This resource book consists of nine chapters by sixteen graduate student authors and two advisors of graduate students, with corresponding video vignettes which briefly dramatize each chapters theme and are accompanied by group discussion questions. The chapter topics include seeking funding, the challenges of the first year of graduate school, finding a thesis advisor, working with thesis committee members, balancing family and graduate student life, and life after graduate school.
Where these subjects have been treated in an academic style many times, this book conveys its message through personal narratives of the challenging circumstances its graduate student authors encountered and solved. It will not give its reader long lists of statistics about graduation rates or most advantageous actions for best outcomes. What it does instead is provide readers with a vivid sense of the types of life experiences one can expect to encounter when undertaking a graduate degree and the opportunity to discuss these real-life issues with others.
The book is published on behalf of the Midwest Crossroads chapter of the Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP).
| Foreword |
|
vii | |
|
|
| Preface |
|
ix | |
|
|
|
|
Facilitating the
Chapter Discussions |
|
xiii | |
|
1 Locating and Securing Funding |
|
|
1 | (14) |
|
|
|
2 The First Year of Graduate School: Navigating the Hurdles |
|
|
15 | (38) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 Choosing a Thesis Advisor: Surprise and Success |
|
|
53 | (16) |
|
|
|
4 Choosing a Thesis Advisor: Familiar Paths and Unexpected Curves |
|
|
69 | (24) |
|
|
|
5 Working with Committee Members |
|
|
93 | (14) |
|
|
|
6 Balancing Graduate School and Family |
|
|
107 | (20) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
127 | (18) |
|
|
|
|
|
8 Graduate Student Support Programs |
|
|
145 | (20) |
|
|
|
|
|
9 Publishing While Completing the PhD |
|
|
165 | (18) |
|
|
|
10 Life Beyond Graduate School |
|
|
183 | |
|
|
Mark J. T. Smith is dean of the Purdue University Graduate School and holds the Michael J. and Katherine R. Birck Professorship in electrical and computer engineering. He has been at Purdue since 2003 when he joined the faculty as head of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was previously a faculty member at Georgia Tech and holds both his MS and PhD degrees from that institution.
