Keys to Success in Graduate School

Professional Development for Research and Career Planning

Keys to Success Videos

Why graduate school?
- Is graduate school relevant to careers in industry as well as

                 academia?
         o How do you use your existing job experiences (e.g., in a company
                 or in an academic lab) to guide your decisions about graduate
                 school?
         o When should you aim for a Masters degree, and when should your
                 goal be a Ph.D.?
         o How can experience in a community college lead to persistence
                 toward a Ph.D.?

How did you pick a graduate school?

         o What practical considerations should one make with regard to
                 potential doctoral programs and schools, thesis advisors and
                 fellow graduate students?

What about the first year of graduate school?

         o What is a comprehensive exam?  How is this exam unlike anything
                 one experiences as an undergraduate?
         o What is doctoral candidacy and how does life change when you've
                 achieved it?
         o What is the role of failure in being a graduate student?
         o How do you maintain your self esteem in the midst of increased
                 academic competitiveness and risk of failure in graduate school?

How do you pick a lab and advisor?

         o How much consideration should you give to the prospective lab's
                 level of equipment and its student culture, to the adviser's
                 ability to maintain funding for graduate students, and to your
                 ability to maintain the research themes you worked on as an
                 undergraduate?

How do you pick a research topic?

         o What's a Doctor of Philosophy degree anyway, and how does that
                 degree represent the work you'll be doing as a scientist or
                 engineer?

What role does an STC play?

         o What networking and collaboration opportunities to STCs afford?
         o How does the process of working with other lab members develop
                 and enforce the knowledge you need to be a successful researcher?
         o What are the advantages and disadvantages of situating your
                 graduate education in an interdisciplinary structure such as an STC?

What about mentoring?

         o ...both your mentoring of others, and your
                 being mentored by others?
         o Since research is a social pursuit, how does a shy individual
                 cope with asking for the information he or she needs to be
                 successful in the lab?
         o How does being female impact being a successful STEM graduate
                 student?