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How I Survived My First Year of Graduate School
Introduction
Well, all of my semester’s grades have been uploaded so I guess that means the semester is officially over. I have some important and exciting tasks to get to during the summer months before classes start up again in the fall, but I want to reflect on what I’ve been up against this past year and how these activities fit into the bigger picture of the entire Ph.D program I’m enrolled in. My day-to-day life has consisted mostly of taking classes and teaching, with a slew of other projects sprinkled in, because I have an affinity for having my hands in several different things at once.
I’ll be Dr. Siktar in no time. Hopefully.
Overview of the Program
The program itself is designed to take 5–6 years from entry to graduation, and is broken into three main phases. The first phase is the coursework phase where students build competency in an area of study so as to prepare for research, and it culminates in the preliminary exams (more on that later). After that, the research phase is where narrowing down to a specific topic of focus takes place, and it usually involves a lot of reading and writing, plus picking an advisor. Finally, the dissertation phase is where students write up all of their results and then convince a committee of professors that they’ve added something…