It’s been almost a year since I posted and a lot of things have happened (including a global and ongoing pandemic!). I finished my second year in graduate school, which means that I officially obtained my MA in English (I’m in a six-year MA-PhD conjoint program, so I will officially begin the PhD portion this fall with four more years to go. It feels like a long time left, but the past two years went by so quick that I know I’ll be at the end of my graduate school journey quicker than I think. It’s both a frightening and exciting thought). I don’t think I achieved anything too grand during my MA (I completed the degree with a 4.0 GPA, although grades don’t really matter at this point as much as the kind of work you put out, but at least I know I’m not absolutely failing to meet requirements!). Nonetheless, I did gain new experiences and feel closer to knowing what I want to do by the time I start writing my dissertation—something to do with speculative fiction and perhaps the figure of the zombie, although perhaps I will discuss that in a different post. Some things that have happened in the past year include 1) completing more coursework and taking a variety of classes including on speculative fiction, global feminisms, Caribbean literature, the eighteenth-century novel, feminist theory, and the #MeToo movement (I think I’m going to aim for a dual-title degree in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies!) 2) completing my first RAship helping a professor edit his upcoming manuscript on imperial Chinese rhetoric 3) presenting my work at a conference and planning to attend more (I was looking forward to AAAS) before everything was canceled due to the coronavirus 4) teaching for the first time as the instructor for a freshman writing course 5) learning how to both take and teach classes online when the coronavirus situation shut down our campus. I still feel like I could be doing more and often feel unaccomplished as a lower-level graduate student, but taking a step back and reflecting on my growth so far helps battle away some of the ever-lingering imposter syndrome. Hopefully now that it’s summer, I can write more about the things I’ve discovered! I plan to write a few more posts about my experiences teaching in the new “pedagogy” category. I’m scheduled to teach another class this summer starting July and think it might be helpful to record some of the writing activities and strategies I’ve previously used for myself to refer back to.
I wouldn’t say I’m an expert on anything, but I’m going to take the opportunity here to write down a set of tips and rules for navigating graduate school in English (also applicable to any writing and reading-heavy major). If no one else reads this blog, at least the information below is something I can look at to remind myself to keep doing as I enter my last year of coursework.
- This might be obvious, but keep on top of all your readings! I’ve had weeks with 1000 pages of assigned readings and you don’t want to leave those to tackle last minute. I always calculate the number of pages of readings at the beginning of the week, because you don’t want to be surprised with a book being 500 pages long a few days before the reading is due. You want to be aware of how many pages you need to read in advance so you can spread them out throughout the week in manageable chunks. Although you should aim to do all the readings, if life happens and it’s not feasible for that week, and no online summaries exist, you can search for scholarship on the assigned text so you have a general sense of what it’s about and the existing arguments about it. Any scholarly articles will also highlight some key passages from your primary text that could be helpful to return to even if you don’t have time to read the full text.
- Again an obvious one—try and take notes! When you have a pile of things to read, it’s tempting just to get through all the pages without taking comprehensive notes. I am certainly guilty of this, but at the very least I mark the places that interest me as I read through the book. When I finish the book, I return to the parts I marked and then note any patterns between them or try and understand which moments are especially profound and why. Usually, I try and have one final post-it where I organize my thoughts by jotting down the main themes/passages I want to return to and attach it to the front of the book. When you have to take more detailed notes, for example for your comprehensive exams, I’ve seen people take notes of the following: a brief summary you write yourself to check full understanding of plot, the main characters, main themes, important quotes and passages, and existing scholarship and their key arguments.
- Set concrete goals for yourself in seminars, especially if you tend to be shy like me. Try and avoid general goals like, “I’ll just try and talk more this class!” Start with small but concrete goals for each day, such as “I will make one original point about the text today,” “I will respond once to someone else’s comment today” or “I am going to ask one question in class today.” If you have a specific number and kind of goal, it’s less daunting to follow through on.
- Consider starting or involving yourself in reading or study groups. I know that for a lot of humanities majors, thinking and writing appear to be solitary tasks, but it helps to force yourself to voice your ideas and get reading suggestions. I always fail to start as early as I would like, but having a study group also helps you start your final papers early (I recommend having an abstract/proposal at least one month before the deadline). If you just tell yourself you’ll have a final project idea by a certain date, it’s easy to push back or ignore. However, if you make a commitment with other people to share your final paper ideas by a certain date, it’s much more likely you feel the pressure not to let them down and will actually force yourself to think of something.
- Your advisor is really important—try and foster a relationship with a potential advisor as soon as you start your time at graduate school. I’ve been very lucky in that I knew who I wanted to work with right away and my advisor is one of the most proactive and mentorship-oriented professors in our department. I still feel a little uncertain about where I will end up by the end of the program in terms of my research, but I know I would be far more lost without the interactions I’ve had with my advisor (writing workshops, reading groups, general check-ins, event invitations). Of course, you can’t rely on an advisor to do everything for you and you may certainly change your mind about what specific field you want to go into and who you want to work with during the first few years of your program, but it’s nice to have a faculty member as a mentor. Even if they don’t end up actually being your advisor, they could be a valuable connection and future committee member. They can give you information about potential conferences, reading suggestions, timelines, and opportunities (although there is a push for more transparency about who gets RAships and my department is trying to implement an application system, it’s still more likely that a professor will trust you with a position if they already know you and your work ethic).
These are my tips for now! I found my old drawing tablet to draw a matching picture for this post and used it for the first time since high school. It doesn’t look too good, but I enjoy the fact that I have some time to indulge in old (and new) hobbies now that it’s summer. Hope everyone is staying safe and looking after themselves during this crazy time.
Su Cool for School 