be equipped to help you. If you ever feel that this is the case, you should
not hesitate to seek professional guidance or counseling services. In fact, most
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universities often have free and confidential services that are available to their students.
Such resources can be of tremendous help, and we strongly encourage you to take a few
minutes to familiarize yourself with the types of services that are offered –(Right now!
Seriously. Do it!). If you are unfamiliar with the services at your own institution,
typically, you can locate this information through a quick Google search using the terms
“counseling” or “student health and wellness” + your university’s name.
Tip #2: Try Not to Over-Commit Yourself and Be Honest With Friends and
Family.
We advised you earlier to pay attention to relationships that you value during your
graduate work. As part of that, we encouraged you to make efforts to spend time with
friends and family when possible. The other side of this is that you need to be realistic
about what you can and cannot do. We have all overcommitted socially at some point in
our lives, and during graduate school, it is important to weigh the time commitments of
socializing with the demands of work. Most importantly, when you find that you have
promised your free time but need that time back, it is usually acceptable to let your
friends and family know what you are feeling. It often helps if you follow up with new
plans and follow through when they come. Overall, once you get a feeling for your own
schedule, it is a good idea to be realistic with yourself and realistic with your friends and
family. Of course, this tip applies to socializing, rather than any duties involving child or
family care.
Tip #3: Do Your Best to Keep Your Interests and Hobbies, if Only in Spirit.
In this chapter, we made a passing comment about how frustrating it can be for the
friends and family of graduate students who find themselves fully invested in academic
work. Our third tip is to work hard to keep your interests and hobbies alive, particularly
those you share with friends and/or family. This is not just important for your own
health and well-being, but also for the health and well-being of your relationships!
Sadly, most of what you do may be uninteresting to those outside of academia (or even
outside of your program), and your friends and family will likely want to enjoy the
things that they miss doing and discussing with you when they do get to see you, rather
than talking about your research and teaching the entire time. At the same time, it can
be a tremendous benefit to have friends outside of academia to keep you from focusing
on school-related stressors and dwelling on work. If you do not have time to participate
in your hobby, at least try to stay up to date with it, if possible.
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Earlier, we mentioned that one major challenge novice teachers face is learning the
subject matter, and in turn, with the crisis of knowing how to respond to questions they
do not know the answer to. For anybody who has taught before, they have experienced
this phenomenon (which, in the moment, truly does feel like a crisis!). If you are
someone who is a language teacher as well, then you will likely be asked all sorts of
interesting grammar-related questions that you have never considered. While it is
perfectly acceptable to respond to such an inquiry by being honest and saying “I don’t
know (but will find out!),” you also must be careful of saying this too many times.
Otherwise, your students may lose faith in you. As such, it is important to have multiple
strategies to address difficult questions. For instance, in some cases, students may ask
something that is unrelated to the topic being discussed. If this happens, it is simply
appropriate to say That’s a good question. However, it’s a bit off topic, so we will
discuss it in a future class. In other cases, if the question is relevant but you do not
know the answer, you can try to redirect the question back to your class and ask who
knows. Oftentimes, one of the students in your class will know! Finally, another strategy
that Matt has used in the past is to keep a ‘Question Box.’ With this strategy, when a
student asks a challenging question, you might try to stall by saying We will actually get
to that in a little bit. Then, you can write down the student’s question in a small
‘Question Box’ in the corner of your blackboard to show your student that you will
address the question. Later in class, while students are working on another activity, you
can look up the student’s question and learn the answer for yourself.
Tip #5: Have a Backup Plan in the Event That Parts of Your Research Plan
Fail.
The final tip in this chapter pertains to your research activities, and specifically,
knowing that there is a good probability that your research proposal and plan will likely
not turn out exactly as you had intended. For most research studies, changes need to be
made (sometimes minor, and sometimes major). For example, you may not end up
recruiting as many participants as you initially had thought, or one of your instruments
may not work as well as you had hoped it would. Because of this, you should enter into
each and every research project mentally prepared for something to go wrong. You
should also consider what your backup plans are in case something falls through. If you
are having trouble thinking about what could go wrong, then ask your advisor to play
devil’s advocate and to ask you: If X happens (or doesn’t happen), what will you do?
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The point here is: you should not enter into any research project assuming that it will go
100% according to plan. Be prepared to roll with the punches.
References
Crawford, K. F., & Windsor, L. C. (2021). The PhD parenthood trap: Caught between
work and family in academia. Georgetown University Press.
Drew, C. J., Hardman, M. L., & Hosp, J. L. (2008). Designing and conducting research
in education. Sage.
Golde, C. M., & Gallagher, H. A. (1999). The challenges of conducting interdisciplinary
research in traditional doctoral programs. Ecosystems, 2(4), 281-285.
Kessler, M., & Polio, C. (Eds.). (2024). Conducting genre-based research in applied
linguistics: A methodological guide. Routledge.
Mousavi, M. P. S., Sohrabpour, Z., Anderson, E. L., Stemig-Vindedahl, A., Golden, D.,
Christenson, G., Lust, K., & Bühlmann, P. (2018). Stress and mental health in
graduate school: How student empowerment creates lasting change. Journal of
Chemical Education, 95(11), 1939-1946.
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2021). Survey of earned
doctorates. Retrieved from: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23300/
Richards, J. C. (2022). Exploring emotions in language teaching. RELC Journal, 53(1),
225-239.
Repetti, R., & Wang, S. (2017). Effects of job stress on family relationships. Current
Opinion in Psychology, 13, 15-18.
Swanson, H. L., Pierre-Louis, C., Monjaras-Gaytan, L. Y., Zinter, K. E., McGarity-
Palmer, R., & Clark Withington, M. H. (2022). Graduate student workload:
Pandemic challenges and recommendations for accommodations. Journal of
Community Psychology, 50(5), 2225-2242.
CHAPTER 8
Kessler, M., & Casal, J. E. (2024). Dealing with Failure and Rejection. In M. Kessler & J. E. Casal,
Making the most of graduate school: A practical guidebook for students in applied linguistics,
education, and TESOL (pp. 86-98). Applied Linguistics Press.
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comments) to examine the details and determine the point that is being made by the
instructor or mentor. Admittedly, it can sometimes be difficult to avoid reading
feedback as a personal evaluation, even if the feedback is delivered in a supportive
manner, and the uncertainty at an initial read may mean that it is challenging to attend
to the particulars when you are trying to see the overall impression. We both admit here
that there is still a slight flutter in our heartbeats when reading reviews and feedback –
even when attached to a rather positive review – as though the next line might say: “By
the way, I hate you and your work.” That would truly represent horrendous feedback,
and yet, the subtle anxiety is there. It may take a couple reads to get a clear idea of what
the reviewer thinks.
Perhaps even more importantly, it is generally important to avoid responding to
or revising for a short period of time. Of course, it is acceptable to thank an advisor or
peer for feedback when you receive it, but we both recommend moving on to other tasks
or activities before acting on reviews. There are two reasons for this. First, and
particularly for negative reviews, it can be difficult to avoid taking it personally (see the
ego section below). You may initially feel embarrassed, sad, offended, or angry.
Sometimes these feelings may be in response to a legitimate provocation, but in most
cases, a fresh read after a break often reveals that the mistakes were not so dire, the
review was not so harsh, or the tone was not quite so harsh. The second reason why we
recommend waiting before acting on feedback is that more often than not, a new
perspective will help you understand the reviewer’s intentions and perhaps even see that
they were right. It is lovely when your work is accepted as is, but that usually means that
the writing is low-stakes or perhaps was even not read carefully. In most cases, the
constructive comments of peers, mentors, or reviewers leads to an improved final
product (and even some learning). We have both had experiences – separately and
together – where we traded initial skepticism upon receiving reviews. However, after
stepping away from the feedback and returning to it later on, we agreed that the
reviewer ‘had a good point’ and that the feedback truly did improve the paper.
More broadly, it is important to keep in mind that while feedback is often
presented alongside an evaluation or decision, the overarching goal of the feedback is to
improve work, provide direction for future endeavors, or provoke learning in
pedagogical or mentor-mentee relationships. To this end, it is important to look past the
difficulty of setbacks or critiques and critically evaluate the basis for the feedback you
are receiving and how you can use it to move forward. Feedback is valuable, and it is
embedded within many academic systems such that careful attention can be essential
for growth and academic success. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that
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advisors, conference proposal reviewers, and journal reviewers are generally providing
this useful feedback when they can fit it into their busy schedules. Thus, in many cases, a
direct tone is the product of time pressure and a need for expediency, rather than malice
or contempt. With this in mind, we recommend starting your response to feedback by
thanking the person who took the time to provide it. Even negative reviews are
beneficial in the long run if they are principled and fair.
Unfortunately, feedback does sometimes take on a dismissive or hostile tone, and
navigating these situations can be a challenge. If this takes place within a peer-to-peer
setting, we advise you to simply avoid seeking assistance from those who are not
constructive and supportive. Of course, this is not an option when one is receiving
feedback from a professor or advisor, or when submitting work to a conference or
journal. If the harsh feedback is part of a journal review, the best path forward is to
respond to their arguments, but not their tone. We have both received strongly worded
or non-constructive feedback from time to time, and in many cases, responding
sincerely to the arguments – through revision or reasoning – without adopting a
combative tone has helped to keep things moving forward. If you find that a professor,
mentor, or advisor who is part of your educational experience is providing feedback that
is difficult to learn from or is overly sharp in tone, it can be productive to ask for an
office hour visit and ask polite follow-up questions. In some cases, it may be easy to
share how the feedback impacted you by acknowledging the ways in which the feedback
was useful for learning while also highlighting elements that may have made it hard. On
the other hand, not everyone is open to such discussions, but it is particularly important
in an advisor-advisee relationship that expectations are aligned. In fact, in an analysis of
graduate student satisfaction, success, and advisor relationships, psychosocial support
such as demonstrating “feelings of respect for [a student] as an individual” (Tenenbaum
et al., 2001, p. 331) were strong contributors. That said, you should keep in mind that
while feedback can be difficult to read, it should never be hurtful or abusive.
You will receive many kinds of feedback from numerous sources over the course
of your graduate work, and you will increasingly find yourself giving feedback to others.
We stress that regardless of whether you are offering or receiving feedback, it is
beneficial to keep a collaborative, supportive, and growth-oriented approach. This can
help maximize the benefits of the built-in mechanisms for feedback in academia, and it
can also help you avoid or reduce conflicts. If student evaluations are telling you that
your teaching is not meeting their needs, or if a conference reviewer thinks your abstract
is not clear, keep in mind that those are real people with those opinions! And of course,
we wrote this section with the aim of helping contextualize negative feedback into a
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larger trajectory of growth and success, but it is also important to learn from and ask
about your successes. You may be tempted to gloss over a positive comment, but you can
learn as much from your successes as you can from your shortcomings.
I requested feedback explaining the reject decision, and the editor generously
responded with a list of the numerous ways the manuscript did not meet his
expectations. The one line that stuck out to me was, “even for me, publishing is very
challenging.” I printed that email and put it on my wall, re-reading it every so often,
reminding myself that this is not an easy undertaking. Who am I to expect to publish
my first piece on the first go?
peers. As this story illustrates, this student’s ego was a driving force in their interactions,
such that they postured in place of engaging in small talk when meeting new peers.
What should you take away from this, though? Specifically, although it is
instrumental that you develop some form of a positive ego, you must also keep your ego
in check. This means that you should not openly brag or boast about your
accomplishments, especially if no one prompted you to do so. This also means that you
should avoid presenting yourself as superior to or more knowledgeable than others.
Even if it may be true in some rare cases, in general, it is best to avoid letting your ego
speak for you. This is because when you do so, there is a possible unintended side effect
of making those around you experience a sense of failure and rejection. Of course, it is
perfectly fine for you to be excited about and proud of your accomplishments (as you
should be!). Yet, you should be aware that bragging about an achievement can be
perceived negatively by your peers, and it can even make them feel bad about their own
accomplishments. We return to this topic in Tip #4 at the end of this chapter.
You should know that this is something that happens to many students and even faculty
as well (including us!).
Therefore, after a certain amount of time (e.g., a couple years of trying), it is
important that you have an honest conversation with yourself. This may consist of
taking stock of the feedback that you have received from journal reviewers in the past,
and subsequently asking yourself: Are these criticisms unfair? Can I actually address
their comments and improve my work? Does the quality of my work/methods
resemble recent studies published in the journals in my field? If the answers to these
questions are ‘no,’ then it may be time for you to move on from your project. Although it
can be extremely difficult, you should take this as a learning opportunity and chance for
growth. Perhaps even consider devoting your newly acquired knowledge (and time) to
work on something new.
Apart from research and publishing, we cannot proceed onward with this chapter
without addressing the elephant in the room. This is the fact that graduate school is not
for everyone. In particular, although students are admitted to graduate school programs
based on their expressed interest, past performance, and future promise, of course, this
does not mean that everyone finishes their programs. In fact, as Cassuto and Weisbuch
(2021) have noted, a significant percentage of students – particularly at the PhD level –
do not go on to obtain their degrees. For many, this is because their own personal
priorities change over time. For example, while some students originally may have had a
strong desire to pursue their degree, new developments in their family life may get in
the way or may take precedence. For instance, some people may have children during
graduate school and then ultimately decide that they would prefer to find a job and
spend more time with their family. Meanwhile, for other students, after one or two years
in their program, they may simply realize that they are not as interested in research
and/or teaching as they originally had thought.
If you are one of these people, you should know that you are not alone.
Importantly, you should also know that graduate school itself may be one of those
endeavors that you may need to decide to move on from. If your heart is truly not in it, it
can be incredibly difficult (and painful) to make it through your program. Thus,
although leaving your program can be an incredibly difficult decision, it is something
that you ultimately may need to consider.
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Stepping into an AI Ethics class the second semester of my PhD program, I felt like I
was trying to read a book upside down in a different language. Here I was, a
language nerd, suddenly thrown into the deep end with philosophers and computer
scientists. The reading list was massive, packed with theories that twisted my brain
into knots.
In class, I was the quiet one, not out of choice, but because every time I tried to chime
in, the words just wouldn’t come out right. I was that student who always looked a
bit lost, and honestly, I was. I spent nights glued to the screen, pouring over endless
resources, hoping something would click. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
The moment of truth hit when I finally spilled my guts to the professor. I was
expecting a lecture, but instead, he got where I was coming from. He was cool about
it and gave me a lifeline to explore AI ethics in a way that made sense to me –
through the lens of language learning.
That chat changed everything. It turned AI ethics from this monster of a subject into
a puzzle I actually enjoyed piecing together. I started to see how these big, scary
concepts could play out in the real world of language learning. Suddenly, I wasn’t
just keeping up; I was adding something new to the conversations.
So yeah, it was rough at first, but that whole ordeal taught me something pretty
useful. In some cases, knowing when it is time to move on might simply mean not
trying to force yourself to fit into a mold. In my case, I was really close to deciding to
move on, but I was able to make the mold fit me.
Conclusion
In this chapter, we addressed the important topic of dealing with failure and rejection in
graduate school. This included discussions of feedback, managing your ego, and
deciding when it is time to move on. Importantly, we have discussed failure and
rejection at times as though they are the same thing, but clearly, this is not the case.
Rejection is common in academic endeavors, particularly in job hunts, conference
proposals, journal article submissions, and grant applications. It is clear when your
work has been rejected because others will tell you so. However, failure is a more
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personal concept that is related to your disposition, values, and goals. Whether a project
or endeavor has failed is often a matter of perspective, and while it is important to
reflect on when it may be time to move on, it is also important to accept setbacks and
reframe them into growth opportunities. As such, we close this chapter with some
practical tips to help you deal with such challenges.
As discussed in this chapter, feedback can be a challenging thing for us to read, but it is
a meaningful resource for growth that is built into many academic structures. At the
same time, it is time-consuming to provide. Our tip is that you read and think of
feedback as a conversation. At a superficial level, we mean this literally! If you are
receiving feedback from a friend, classmate, professor, or advisor that you know well,
read it as though they were saying it to you. Just like with text messages, a large number
of misunderstandings can be resolved this way. A doctoral student in the program that
Elliott works in recently shared a piece of direct and challenging feedback from their
advisor and said “If anyone else would have given me that feedback, I would have died
of shame.” Their point was that they knew what the advisor meant based on their
relationship and imagined the advisor saying it with a smile on their face late at night –
(the feedback came after-hours). We also mean this more abstractly; feedback can be
seen as an invitation to a conversation. If you do not understand or want to learn more,
you are almost always free to ask.
It may seem obvious to some of you, but we strongly recommend that you take the
chance to reflect on the feedback you are receiving on your work over time! Whether you
decide to save feedback you receive in various forms or take notes on major elements, it
is important to document how the feedback you are receiving is changing (or not
changing) over time. If you are receiving the same concerns from students about your
teaching each term, from professors about your writing each term, or similar sounding
rejection letters when submitting your work, it is likely time to take some of the
feedback to heart. Hopefully, the feedback you are receiving will paint a satisfying line of
growth and development, with new feedback highlighting new obstacles that have
emerged in your academic career over time (and were subsequently overcome). For
example, both of our MA supervisors used to occasionally attend the classes we taught
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and then provide detailed written observations. We recall reading them alongside our
teaching evaluations at the start of each term as a means of setting goals for
development.
No, we do not mean that you should tell everyone their work is perfect and accept it as
is! Good feedback is friendly, supportive, collaborative, specific, and clear, and it is
directed towards the future and the work, rather than the past and the person. Not-so-
good feedback is the opposite of these things. When you are asked to provide feedback,
we recommend that you appreciate the work that may have gone into what you are
reviewing and respect the person that you are providing feedback to. Tone and clarity
are essential considerations. In particular, when providing feedback to your students, it
is helpful to be transparent about how you hope they will interpret your feedback and
also in how they will apply it. For example, writing question marks in the margin of a
document can be difficult to turn into action. And in general, it is best to consider
feedback as a collaboration rather than a chance to show off or demonstrate your
expertise. In a conversation where you provide feedback, you will likely highlight
strengths along with weaknesses, and it is important to adopt this perspective in written
feedback as well.
Tip #4: Keep Your Ego in Check Through Engaging in Reflective Practices
and Seeking Peer Support.
also be helpful to find a peer who can help you keep your ego in check. This is another
reason that it is important to find a close confidant (see Chapter 6 on building
relationships), since a close peer may be more likely to speak to you candidly. That is to
say, sometimes an outside perspective may be required. Not only can a peer provide a
different vantage point on the difficult questions posed here, but they can also let you
know if your ego is getting too large.
Tip #5: Keep in Mind That Moving on Doesn’t Necessarily Mean It’s Over
Forever.
The final tip in this chapter expands on the topic of recognizing when it is time to move
on from an endeavor. In particular, we discussed that as a graduate student, you
eventually might need to make some tough decisions. This includes deciding whether to
move on from trying to publish a research project, or in some cases, even deciding
whether to leave your graduate program altogether. We note here that simply because
you have decided to let something go, this does not necessarily mean it has to be the
end. That is, it is entirely possible that an opportunity might present itself later. For
instance, although you may decide to stop trying to publish your research at the
moment, it may be the case that in the future, you can take aspects of your study (e.g.,
data) and combine them into a new project. In terms of leaving graduate school as well,
for some students, they might decide that they need to step away for an extended period
(e.g., to raise a child). However, we know of people who have decided to resume their
studies years later. Of course, it may be the case that you are 100% certain that you are
done with whatever the situation may be. But, in case you do have some hesitancy, you
should also know that moving on now does not mean that you can never revisit it later.
References
Brown, B. (2022). The gifts of imperfection: Let go of who you think you’re supposed to
be and embrace who you are. Hazelden Publishing.
Casal, J. E. (2020). An integrated corpus and genre analysis approach to writing
research and pedagogy: Development of graduate student genre knowledge.
[Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. The Pennsylvania State University.
Cassuto, L., & Weisbuch, R. (2021). The new PhD: How to build a better graduate
education. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2022). Doing reflective practice in English language teaching: 120
activities for effective classroom management, lesson planning, and
professional development. Routledge.
Kroger, J. (Ed.). (2014). Discussions on ego identity. Psychology Press.
Moneta-Koehler, L., Brown, A. M., Petrie, K. A., Evans, B. J., & Chalkley, R. (2017). The
limitations of the GRE in predicting success in biomedical graduate school. PLOS
One, 12(1), e0166742.
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Sugimoto, C. R., Laivière, V., Ni, C., & Cronin, B. (2013). Journal acceptance rates: A
cross-disciplinary analysis of variability and relationships with journal measures.
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Swanson, J., Valiente, C., Lemery-Chalfant, K., & O’Brien, T. C. (2011). Predicting early
adolescents’ academic achievement, social competence, and physical health from
parenting, ego resilience, and engagement coping. The Journal of Early
Adolescence, 31(4), 548-576.
Tenenbaum, H. R., Crosby, F. J., & Gliner, M. D. (2001). Mentoring relationships in
graduate school. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 59, 326-341.
CHAPTER 9
Conclusion
We now come to the final chapter of this book, the conclusion. Up to this point, we have
covered numerous topics that are of importance to graduate student success, including
many issues that cut across both the master’s and doctoral levels. These topics consisted
of dealing with imposter syndrome (Chapter 2), developing your study routine,
strategies, while making time for yourself (Chapter 3), carving out your research,
teaching, and professional interests (Chapter 4), working with your advisor (Chapter 5),
networking (Chapter 6), coping with crises (Chapter 7), and dealing with failure and
rejection (Chapter 8). As mentioned earlier, there are numerous books and edited
volumes that aim to help graduate students succeed in the later stages of their programs
in areas such as becoming better academic readers and writers (e.g., Shore, 2016; Swales
& Feak, 2012), working on the dissertation (e.g., Casanave, 2014, 2020), and
transitioning from graduate student to faculty member (e.g., Plonsky, 2020). This book,
however, was written with the goal of helping you succeed in the day-to-day activities of
being a graduate student, particularly as you enter your program and engage in various
activities during the first year. Throughout the chapters of this book, in addition to
relaying our own stories and advice, we also integrated the stories and perspectives of
multiple other graduate students from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of
interests. Notably, this was done as a means of providing a diversity of perspectives on
the issues being discussed, but also, for the purposes of highlighting the commonality of
encountering such issues during one’s studies.
In this final chapter, we conclude our discussion of how to make the most of
graduate school by covering what is perhaps one of the most vital keys to success: being
Kessler, M., & Casal, J. E. (2024). Conclusion. In M. Kessler & J. E. Casal, Making the most of
graduate school: A practical guidebook for students in applied linguistics, education, and TESOL
(pp. 99-104). Applied Linguistics Press.
100
kind to others. Although this may seem like a rather simple (and obvious)
recommendation, we discuss why in some cases, it may be anything but. Thus, we open
our discussion of this topic with addressing the important role that kindness plays in
helping you achieve any general form of success, followed by how kindness might
manifest in the different activities and interactions you have during your graduate
school career. Of course, for us and for others, it is also the right thing to do! Discussed
are subtopics such as taking time out of your busy schedule to help others with their
work, along with being kind to everyone who crosses your path. Following this
discussion on the importance of kindness, we wrap up the book by providing some brief,
concluding remarks.
in fostering your own mental health and well-being. For example, studies have
suggested that as a byproduct of being kind to others, the mere act of doing so has the
capacity to make you feel more motivated, and even feel more grateful and happier
about your own life (see Otake et al., 2006). Thus, even in certain cases where it may be
considerably difficult to be kind, if not for others’ sake, then you should attempt to do so
for yourself. Kindness is important for building relationships, contributing to healthy
working and learning environments, and ensuring that others feel the respect that they
and their contributions deserve. This includes your students, faculty, staff, and peers.
Clearly, being kind can be important for promoting others’ and your own mental
health and well-being, but what role does it play in your graduate school endeavors and
future success? For one, kindness is important for being perceived as a valued co-worker
and potential leader. Researchers in business and other fields have demonstrated that
typically, people both want and seek co-workers and leaders that they perceive as kind
(e.g., Haskins et al., 2018). When it comes to having a colleague, people want someone
who not only cares about their own work, but also someone who cares about those
around them. Thus, during your graduate studies, it stands to reason that if you are
someone who is perceived as kind by your peers and faculty, then you are more likely to
be invited to participate in various activities during graduate school. In many cases, this
includes being invited to social opportunities (e.g., dinners and events), but it also
includes being invited to participate in important academic and career-building
opportunities involving teaching and research.
Conversely, if you are someone who is perceived as being unkind or as someone
who consistently engages in rude or uncivil behaviors, then there may be negative
consequences. What are these behaviors? Common examples include belittling or
insulting others, taking credit for others’ efforts, not listening, blaming others for your
mistakes, in addition to actions such as retaliating for things you perceive as unfair
(Bunk et al., 2011; Porath & Pearson, 2009). Of course, all of us are human. So, in rare
instances, if you engage in such behavior, it is best to apologize. However, if you are
someone who routinely engages in these behaviors, then there may be a significant cost
to pay. This cost is something that may be felt by your peers (e.g., dreading working with
or even engaging with you), but it is also something that you may not become aware of
(ever!) or until it is too late. We return to this topic in the next section with our
discussion of how kindness manifests during graduate school.
In this section, we highlight two primary actions that you can take, which include
making efforts to help others with their work and being kind to those who cross your
path.
The first action that you can take involves helping others with their work. As
discussed in Chapter 3, during your first year, you will likely find it relatively challenging
to manage the increased workload and will thus need to experiment with different
organizational and study strategies. Although you will undoubtedly be busy, during your
first year and beyond, there will also be numerous instances in which either you and/or
your peers will need help from each other. For example, such requests may directly
pertain to coursework, in which you need assistance with a class project, or perhaps
because you or a peer are struggling with an aspect of the course and need additional
scaffolding and support. Such requests for help might also pertain to other activities,
including your teaching or research. For instance, you may find yourself in need of a
peer to fill in for your class, or for a peer to assist you with part of your data analysis.
Thus, even though you will be busy, when a peer needs help, assuming that the request
is a reasonable one, you should do your very best to be kind and to help them. Not only
will they appreciate your efforts – (after all, they will also be busy and recognize the
effort that it took you) – but in turn, they also may be willing to help you if and when
you need support in the future. Of course, you do want to be wary of how others can take
advantage of your kindness and willingness to help, so this is something to be cognizant
of as well.
In addition to showing kindness by helping your peers and cohort members with
their various endeavors, the second thing we stress here is that, to the extent possible,
you should strive to be kind to everyone who crosses your path during your graduate
studies. What do we mean by this? In addition to your peers, you should make an
exerted effort to be kind to your faculty, university and program staff, and of course, to
your own students (if you are teaching). This can be as simple as saying ‘hello’ and
smiling when you pass people in the hallway. However, it also applies to more personal
and effortful interactions, such as congratulating and being excited for your peers when
they have a new accomplishment (e.g., being accepted to present at a conference or
when they receive an award).
On the flip side, this also means that you should not publicly disparage those you
disagree with, nor should you openly put down the work that others are doing. For one,
as mentioned in the previous section, being perceived as rude or uncivil can negatively
impact the opportunities that you receive as a graduate student. Such examples include
not being offered opportunities for GA-, RA-, or TA-ships. These negative behaviors can
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also cause you to miss out on some of the more fun, social aspects of being a graduate
student, including forging important bonds with your peers and faculty beyond the
classroom. Also, there are many roles in a university that are essential to successful
operation and smooth functioning, and it is important to show respect to all who work
and learn within them.
Related to the previous point, and perhaps most importantly, even if you disagree
with someone’s work or how they approach certain tasks, we stress here that in most
cases, you should probably keep it to yourself. This is because you never know when
you will see or need someone’s help again. One illustrative example is: We know of
people who have served on hiring committees and encountered applications from
people they previously interacted with during graduate school. We will leave the
description relatively vague by not providing too many details; however, we will state
here that in the past, these applicants were frequently rude. As students, they expressed
that they felt their work was superior, and that the work others were doing was of little
value. Thus, years later, when these people’s applications came up for review and
discussion among the committee members, it made rendering the decision of ‘no’ rather
quick and easy. We point out here that this is more common than you might think. That
is: When hiring, committees are not simply looking for someone who is qualified. They
are also looking for someone who is respectful of other people’s opinions, easy to get
along with, and quite simply, someone who is kind.
Thus, as much as possible, we strongly encourage you to choose kindness, even
when a situation may be particularly challenging. This does not mean that you should
never express any negative sentiments or vent your frustrations (see a related discussion
in Chapter 6, in which we address the importance of finding a close confidant).
However, building bridges is generally better than burning them.
Concluding Remarks
We have now reached the final section and end of this book. As mentioned in the
introduction, when we were graduate students, we wished that there was a guidebook
that offered helpful advice, relatable stories, and tips on how to deal with different
situations that are likely to arise during the first year of most graduate school programs.
As such, we constructed this book in large part based on our own experiences and those
of our peers, who studied (and now work) in applied linguistics, education, TESOL, and
related disciplines. Thus, we acknowledge here that this book may fully not address each
and every situation that will arise during your particular journey into and through
graduate school. However, we do hope that this book has made you more conscious of
104
some of the major challenges that you are likely to face, in addition to considering how
you might respond to such challenges if or when they arise.
Finally, we wish to highlight here that one of the major themes that ran
throughout this book is the idea that many graduate students often perceive the
challenges that they encounter as being unique, and in some cases, overly stressful and
insurmountable. In many cases though, this is not the case. As Mark Twain is purported
to have said: “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” This same sentiment
applies here as well. That is, the challenges (and successes!) that you experience have
often been experienced by those around you. Thus, we strongly encourage you to
consider your own graduate school experience not as a solo endeavor, but as a shared
experience that can be made more manageable and fun by adopting certain mindsets
and strategies. In closing, we hope that you found this book useful, and that you will use
it as a tool for making the most of your graduate school experience.
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Casanave, C. P. (2020). During the dissertation. University of Michigan Press.
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Shore, Z. (2016). Grad school essentials: A crash course in scholarly skills. University of
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