I recently learned of a new website that is worth putting in your bookmark list or adding to the subscription list of your RSS reader: Letters from graduate school. Here’s what they say about themselves.
For every graduate student, graduate school is a different experience filled with ups, downs, failures, and successes. The goal of Letters from Graduate School is to build a collective of graduate school experiences—your experience, in your own voice! (http://lettersfromgradschool.org)
There are four essays in Issue 1 (August 2016)
- Love and abuse in graduate school, by an anonymous contributor, which makes a plea for teaching graduate students “that their love for research doesn’t have to be siphoned out of a finite pool of respect they’re allowed to show towards themselves.”
- Writing on an island, by Becky Vartabedian, which describes a physical practice that helped her find her way out of the isolation that is an inevitable part of doctoral study.
- Post-PhD: the jobs didn’t get and the one that I did, by A. Seun Ajiboye, which talks about how he found what profession he wanted in (and how he got there) after realizing that he didn’t want to be in academia.
- Don’t check your optimism at the door, by Renee Geck, which provides some excellent advice – “Grad school doesn’t have to be a year of ignorant bliss and then a dreary trudge to the end. If you find people whom you trust to help you through the worst patches, chances are you’ll come out the other side a lot better than the people who go it alone.”
If Issue 1 is any indication, Letters from Graduate School will be a valuable resource for graduate students and graduate advisors. I look forward to reading the essays in future issues.