First of all, congratulations for getting into graduate school!
The long application and interview process is finally over and now you can focus on how much fun this next chapter will be! As a first generation college graduate and graduate student, I was a bit overwhelmed by my first year of grad school, but thanks to a kickass therapist, supportive friends, and kind mentors, I was able to feel balanced and successful during this time (and even have a bit of fun). Below are a few tips either given to me by others, or ones that I realized on my own as I bumbled along, that helped me thrive during my first year of graduate school!
- Take care of yourself! Eat, sleep, move, repeat! The first year of graduate school is a whirlwind of lab rotations, coursework, networking, and socializing; frankly, it's exhausting sometimes. However, keeping up a regular sleeping schedule, eating a healthy diet, and getting some exercise can be very helpful for providing you with enough energy to juggle all of your new responsibilities. When it comes to meal prepping, I relied heavily on Budget Bytes for cheap, delicious meal ideas, and put my crock pot and rice cooker to work while I studied. As far as the fun exercise bit goes, I recommend checking out Yoga with Adriene or FitnessBlender for workouts you can do at home! Last, but not least...get some damn sleep.
- ASK FOR HELP. If you need help for literally anything, ask for it. Your TAs, your professors, your PIs, and older students in your program are there to help you. The insurance office at your school is there to help you, the librarians can help you, psychological services can help you...which leads me this important subpoint...
- If you need help for a mental health issue, call your psychological services center. It is widely known that graduate students face mental health challenges while pursuing their degrees; this is nothing to be ashamed of, and the sooner you ask for help, the better. During my first year, I waited far too long to go back to therapy and get back on medication that I knew helped me feel my best, and that is a big regret of mine; please learn from my mistake and ask for help as soon as you need it. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis right now, or need someone to talk to and don't feel comfortable talking to people at your school or simply cannot for whatever reason, there is help out there for you: the Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 by phone or online chat.
- Use your resources! This includes Google and YouTube. If you don't understand something in your courses, or during research rotations, ask your professors or PIs to clarify; if they can't, or they try to and you're still not following, use Google. There are a million different ways to explain what you learn in courses and labs, and sometimes the people teaching you cannot think of a way to convey the information in a way that makes sense for you! This is not a fault of theirs or a fault of yours, so don't get discouraged- just seek out the information presented in a way that makes sense to you (and then share it with your classmates because they may feel lost too).
- Use rotations to try something new! During a time when every aspect of your life seems to be changing, it can be very tempting to fall back on old research techniques or topics, but this decision isn't always the most rewarding. Learning new techniques really helps you think of how to approach a problem from different levels, and having foundations in various techniques can help you in the future! Moreover, exposing yourself to new research areas may spark a new research interest in you (full disclosure, this is how I fell in love with astrocytes)!
- Reflect on your successes (and failures)! Grad school is filled with failures- experiments fail for whatever reason, hypotheses fail all the time, and things just don't work...until they do! Too often, we disregard our successes and focus on our failures, which can make us feel like failures; counter this by stopping to reflect on your successes when they happen, however small they may be. If you do well on an exam, or finally nail a new technique, recognize it in some way! And if your experiment fails, or you don't do so well on an assignment, stop and assess why, then figure out a way to do better next time- I've found this process helps me from beating myself up over small issues.
- Get a hobby! During my orientation, the assistant director of my program told the first year students to get hobbies which had measurable successes, and it was the best advice I have ever gotten regarding grad school. Like I just said, failure happens all the time during grad school, so having a hobby that shows that you're making progress in something can be very rewarding.
- Set a schedule for yourself! This is something I didn't do until later in first year, but I think it was what helped me feel the most balanced. I work best in the morning, so I'm generally at lab or in class before 9am and out of lab/class before 5pm, and I try my best not to bring work home with me or stay late unless a due date is approaching or I have an exam coming up. If I do end up working extra hours one day, I try to decrease my hours on a separate work day to make up for lost personal time. And no work on the weekends unless absolutely necessary!
Your first year of graduate school is a fun, exciting time, but it's also a time when a lot of students struggle to maintain balance and happiness in their personal and professional lives. Hopefully, the tips above can help you or someone you know get through their first year with as little stress as possible!