Orientation

Graduate student orientation is an event that is useful for some people and useless for others. It gives a brief introduction and training on how to teach and interact with students. It teaches you how to plan for things in graduate school. It also informs you of services that the university offers to support their graduate students. This information can be helpful for some people, but it can be boring for people that already know or have experience with these areas.

The first important thing that orientation covers is how to interact with students and teaches you about privacy for your students. This is for you and the university to cover you so that you are not inappropriate to your students and that you are not sharing your student's grades with people that are not privileged to that information. If you have prior teaching experience from a career or being a TA during your undergraduate time, then the majority of this is a "well duh" topic. For those that have no teaching experience, which I found out is the common scenario, it gives them the important details so they cannot get sued or the university cannot get sued by students or parents. My university had a week of general orientation for all new graduate students (both Masters and PhD students), but then my department also held a week of orientation after the general to teach department specific information. Teaching is a very important part of being a first year at my school so the department spent a large amount of time teaching the graduate students how to teach. Again, if you have prior teaching experience, a lot of this information was stuff you already knew, but I found out that most people have no teaching experience even though they knew that they would have to teach while in graduate school.

Another important aspect of orientation was teaching you how to plan. Some of the information was ridiculous to me because I have always been good at planning, but the university and department gave us this information for those graduate students that may not be good planners. They taught planning for various things like how to manage your money, how to manage your time so you don't overburden yourself, and (most importantly) how to plan for the necessary steps to complete your degree. I think the finances and time will be covered by different blog posts so I will focus on the degree here. For a PhD (depending on the school) there can be a varying number of steps to obtain your degree. All schools that I know of at least have you do a program of study, orals, and your thesis defense. Some schools will also have qualifying exams or cumulative exams that must be completed before you can either do your orals or defend your thesis. The orientation gives you a rough timeline of when these things should be completed by and if your department does their own orientation, they will help you figure out which courses you should take to fulfill the department's requirements.

One final thing that you can get out of orientation is the services offered by the university. At the universities that I know of, graduate students get all the benefits that undergraduates have (access to gyms, health centers, etc.) plus some graduate exclusive perks. The graduate exclusive options vary greatly depending on the university. A lot of universities have been making changes to help graduate students stay healthy (physically and mentally) so schools, like mine, offer psychological counseling centers that are separate from the undergraduate ones. This helps to keep gossips from starting if an undergraduate saw their TA going to talk to a counselor or something. There can also be services that help mitigate conflicts or discussions. If you are having trouble with your PI or a fellow graduate student, these services can help to start the conversation in a manageable way and can even be confidential if need be. If needed they will also be present for all of the conversation to help protect both parties so the best outcomes can be achieved. I highly recommend learning of these options and keeping them in mind just in case you need it one day.

The Summer Before First Year

The summer before you start is a very important time depending on your pick of graduate school. For some schools, it is beneficial to move as early as possible and start in the lab asap. Other programs may be more lax so it is good to take some time off and relax and enjoy your last free summer (at least in the physical sciences, you work year around so graduate school becomes at least a full time job). Moving costs can also be expensive, which can be made worse by your first paycheck being half the amount that it will be usually, so it can be beneficial to make a little money to help alleviate these costs.

To do this you would need to talk to the PI that you would most like to work for during graduate school and work out an arrangement of either volunteering your time or getting paid out of a grant that the PI has. This scenario gives you the edge by showing the PI your work ethic and getting a foot in the door before the rest of the graduate students arrive. This lets you secure a spot in the lab or at least increases your chances of getting the spot in the lab that you want. Keep in mind that this may be a double edged sword, if you come in strong to show off to the PI so they pick you, then they may expect that level of work from you constantly. This could lead to being burned out and seriously considering dropping out of graduate school after two or three years.

Some schools are much more lax on joining labs and have the first year students do rotations. Rotations have you cycle through two or three labs throughout your first year so that you can better choose which lab to join and the labs get to say if they want you. In this scenario, it may be more beneficial to relax during the summer before you start because you will still get the opportunity to try out labs and for them to see your work ethic. This means showing up early in the summer doesn't guarantee you a spot in the group you want. This gives the opportunity to have a break and relax between finishing undergraduate and starting graduate school. Taking the break lets you be refreshed and prepared which lowers your chances of getting burned out half way through.

The final, very important, point of the summer before is moving to the new city/town. Some schools having moving stipends (this is something important to learn about during the visiting weekend) and you should not use the availability of a moving stipend to determine which school to go to. The moving stipend just makes it a little easier to start graduate school. If a moving stipend is available, it will likely be a large enough amount to cover the majority of your moving costs. If the school doesn't have a moving stipend, then I recommend saving some money during the summer to pay for it and/or using a credit card and paying it off monthly. The moving costs can also be made worse by when you start in the pay cycle. Most schools pay on a monthly basis at the beginning or end of the month. However, they may have you start in the middle of the month (not to mention having to attend orientation events that happen before your official start date) which means that your first paycheck will be half the amount of your monthly pay. This is all information to keep in mind when you start so that you know money may very tight during the first couple of months.

The final disclosure, my school does not have a moving stipend and I moved about a month before I needed too. Moving so early was primarily for my fiance because the start date for her job was a few weeks before mine. I tried to save up some money during the summer to reduce the moving costs, but I went without income for two months so I had run low on money and was forced to carry a credit card balance for a while. Also my school started in the middle of the month so my first paycheck was a half paycheck so I made minimum payments on my credit cards and tried to reduce costs as much as possible. After a couple of full paychecks I was able to pay off my credit debt and get into a regular routine for expenses. Some people may not get as stressed over money as I do, but being in a financial situation like that did add stress onto an already stressful time, but it was not impossible to fix the situation and the stress was removed after a couple of months and being able to manage money via tracking expenses.