What I've learned in the first year of graduate school that no one tells you

Wow. In just a few days, It’ll be my one year anniversary of being in Canada, with Sept 1st marking the beginning of my second year of grad school. I’ve been slacking on my website, my last being from 9 months ago about R, and it’s my goal this next school year to try and post at least once a month. 

So, for August’s post, I wanted to share some of the things that I’ve learned in the first year of graduate school. Things that no one told me. Things that I figured out myself. And as many individuals are starting graduate school so soon, I hope this resource can be used to give you a head start on your program. 

Without further ado, let’s get started…

1. Take the first two weeks slow, and make sure to adjust to your new location 

I say that no one told me these things, but I lied for this tip. My wonderful supervisor, Mitch Weegman, told me about this hint. I remember meeting with him the very first week I moved to Canada and he said, “Cassidy, I want you to not worry about your degree right now. Take a couple of weeks, come into the office a bit, but adjust to your location and learn about Saskatoon. Find the thing here that makes you happy”. 

Now did he say exactly that? No. But his whole message encouraged the exact opposite of what most graduate students want to do. I know you want to hit the ground running. I know you want to learn and figure out what your project is going to be. But, if you’re like me, and have moved to a new location, it’s equally as important to spend time in the city. You need to find the coffee shops, the parks, the libraries, the places that you’re going to need after a rough week. I spent my first week roaming the city, finding my favorite coffee shop that I’m currently at right now, Sparrow, and finding the path by the river that has the best view of the waterfowl in town. The next week, I found a church community to involve myself in that I’m still in today. For you, that could be looking at the local gym for classes to take, or rec sports leagues if you’re more sporty than me. 

The environment that you create for yourself is essential to having a successful graduate career. I firmly believe that the people you surround yourself with, and the feeling you have about the place you’re in will change the attitude you might have about your schooling. So, instead of locking yourself up in the office for the first couple of weeks, take some half-days, and explore where you’re at in life. Because trust me, six months down the road, you’re not going to have the luxury of time to do that. 

2. Don’t underestimate the power of a to-do list

This is the simplest tip in the world, but I’m 100% it’s one of the most important things that I’ve learned in this first year. For the first couple weeks and even months in graduate school, I wrote things to do randomly on pieces of paper, or the task tab in my outlook. I mainly was getting settled in, and doing a LOT of reading. I’d go into the lab, and read for hours and hours, then do the odd task like making a map in R or applying to a scholarship. It was quite manageable actually. 

But, in the spring, I realized that this way of getting my work done was not going to work. Suddenly, I had tasks coming up that needed to be done in a week, or a month, things that were so important that I needed to remember but would get lost on a piece of paper or random place on my computer. I was juggling my courses, proposal writing, multiple analyses, and ideas that would pop up randomly that I knew I didn’t have time for at the moment. And thank goodness, that it was time for a vacation in Ohio. In June, I went down for a wedding and stayed with my wonderful college roommate. She told me all about this app called SmartSheet (I promise this isn’t sponsored, it’s just the best thing in the world). She uses it for employee management in her job, but I realized how I could use it to organize my graduate projects. 

What I created was a place where I could insert my tasks, which would then get placed into a spreadsheet, and come into a report on my dashboard as their priority and date got closer and closer. 

I also created workflows that send me an email two days before something is due, and then a day before if I haven’t completed it yet. That way, if I know I need to do something in three months, like “Remember to order harness material for transmitters”, I can place it into the form, and forget about it until I get an email. I can even give myself some encouragement!! It’s a perfect way, in which I can offload information from my brain, and not worry about remembering every little thing. 

I’m not saying that you need to use this (Smartsheet does cost money - but for me it’s worth it), or even any computer application, but I highly recommend developing a to-do list keeper for yourself to manage everything you have. For me, the planner that I had in college didn’t do the trick. I stopped using that thing the first week I bought it.

3. Yes, reference managers are good, but additional word docs can SAVE you writing

I’m sure you’ve heard of keeping your literature in a reference manager, like Zotero or Mendeley, so I’m not going to tell you to do that, but I am going to tell you to figure out how to REMEMBER the things that you read. 

First things first, take notes on the literature you read. This is a pretty simple tip, but for me, this looks like taking notes on Mendeley and giving myself a summary and important things to know from each paper. I also highlight important things to know in the text itself. This does not have to be long (you’re not writing a book report summary). See a photo of what I do down below. 

I’m assuming in the first couple of months you’ll be reading a lot. Now, what happens when you write your proposal and you know that body condition affects nesting propensity, but you have no idea which article you read that from. Or maybe you know certain things affect nesting propensity, but what does? That’s where my comprehensive information document comes in.

I realized early on that my memory is not the best. I don’t always remember what I read a few weeks later (which I think is quite normal), so I needed a place to help me. This is what I came up with (see below).

I created a Word document, organized by categories (population, reproductive success, mallard information, methods, etc) related to my project. I also created “tags” that I could search for, that are sitting in an Excel spreadsheet. So, when writing my proposal, if I needed information on things that affected adult survival, I would search for “adult_survival” in my document. I could also just search for “adult survival”, the non-tag version, but sometimes those words weren’t in a note I wrote. 

I always made sure to put the citation of the information, with quotation marks if I copied it directly so I wouldn’t plagiarize. Anything without quotation marks I already summarized from the paper.

This might seem like so much work, and yes, up front, it might be, but it has saved me hours of scrolling through Mendeley, trying to figure out where the heck the information I need is. Oh, and pro-tip, I also use the same tags on Mendeley in the place where you can add tags :). 

4. Keep track of your analyses / methods

This is such a good one that I can’t believe was never shared with me directly. My inspiration comes from one of my lab mates, who was leaving for maternity leave in July. As I’m helping monitor her ducks as she is gone, she sent me this giant document containing all the information on what to do, as well as another document that included steps that she took for a certain analysis that I was also doing. 

It was then that a lightbulb sparked in my head, and I knew that for my summer analyses (thank goodness I hadn’t started yet), I needed to keep track of everything I did. If you code, you probably run into errors every day of your life. Have those errors ever come back up and you realize you’ve seen it before but can’t remember what to do? Happens to me all. the. time. 

So, I decided to start a word document for each chapter of my dissertation, with headings surrounding the analyses that I’d be doing, and notes on errors that I noticed, or things that I’ve changed. 

Another example: I’m working with habitat data, and the amount of times I’ve switched the layers I’m using is too much to count. So, I started listing the layers I’m using, or not using, and WHY I’m not using them. The other day, someone asked me why I wasn’t using the NLCD database. I was able to go back into my notes and say, oh yeah, that’s why!

5. Listen to your health. Take a break if needed. Your degree is waiting. 

Two more left! And they’re quick. This one might seem like a no-brainer, but please take care of yourself. There’s a huge pressure in graduate school to always be in the office and work over the weekends and I’m so confused as to why. Grad school does take work, but I’m going to be honest, I’ve gone into the lab once over the weekend, and I’ve never stayed past five during the work week. I get into the office at eight am and leave at four. 

My suggestion. Work productively when you’re in the office. Talk to your office mates and laugh about funny stories from the weekend, but when you’re working, work. I have these SONY headphones and I’ve conditioned my brain that when they’re on, I WORK. And I work hard. My therapist told me the benefits of taking breaks from work, so I’ve incorporated that as well, by actually taking lunch in the break room (and not just at my desk…), and going on a walk when I’ve been sitting for a long time. It worked. The past couple of weeks I’ve been extremely productive. 

Now, what do I mean by listen to your health? I remember waking up one day, in the middle of a work week, and I knew I wouldn’t get anything done. Mentally, I was a bit upset, and it was taking a lot out of me. So, instead of forcing myself into the office, I stayed home and took care of myself. The office for me has become my work spot. If I go in there knowing that I can’t do work, it’ll throw off the safe haven that I’ve created. 

People are going to tell you to push through it and always work, and I’m all for being the best. But, if it comes at the expense of your mental and/or physical health, remember that your degree is waiting for you. You will always be more important than the piece of paper and title you achieve at the end. 

6. Imposter Syndrome will come. Be proactive.

If you don’t know what imposter syndrome is, bless your heart. I hope you never feel it. WebMD defines it as, “Imposter syndrome is when you doubt your skills and successes. You feel you're not as talented or worthy as others believe, and you're scared that one day, people will realize that”. 

This is quite funny looking back, but after a month in graduate school, at the end of September, I had a full breakdown and highly debated that grad school wasn’t for me. How was I supposed to learn everything? There’s no way I got in because I’m smart - it was just luck. I can’t do this.

It was a scary few days, and I thankfully started realizing that I could do this. How did I do that? Well, first, I proactively planned for this to happen. I knew there would be moments when I would need encouragement, so I enlisted my sister to collect letters of encouragement from family, friends, and past teachers. I randomly open them when I need encouragement (this does WONDERS as a word of affirmation girly). 

Secondly, I reached out to previous mentors for help. My wonderful eDNA mentor, Dr. Mark Davis has been an inspiration from day one. He himself realizes the difficulty of going into a field and realizing you don’t know anything. Feeling unworthy. And talking with him, and my supervisor, has been so important in keeping the imposter syndrome down. I’ve cried to my supervisor on the phone, and he’s had my back. The whole time. 

Phew. That was long. And a bit deep! It’s my goal on this platform to be honest and open. I want you to walk away realizing that just because you’re a graduate student, does not mean you have it all together. It’s normally the opposite of that. 

If you found these tips helpful, please share them on your socials. I could care less about people knowing who I am, but if these tips can help other graduate students, that’s all I care about. If you have any questions or need support, please email me! 

Signing off from the coffee shop,