Advice for starting graduate school

LOL. Yes. First, a lot of it will depend on the school you picked and its overall culture and vibe. Generally, the better the school, the more progressive it is. At the graduate level, you're truly dealing with adults and a lot of the posing and partying of undergrad days is past tense. People are serious about studying and getting things done, or they get out of the way and get out of Dodge. With most people being more mature, expect personal differences to be more accepted, though there will be some people who won't say anything, but won't be your friend either. Chalk it up to their personal insecurities. Also, you need to schedule some free time, either to take a drive or sit in a nice part of the campus and just savor the experience to decompress.

If you want to talk sex, I personally noticed that there's more sexual tension in grad school. I noticed it a lot more than in undergrad. And it's not about seeing if someone can score, but about dealing with the stress, wanting a form of release, and wanting to feel some sort of connection in a vast academic desert, so to speak. This may sound nuts, but it had more of an adult quality than a teenage quality about it. Be prepared for that, on many levels, if you know what I mean.

 

Aloha, Gerry

Congratulations on your starting grad school. I think you will enjoy it.

I think you are going to find that your classmates have a much more professional attitude. In fact, these are some of the people that you will be working with for the rest of your career, so I think it is important to work with them with a colleagial and cooperative attitude. It still amazes me how many times my path has crossed with my grad school classmates,at work, in the community, job hunting, or on professional panels.

You will also discover that there are a lot of links between academia and the real world at the graduate school level. I would advise your to pursue and cultivate these linkages, both as a learning opportunity as well as a means of building contacts and ultimately job leads. If your grad school offers a practicum or 'in-residence" program, by all means take it!. I know you will be working at the same time, but an experience in your field of specialty should take priority, unless you can kill two birds with one stone.

I hope this is helpful, Good luck to you.

Milan

 

Yes, listen to Milan, whose contribution here was more upbeat and broader than mine. After all, I spent the second of two paragraphs discussing sex in graduate school.

You're there to perfect your academic and professional skills, as opposed to your sexual ones (lol), so put your nose to the grindstone and have fun too! The caliber and number of friends I met in graduate school exceeded those of the ones I met in undergrad, if that's any indicator. I think it is.