Tips for Grads

As graduate students here at UW–Madison, we are an integral part of the local community. It is important to consider how your research, teaching, and scholarship can impact these communities and the challenges they face. Here are some resources to help you incorporate community engagement in your scholarship.

Budgeting and financial planning are important skills for every graduate student. Even a simple monthly budget can help you keep track of expenses so you can worry less about finances on top of other stressors in your life.

Citations are crucial in academic work but we often aren’t taught how to cite intentionally, drawing from diverse sources of knowledge while paying attention to biases in research approaches. Citational justice means citing knowledge producers based on their identity in order to uplift marginalized scholars.

As a busy graduate student, it can be hard to find time to reflect deeply about your career goals. But you need to know your motivators, skills, and aspirations to find employment that satisfies your needs and aligns with your values.

Happy first day back to all of you! As we start fresh with both the semester and the year 2023, I wanted to share some of my favorite pieces of advice I’ve given and been given about starting a new semester and year.

While there are some elements of being in school that are just always going to be a challenge, there are things we can do to ease the way and make sure we are conserving time and energy where possible.

It has become my tradition over the past year and a half to use the last Tips for Grads column of the semester to ask you to do a quick writing exercise with me, and to take the opportunity to reflect on what you’ve done in the past few months and everything you can – and will – accomplish in the months ahead. 

We are so close to winter break, I can feel it. And while I’m definitely looking forward to kicking back, catching up on my TV shows, and taking a well-deserved rest after a really strenuous semester, I’m also looking forward to taking some of the break to pursue professional development opportunities I put off as I got busier.

With temperatures dropping and workloads piling up, it’s easy to spend the day in autopilot mode to get through everything that needs to get done while trying to forget that you can’t feel your fingers (are you wearing gloves outside yet? You should be). But I’m here to encourage you to shake up your daily routine and to take some time to unwind and recalibrate as we head into this last month of 2022.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend portions of UW–Madison’s 2022 Diversity Forum. One of the offerings that most stuck out to me was the panel discussion entitled “Laying the Groundwork for Brighter Futures: Pathways to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Administration”.