57 Ways To Screw Up In Grad School: Perverse Professional Lessons For Graduate Students Fifty Seven Ways To Screw Up In Grad School

AN INTRODUCTION TO SCREWING UP -- Who Are I? -- Gendered Pronouns -- Thesis vs. Dissertation? -- STARTING OUT -- 1. Do Not Think about Why You Are Applying -- 2. Ignore the Market -- 3. Stay at the Same University -- 4. Follow the Money Blindly -- 5. Do an Unfunded PhD -- 6. Do an Interdisciplinary PhD -- 7. Believe Advertised Completion Times -- 8. Ignore the Information the University Provides You -- 9. Expect the Money to Take Care of Itself -- SUPERVISORS -- 10. Go It Alone and Stay Quiet -- 11. Choose the Coolest Supervisor -- 12. Have Co-Supervisors -- 13. Do Not Clarify Your Supervisor's (or Your Own) Expectations -- 14. Avoid Your Supervisor and Committee -- 15. Stay in a Bad Relationship -- 16. Expect People to Hold Your Hand -- MANAGING YOUR PROGRAM -- 17. Concentrate Only on Your Thesis -- 18. Expect to Write the Perfect Comprehensive Exam -- 19. Select a Topic for Entirely Strategic Reasons -- 20. Do Not Teach, or Teach a Ton of Courses -- 21. Do Not Seek Teaching Instruction -- 22. Move Away from the University Before Finishing Your Degree -- 23. Postpone Those Tedious Approval Processes -- 24. Organize Everything Only in Your Head -- 25. Do Not Attend Conferences, or Attend Droves of Conferences -- YOUR WORK AND SOCIAL LIFE -- 26. Concentrate Solely on School -- 27. Expect Friends and Family to Understand -- 28. Socialize Only with Your Clique -- 29. Get a Job! -- WRITING -- 30. Write Only Your PhD Thesis -- 31. Postpone Publishing -- 32. Cover Everything -- 33. Do Not Position Yourself -- 34. Write Only to Deadlines -- 35. Abuse Your Audience -- YOUR ATTITUDE AND ACTIONS -- 36. Expect to Be Judged Only on Your Work -- 37. Have a Thin Skin -- 38. Be Inconsiderate -- 39. Become "That" Student -- 40. Never Compromise -- 41. Gossip -- 42. Say Whatever Pops into Your Head on Social Media -- DELICATE MATTERS. Don't think about why you're applying. Select a topic for entirely strategic reasons. Choose the coolest supervisor. Write only to deadlines. Expect people to hold your hand. Become "that" student. When it comes to a masters or PhD program, most graduate students don't deliberately set out to fail. Yet, of the nearly 500,000 people who start a graduate program each year, up to half will never complete their degree. Books abound on acing the admissions process, but there is little on what to do once the acceptance letter arrives. Veteran graduate directors Kevin D. Haggerty and Aaron Doyle have set out to demystify the world of advanced education. Taking a wry, frank approach, they explain the common mistakes that can trip up a new graduate student and lay out practical advice about how to avoid the pitfalls. Along the way they relate stories from their decades of mentorship and even share some slip-ups from their own grad experiences. The litany of foul-ups is organized by theme and covers the grad school experience from beginning to end: selecting the university and program, interacting with advisors and fellow students, balancing personal and scholarly lives, navigating a thesis, and creating a life after academia. Although the tone is engagingly tongue-in-cheek, the lessons are crucial to anyone attending or contemplating grad school. 57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School allows you to learn from others' mistakes rather than making them yourself.