What Not to Do As a Graduate Student

Graduate students tend to be a desperate lot. We crave advice on a range of issues and seemingly devour any guidance the web has to offer. Thankfully, there is an ample supply of "to-do" lists produced by fellow graduate students and wise professors. Wondering how to make your summer productive? There's a list for that. Thinking about items to pack for an on-campus interview? There's a list for that. Looking to actually graduate without completely losing touch with reality? There's a list for that. Increasingly, there are consultants you can pay for advice, if simply reading a list won't calm your nerves.

I have found several advice columns for graduate students helpful, especially when navigating the ridiculously complex academic job market. Nevertheless, I find many lists vague or common sense. The ones that I have read effectively boil down to four points: figure out what you are doing, get your shit organized, do the work, and don't forget to take care of yourself. As far as it goes, this isn't advice so much as a description of life. So, I thought I would pass along some specific tidbits that I have learned along the way in the form of a "don't do" list. This wisdom has developed over my seven years as an on-again, off-again graduate student. Since I just officially ended my graduate student era last Friday, this feels like an appropriate closure.

1. Don't spend too much personal money on conferences.

There is enormous pressure to present at academic conferences when you are in graduate school. Your advisers likely travel to several conferences per year, and they encourage you to attend as well. This can be a great way to get feedback on your research, meet other graduate students, and network. If your department is willing to pay for a good chunk of the conference, or if the personal costs would be minimal, by all means attend and make the most of it. However, if you department provides little to no funding, I would not waste your own money. Depending on the conference, you could be looking at several thousand dollars in airfare, lodging, and food. Conference presentations don't have the same currency as publications or teaching experience when you are job searching. And, let's be real, academic conferences can completely consume your intellectual soul. Every graduate student can attest to this. On some days, conferences can lift your spirits and remind you of the reasons you are pursuing this degree. Most of the time, I found conferences to be remarkably awkward, devoid of true engagement, and tailored to the specifications of senior academics whose research is given top priority. This is my just my experience, of course, and I have a Holden Caulfield-like response to perceived phoniness.

2. Don't take the debates too seriously.

There ares surely a handful of big debates happening in your field right now. People get heated about these things, and for understandable reasons. If you dedicate your life's work to an idea, you will likely strive to defend/promote it. I have learned over time to observe these debates from the sidelines, entering only when it seems appropriate or necessary. Anytime I participate in big intellectual debates in my field, I don't feel a sense of accomplishment. The debates continue, minds remain unchanged, and I spend the next two weeks in an existential tailspin. It can be emotionally draining, and your energy can be better directed. Instead of spending hours in a message board with some anonymous academic, work on research that sustains you or grab coffee with a friend who doesn't give a damn about the debate du jour. The reality is that many issues that are all the rage in our fields are fleeting. Give yourself over to the things that are more lasting and make you happy. Avoid the quicksands of futile battles.

3. Don't expect the world from your adviser.

In some fields, you apply to work with a particular adviser and not a program. For these fields, you perhaps have a good idea of whom your adviser will be and what to expect from them. In all other cases, go in with an open mind. Remember that your adviser is almost assuredly overworked and cannot possibly provide all of the support you need to survive this grind. More than anything, be prepared to build a roster of advisers who help you in different ways. My assigned adviser was wonderful, and we had a great relationship that propelled me to the finish line. However, I developed close relationships with two other faculty members because they were better suited to assisting me through the job search or some other challenge. This network approach, I would guess, is far more common than having one person that embodies everything you could possibly desire in an adviser. And it means you have more people familiar with you, ready to help you overcome difficulties, and prepared to pass along opportunities or write a recommendation.

4. Don't do "throw away" course work.

In all of my courses, there was some culminating project at the end of the semester, usually a 20-25 page paper. I almost always stopped reading for the course about 2/3 of the way through the semester and focused entirely on this paper. I basically treated each of these as an opportunity to write a paper that I could present at a conference or submit to a journal. If nothing else, think about how papers for courses can be used down the road in the literature review or conceptual framework for your dissertation. When I did attend soul-sucking conferences, I presented final course papers. My journal publications as I went on the job market came from final course papers. I wasn't able to use many of these papers in my dissertation because I radically changed topics, but I think the idea is useful. Basically, course assignments do not need to sit in your Dropbox folders collecting virtual dust. Don't simply do the work to finish the course. Use the course to build the foundations of your future career, whatever it may be.

5. Don't forget to put your field in a broader context.

There are some major issues in academe today--issues that absolutely affect your career prospects and post-graduate future. We have a tendency to get so bogged down in the minutiae of making progress in our programs that we fail to see how broader trends in higher education shape our lives. There is a good chance that your university, field, and department will change during your time as a graduate student. Pay attention to the winds of change and be prepared to adapt accordingly.

6. Don't read too many of these lists.

My final piece of advice is to not get enveloped in a blanket of advice from people who don't know you. You know yourself best. One of my advisers is a no-bullshit Basque who told me right before an interview to be myself and trust my instincts. I still think it's fantastic wisdom by which to live. Graduate school is a personal decision, and you will ultimately be the master of your own destiny. Embrace it and ignore all the noise out there.

The Relationship Between Colleges and Corrections--And Why You Should Care

A recent story in The Chronicle of Higher Education caught my eye. It described several programs in which college professors teach courses to prison inmates. Hello, publicly engaged scholars! Apparently, exposing the millions of incarcerated Americans to new ideas can be politically charged if the program receives state funding. In the article, Ted O'Brien, a state senator in New York, opposed a proposal to provide public money to teach college courses in ten prisons. He explained: "However well-intentioned, I cannot support a policy that would divert resources away from helping students in good standing and their families afford a quality education." Interestingly, states have routinely directed money from higher education institutions to prisons. It is one of many ways that colleges and corrections are related and one of many reasons anyone with a stake in higher education should care about our increasingly imprisoned nation.

One way of thinking about state higher education funding is through Hovey's (1999) concept of the "balance wheel." Effectively, in good economic times, higher education is generously funded. However, in poor economic times, higher education is one of the first areas to receive cuts. Hovey usefully suggested a few possible explanations for this. First, legislators argue that colleges and universities have their own reserves and can better absorb financial instability. Second, higher education institutions are believed to be better equipped to translate cuts into changes in employee pay than other state agencies, where there may be pre-established payscales and multi-year contracts subject to collective bargaining agreements. Third, legislators think colleges and universities can easily adjust spending by reducing seats or courses. Lastly, higher education institutions can pass more fees onto students, unless they are bound to maintain tuition and fees by state law. The general idea is that, in a difficult economic climate, other areas of state funding get their pieces of the taxpayer pie first. Higher education gets the chunks of crust stuck to the edge of the pie tin.

Prisons certainly work according to a different set of realities than universities. Laying off prison staff can have dire consequences, and we can't ask prisoners to pay for their own incarceration (though it should be noted that inmates are frequently expected to pay out-of-pocket for a range of basic necessities). As America continues to incarcerate more of its population, the tab picked up by state governments continues to escalate. There are now some 2.4 million people locked up in the United States. The state and federal government spends over $700 billion annually on corrections. In several states, spending on prisons now exceeds expenditures on higher education, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and California. A report by California Common Sense found that, between 1980 and 2011, state spending on higher education decreased by 13 percent in inflation adjusted dollars. Over the same period, spending on corrections jumped by 436 percent. The state forked over $8,667 per college student in 2011, compared to $50,000 per inmate. Every single state in the country spent more money per inmate than it did per primary or secondary student, according to CNN Money. Beyond a shadow of doubt, states are prioritizing spending on corrections.

In other words, policy decisions are surely diverting resources away from helping "students in good standing and their families" access a high-quality, affordable college education. When states wage a failed war on drugs, impose mandatory minimum sentences, and sign contracts with corporations obligating them to fill private prisons, more taxpayer dollars go to keeping people behind bars than behind desks. The reality is that spending public money on higher education, both within prisons walls and on ivied campuses, is a policy win-win. It makes higher education accessible and affordable, while also lowering crime and incarceration rates. Research shows that the recidivism rate of prisoners who even minimally participate in college courses is much lower than average. In addition to potentially creating a pathway for inmates to acquire skills and earn degrees, a lower recidivism rate means few people are incarcerated, potentially increasing the crumbs appropriated to higher education. Additionally, studies indicate that one of the positive externalities of higher education is lower crime and incarceration rates. Thus, if we want fewer people to return to jail, spending a small amount on the provision of college courses in prisons is smart. If we want fewer people in jail to begin with, and less money directed to corrections, we should stop thinking of higher education as the "balance wheel."

Once we realize that money once used to build a vigorous public higher education system is now being used to build prisons in small towns across America, we can see that the destinies of professors and prisoners are intricately bound. It is one thing to bemoan state budget cuts--it is quite another to follow the money trail and ask difficult questions. I urge everyone working in higher education to ask those difficult questions. Indeed, to advocate for prison reform and demand that "corrections" lives up to its name is to champion adequate funding for higher education.

Taking a Vacation from Higher Education

I love reading and writing about higher education. It is my job, and as someone trained in the subject, I take seriously the responsibility of engaging in public conversations about the past, present, and future of America's colleges and universities. Specifically, I advocate for a robust, well-funded, diversified public higher education sector, and I generally find privatization to be poor public policy.

Recently, it has been almost impossible for me to avoid any number of debates about college costs, spending, and governance. Most days I feel compelled to enter the fray, but for the better part of this week, I passed over the headlines. I disregarded the "humanities matter," "adjuncts are miserable," "students are entitled," "colleges are resorts," and "presidents are overpaid" tropes on my Facebook news feed. On Twitter, I skipped over the by now familiar cast of characters in the debates, including the data-heads, the disgruntled former academics, the over-confident and under-informed online journalists, and the edtech evangelists. I don't buy into the doomsday predictions for higher education, but I was certainly feeling burned out by the fire and brimstone rhetoric. As it turns out, the glory of the information age is also it's greatest weakness: we are able to follow the details of every incident in real-time, without the discerning perspective that comes with reasonable distance. It had me feeling exhausted. My social media dependence meant that I was fatigued by the array of issues and overwhelmed by the barrage of information, yet I continued to scroll and read.  

So, I shut down. For a brief period of time, I stopped caring about higher education. I decided that I was on a vacation, of sorts. A mental vacation. After writing my dissertation for the past year, I needed to recharge my batteries. I read about baseball statistics and perused urban development projects in my new city. I read a biography about Einstein and spent an hour following links from the "savant" Wikipedia page. Because why not? I didn't pick up my research on part-time faculty and instructional costs, and I didn't obsessively check the number of clicks on my blog posts. A type of serenity soon emerged as I realized that the higher education world kept turning without my complete immersion in its problems. Students still crammed for exams. Graduation ceremonies dragged on for too long. Administrators braced for a new round of budget uncertainties. Faculty slogged through mediocre exam essays. The media babble no doubt continued to stream on social media, yet the articles, thought pieces, and listicles suddenly seemed to me rather...fleeting and immaterial. 

In my moment of peace, I wondered if perhaps being an academic in certain disciplines is like working in a helping profession. Just as the ability of a counselor to help others requires that they periodically focus on their own mental well-being, the ability of an academic to launch headstrong into the issues that matter to them requires a mental vacation from time to time. It could even be that interdisciplinarity is not simply a research fad or hedge against unnecessary specialization. Rather, it could be a defense mechanism in the face of burn out. A search for new muses and a desire to see a topic through fresh eyes. We academics are a special lot in that we care a great deal about our work, sometimes serving as shepherd to pet projects that matter to only a select few. This is a wonderful thing and one reason why there is virtue in a life of the mind. However, it is possible that the mind can only take so much before constant engagement prevents our ability to effectively contribute. Could it be that caring too intensely without a break clouds our thinking?

I haven't fully returned from my vacation. Sure, I've clicked on a few stories, but I couldn't finish them. I know I will re-enter soon, and this post may re-ignite my passion. For the time being, I'm basking in the sunshine of being disconnected. There is freedom in knowing that I am just a tiny speck of grease in the machinations of the higher education universe.