Lessons from graduate school

This semester has probably been the most challenging time in my academic career. Graduate classes create an environment where you’re not competing with other people, but you’re constantly competing with yourself to make you a better learner, researcher and writer—growing your overall intelligence. When I was younger, I thought grad school was an excuse not to get married, and now I know how exciting and rigorous academia is. You’re not in school because there are no job options; you’re there because there is so much information out there that you want to digest.

Now that I have an entire week off for Thanksgiving, I’ll be writing a series of blog posts of some of the important lessons from my past semester under the “grad school” tag. Each class, job, meeting and daily interaction has taught me a lot, and I want to share it with you! To start off, here are some takeaways:

The proportion of time you spend reading to the time you spend writing and discussing what you read is 10:1.

Grad school is all about reading. More than 1000+ pages a week about what professionals, academics and research studies have said about a variety of topics. But instead of reading to learn about a subject and be tested on it, you’re reading to learn about the inherent issues within that topic. So when you read a text, you know you should want to comprehend it and it’s not even worth your time to skim. Therefore, I’ve learned a lot from the various studies and authors we’ve read, even if there is no outlet to discuss it because three hours of class is simply not enough.

Being with international and nontraditional students provides a rich learning experience.

The format of most of my classes is discussion-based, and rarely do professors lecture in journalism graduate coursework. A lot of what you learn comes from other students in the room—and many of them bring international background or work experience to the table. Like I said in my election posts, teachers value and are interested in this experience—as it helps grad students decide what to research or what areas have potential. Hearing about people’s travel, jobs, grandkids and countries has taught me a ton.

Grad school is more cliquey than middle school.

Most incoming grad students are taking classes at somewhere they didn’t do their undergrad, and come to Mizzou knowing no one. The only other people they know are the other grad students in their program, because there is no established way to meet others when you have minimal activities, and need to spend all of your free time reading and writing. When a study group, emphasis area or group of people within a class forms and becomes acquainted, they like to showcase that they made friends. You have to constantly remind yourself that they’re not trying to exclude others, but rather—prove to themselves that they have a community they can rely on in this city where all they do is study.

You have to be well-versed in political humor.

Especially since it’s an election year, political conversation is everywhere. And where else would you find such strong debaters than in academia? Being in classes with people constantly discussing politics has driven me to follow the election and debates closely so I can understand and know when to contribute to conversation. Even if you can’t follow everything, you have to understand the viewpoints on key issues and have rationales for both if you want to be a good conversationalist.

Know what you want to get out of it.

Why are you spending money and an extra year (or two) to receive your masters? It’s hard to construct one answer to this question, but being aware of reasons drives your motivation to read those studies, reports and books each week. To keep yourself interested, think of subtopics within your emphasis that you want to know more about.

Every day is a reminder of what you don’t know.

Each day I read or sit in a discussion, I think of how much more there is out there that I have not and will not get to read or learn. Whether it’s international travel and what a region is like, Pew research studies on how Americans change or all the masters theses and doctoral dissertations out there, there is always information you’re not exposed to. Take this time in your life to learn what you can and use what else is out there!