LIFE AS a graduate student is not all beer and skittles. Very few people come to graduate school with this notion, and they are soon disabused of their misconceptions. Most graduate students' problems are those experienced by the rest of the population (such as the spiraling cost of health care), and others are, if not particular to graduate students, then certainly a defining characteristic. For instance, how to deal with problems created by faculty (e.g. harassment, being expected to do their work for them, being ignored by them) when they might be the only person at the University to work with, complaints will only irritate them and they may have the power to wreck any future career.
It would be disingenuous to deny that, as with the rest of life, many problems of these could be alleviated, if not eliminated, by more money. Funding, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, can be hard to come by -- erratically distributed and not guaranteed from one year to the next. The uncertainty surrounding finances is likely to lead to a number of sleepless nights, especially if one has a large undergraduate debt. Going to graduate school is a choice made with the knowledge that in most fields it does not represent a path to riches but that its privations are worth enduring for a life of study and teaching. There should not be an expectation of easy money, but, as I have already said, more money is always a good thing. Everybody knows this, so I don't want to focus on this obvious point.
One of the most striking characteristics about graduate student life at the University, at least in my experience, is a general feeling of not belonging to the wider University community. Increasing isolation is the nature of graduate study. The more one specializes in a particular field the less one feels able to communicate with others outside of an increasingly narrow band within a particular discipline. Few students have much to do with other graduate students outside of their own department, rough cohort and subfield, to say nothing of the rest of the community.
One such example is the honor system, a topic that many graduate students feel passionately about, being both held to account by it and being responsible for bringing cases to the attention of the committee as instructors and teaching assistants. Yet very few get involved in what is perceived as a system run by undergraduates for undergraduates without regard for graduate student views. This withdrawal only exacerbates a tendency to ignore or forget about graduate students and their needs in wider decision-making. Last semester, a proposal for the University sports fan club would have prevented graduate students from joining, not for any particular reason, but because it just didn't occur to anyone that a graduate student might also be a sports fan.
Mixing with the wider University community does take time, and there are many pressures to concentrate on finishing one's degree as quickly as possible; financial, mental (there comes a point in time when one simply wants to get on with one's life) and emotional (strangely long hours, few resources and increasingly esoteric conversations can put a strain on relationships with significant others), but isolation and a feeling of irrelevance take their own toll on the quality of life and ultimately work produced.
My advice to graduate students is to take the time to do at least one thing beyond their immediate social set, anything from attending a Graduate Council social event and talking to people from a different department to getting involved with university organizations. Participation could mean encountering interesting people and different perspectives and gaining a greater understanding of what the University community can offer in terms of resources, a sense of belonging or actually changing the way things work both for you and future graduate students. You might receive a large return on your time and energy. My advice to the rest of the community would be to take the time to think about graduate students and make an effort to get them involved in a meaningful way. Many will not see the point of trying to get involved, but please take them seriously and try to make them feel valued members of our shared community.
Gavin Reddick represents the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in both Student Council and the University Judiciary Committee. He is the president of the Graduate Student Council. He is also a Cavalier Daily contributor.
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