Surviving Grad School

With my first semester almost over I ask myself "How have I survived up till now?"  This week, we were asked to read articles on surviving graduate school.  They were very informative, though to tell you the truth, while making my decision to come here I read many survival guides to help me prepare for this new life. Some of the advice in the Alice Domurat Dreger article I have used for many years.  She stated something similar to what my father always told me and my brothers, "If you don't like what you are doing, you won't be any good at it." Has the semester been different than I expected? Not really. I knew I would have to adjust to living without my family nearby and it would be hard to do. I also knew that I would be inundated with assignments that required a lot of reading and writing.

So what am I doing in particular to help me transition into this new life? 

• Attend Seminars - The school has offered many different types of seminars. I really enjoyed the writing seminar held by the graduate school earlier this semester.  I found this seminar to be very useful, especially since we tend to write so many different types of documents and highly recommend it,
  
• Personal Time - I reward myself with personal time. Depending on the work-load I tend to alternate the time frame and activity accordingly.  For today's blog writing session, I'm going to reward myself with something quick and fun, then return to the next item on my task list.
  
• Task list -  I have a calendar and task list.  To keep my stress level in check I try very hard to only concern myself with what is due this week. That doesn't mean I don't plan for what's coming. 
  
• Plan Early - I begin planning larger projects early. A time line with smaller tasks is helpful to break manage the project and make it seem more reasonable to handle. Leaving everything to the last minute tends to increase stress and also reduces the quality of work. Two things that I try very hard to avoid.
• Personal Assessment:
  

• "Do I really enjoy what I'm doing?"  This is the question that I ask myself, especially when times are tough. So far my answer has always been yes. 
  
• With finished assignments, "Am I proud with what I accomplished?" So far, I can say yes. I have found that though the work may be difficult and time-consuming,  I am proud of everything I have accomplished up to this point. Have I made mistakes? Yes. Did I learn something? Definitely. Can I do better next time? Of course.

I find that I am here to learn as much as I can, if that means that I have to read thousands of pages of journal articles, then so be it.  If I have to re-write my documents, well that is something I was taught to do a long time ago. Coming here to study is something I chose to do and yes I do enjoy the work I am doing.