"To know the road ahead, ask those coming back."
- Chinese proverb
"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity."
- Louis Pasteur
For me, it's always been very important to remember that my life path may be quite unpredictable and full of unexpected turns and events. Nonetheless, the life journey is the road that has been traveled many times before, and it is a lot smarter to accept a precious gift of shared experience and wisdom. With that said, insightful and reflective musings, written by Alice Dreger and Ronald Azuma, 'survivors' of the graduate school ordeal, were, indeed, extremely helpful besides being a great fun to read. I also found it exceptionally helpful to seek advice from the 'elders', or academic mentors. It's not an easy task to find a good 'match' upon joining the MentorNet, one-on-one e-mentoring program. So, I consider myself lucky to find one, Dr. Cecilia Aragon, a Staff Scientist in the Computational Research Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley, CA).
As we all know by now, the IST Ph.D. program is quite unique and challenging, in part, because of its mission of forging the next generation of scholars with diverse, often opposing backgrounds, and yet united by their common goal of finding better, more progressive ways of merging information, people and technology. As I found out during my somewhat cloudy first semester, it is so easy to loose track of this success-defining goal.
The question made me recall with absolute clarity that I have always craved intellectual challenge and been determined not to allow myself be defeated by empty questions at the end of my professional career like 'what if' and ' if only'.
I can't agree more with Ronald Azuma when he argues that there are some crucially important survival skills for any graduate student such as initiative, creativity, tenacity, discipline and sociability. Talents and high-level intellectual ability may not be as useful after all if they are not supported by those primary social survival skills.
What was the most useful advice? Again, Ronald Azuma came through with the right answer:"Academia is a business, and "graduate student" is a job title." This advice implies that real success in the graduate school comes from victorious completion of a research program and not from diligent maintenance of high GPA. This advice is undeniably practicable for all RAs, including yours truly.
In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Alice Dreger, a "no-nonsense" lady, who supplied me with a handful of advices that made the most sense to me:
As we all know by now, the IST Ph.D. program is quite unique and challenging, in part, because of its mission of forging the next generation of scholars with diverse, often opposing backgrounds, and yet united by their common goal of finding better, more progressive ways of merging information, people and technology. As I found out during my somewhat cloudy first semester, it is so easy to loose track of this success-defining goal.
Although I did find it somewhat unexpected, I was ultimately encouraged by Azuma's question related to identifying true personal reasons behind sticking with the program. Why get a Ph.D?
The question made me recall with absolute clarity that I have always craved intellectual challenge and been determined not to allow myself be defeated by empty questions at the end of my professional career like 'what if' and ' if only'.
I can't agree more with Ronald Azuma when he argues that there are some crucially important survival skills for any graduate student such as initiative, creativity, tenacity, discipline and sociability. Talents and high-level intellectual ability may not be as useful after all if they are not supported by those primary social survival skills.
What was the most useful advice? Again, Ronald Azuma came through with the right answer:"Academia is a business, and "graduate student" is a job title." This advice implies that real success in the graduate school comes from victorious completion of a research program and not from diligent maintenance of high GPA. This advice is undeniably practicable for all RAs, including yours truly.
In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Alice Dreger, a "no-nonsense" lady, who supplied me with a handful of advices that made the most sense to me:
- Create a 'fantasy' CV with detailed plan of action.
- Choose a dissertation topic based on its marketability on the future job market, as well as among likely publishers.
- Try to avoid "standard academic dis-ease" when approaching deadlines
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