The biggest question I get asked about graduate school, after asking about my research, is whether graduate school lives up to the “all work, no play” mantra many associate with a life in academia.
To answer this question: no, I strive to have a strong balance between my life in the lab and fun beyond the lab. But, as anyone in academia will readily admit, this isn’t easy.
“All work no play” stigma
There’s a stigma associated with graduate school in STEM, and academia more largely, that you have to be willing to sacrifice everything in order to meet your research demands. This stigma isn’t unwarranted; the path to becoming a full tenure professor in STEM is increasingly more difficult and demands more from its many applicants which fuel the notion all else must be sacrificed to thrive in research.
In addition to academia driving academic scientists to work hard, there is the added life logic from the baby boomer era that you live to work and make money. In Millennial and Gen Z times, there is a lot less emphasis on living to work and more on working to live your best lifestyle.
Graduate students now fall in the awkward between of these two worlds: the baby boomer generation who are now the professors and heads of our labs encouraging us to work hard, while we grow up surrounded by peers who believe we should be vocal asking for vacation time and more time to follow our passions.
Ultimately, how we are all told to cope with these conflicting ideologies is to find a work-life balance. Work-life balance is simply a way to balance the commitments of your personal life, professional life, and family life.
Work-life balance can be hard in graduate school. Our measure of success is based on the number of hours and experiments completed in lab along with the number and/or status of our journal publications. We don’t get bonus points for being a well-rounded person who plays soccer and raises two kids.
That all being said, however, work-life balance is possible in any job, including graduate school, as long as you are willing to put in the effort. For each person, it varies how it might look, but below is how I best try to keep a good work-life balance in graduate school.
Finding your work-life balance
1.Pick a university that respects work-life balance
This may seem intuitive, but some universities are better at prioritizing their students’ needs than other universities. When you are applying to graduate school, do you research! Talk to current graduate students in that school, professors, and online to see what kind of environment they cultivate. The location of the university is also important! Like I picked somewhere in a big city that is warm year-round, providing lots of activities when I’m not in the lab. I talk more about how to pick a graduate school here.
2.Choose a lab that respects work-life balance
Again, another “no duh” point but is worth writing out. Most heads of labs respect that you have duties and priorities outside of the lab but this is important to establish early on in your graduate school career. Yes, there will be times you inevitably work longer hours than 9-5 or have to come in on the weekend for an experiment, but strive to make this an exception rather than a rule. Make sure the head of your lab is open to hearing about your mental health, particularly because so many graduate students struggle with burning out and depression.
3.Join a community that is beyond your lab
For me, this took joining a number of different graduate student organizations at my university and making friends through these. For others, you may already have an established community where you are going to graduate school, in which case harness this community and give yourself time with them! If you are religious, finding a local place of worship, or if you take classes befriend some of your classmates.
4.Set boundaries
This, by far, is the hardest part of the work-life balance for me. Setting boundaries extends beyond not spending all your life in the lab, and also to not feeling pressured to always be socializing with your community or to do a million things at once. Be willing to listen to yourself and understand when you need rest, when you need fun, and when you just need to work. Set boundaries with friends and family members. Before graduate school, I would pick up the phone any time of day because I had that freedom. Now I explain I can’t talk during the day because I’m in the lab. These little boundaries may seem like nothing as I say them, but not establishing them they will fester until it feels beyond your control.
5.Focus on one thing at a time
Juggling your personal, professional, and family life can seem overwhelming and that’s why it’s so important to only focus on one thing at a time. Only focus on what you can control and then prioritize based on importance.
6.Decide what your values are and how you can incorporate those into your life
Do you value spending time with friends? Going to the beach? Riding your bike? What makes you excited and is something you look forward to? Whatever it may be, make sure to include it in your weekly or daily schedule. For me, I value being calm and focused. How I incorporate this into my life is by taking some time out every day to write what I am thankful for and meditating. I also value feeling healthy, which is why I incorporate eating balanced meals and going on runs.
I hadn’t heard of impostor syndrome until a couple of months into graduate school. I felt out of my league and completely stupid compared to my colleagues and lab mates. After feeling this way for a while, I finally had the courage to bring it up with one of the older graduate students in my lab and she calmed me down by telling me everyone feels like that at points in academia. It’s called impostor syndrome.
What is Impostor Syndrome?
Impostor syndrome is defined as a state of doubting your own accomplishments to the point you are afraid you will be outed as a “fraud” to your colleagues. It’s scary; it affects all aspects of your life from work to friendships to hobbies. I’ve always been someone who pushes myself but joining graduate school I am introduced to many great like-minded people who also push themselves hard every day. This gets me to thinking about what gives me the right to be here compared to all these other smart, goal-oriented people?
There are 5 types of personalities that especially predisposed to the feelings of impostor syndrome:
Perfectionists
Superman/woman: Pushing yourself to work harder than everyone around you to prove your worth.
Natural Genius: Used to having things come easily, anything that provides a challenge brings shame
Soloists: Works independently best and believes asking for help shows weakness
Expert: measure abilities on how much they know and fear being inexperienced compared to another person.
This is all a spectrum, but as I heard more about the impostor syndrome and read more about it, slowly it all started making sense. I saw the similarities in my personality to many of the above-mentioned types.
You are not alone
It is estimated 70% of people feel the effects of impostor syndrome at some point in their careers. In fact, research suggests that it is the people that don’t feel the effects of impostor syndrome throughout their career who are more likely to be actual “impostors”. Additionally, a lot of it comes down to your family upbringing and personality traits, with some also suggesting being a minority in the workplace affecting how often you feel this way.
Whatever the causes, you are not alone. This was one of the hardest things for me to accept (and I am still working on accepting it) but acceptance is the first step in making impostor syndrome go away, or at least lessen itself. It is great to be a go-getter, a natural genius, or want to work hard, however, we also don’t want to let this get the better of us when things get hard or we meet other people similarly predisposed.
I think that is why so many people feel the effects in graduate school because this is the first time we are truly experiencing a world of people that are all smart and dedicated to the same things we are. And you can’t help but think what makes me different from all these other people that seem to know so much more than me?
Facing the Feelings
Maybe some of this resonated with you as it did with me when I first learned about it all. If so, great! I hope this might help if nothing else to begin to accept it. If not though, don’t think this doesn’t make you an impostor. While there are some byproducts of impostor syndrome that are beneficial such as driving people to work harder, most of the impostor syndrome is negative and leads to high burnout rates if not properly managed.
Below are some of the tips I have learned to handle impostor syndrome. Everyone has their own way so feel free to modify as necessary, but these particularly resonate with me.
Acceptance
We talked about this earlier as well, but this really is the biggest first step to overcoming impostor syndrome. Before you can do anything else, you first have to admit to yourself everything isn’t okay and you feel less smart than everyone else around you.
Talk to your Mentor and Friends
After acceptance, one of the best things to do is just to bring this up with your mentor and friends. Your mentor can help you tackle these feelings and show you that you are not alone. You likely have at least one friend feeling a similar way and by reaching out to your support network not only will the reassure you of your abilities, but you may, in fact, be helping someone else realize their own impostor syndrome feelings.
Reframe your thoughts
Every time you have a feeling doubting your ability to succeed or feeling like you are a fraud, repeat “it’s not me, it’s impostor syndrome talking.” Every time you are trying to work on a draft of a paper, remember that even though that first draft may not be great, it is a work in progress that will improve. Try to take all those negative thoughts telling you that you aren’t good enough and reframe them into a positive outlook. When all of my experiments fail for the week, instead of thinking I am such a bad scientist, I think instead of all the ways I can adapt the experiments to try to work for next week. If you have a hard time with this, this is when it is useful to have a friend in the loop to remind you to reframe your thoughts (in my case it is my labmates who help me through).
Remind yourself of your expertise
Finally, and possibly the most challenging of them all, remember you are actually smart. I am by no means an expert of this one (pun intended), but what has been working for me is when I first start feeling overwhelmed and anxious about not being smart enough, I take a few deep breaths and physically write down in a journal three things you have done well. I have expanded on this by now ending my day writing down at least one accomplishment from the day.
One of the reasons I started this blog and my presence on social media is to remind others that scientists can take so many different shapes and sizes. In turn, the science friends I have made virtually on social media remind me that they go through these same exact impostor feeling problems, even though they look like they all have it sorted just like I must look to people.
All in all, the biggest thing to remember is that if you fail you are not a failure. Your smarts and accomplishments are not supposed to be ranked or compared to others. Find your own self worth and strive to prove to yourself more than others what you are capable of.
For those of us experiencing impostor syndrome, it is alright to be affected by these feelings once in a while. The goal isn’t to completely get rid of impostor syndrome as much as learning to use the moments you feel like an impostor to push you forward while not letting it take over your life. And by using some of these tips, I am on my way to using my impostor syndrome to help me during graduate school, and hopefully later in my career.
So you got through the applications and the excruciating waiting time, and you just received the email to schedule an interview with the graduate school program! Congratulations! We are going to quickly walk through how you can prepare yourself before to ace your graduate school interviews!
Search the school’s offer rate from the applicant pool
Research professors who you would be interested in joining their labs
What to bring with you for the interview
First day nerves and meeting your fellow applicants
The interview
Socializing
Search the School’s Offer Rate
It’s hard to know at this point how likely your chances are of getting accepted; some graduate schools only interview a small pool of students so if you are interviewed you are most likely getting an offer, while other schools will fly out tons of students even if they will only give an offer to 1/3 of those students. Either way, it will calm you down a little bit knowing your chances of getting into that school after the interview, so I always did a bit of research after getting the interview offer to see how likely my chances were of getting in at this point.
Research Professors who you are Interested in Joining their Labs
Most graduate school applications require you to mention at least one professor you are interested in, and I am hoping you researched the professors before applying and reached out to them! If you need help with the application, I wrote an earlier blog about it here.
If not, it’s alright. Perhaps now take this opportunity to reach out to professors, letting them know you have been accepted for an interview and you are interested in their research, perhaps scheduling a potential meeting with them while you are there for the interview.
If you did already research the professors before applying, way to go! Refresh your memory about these professors, especially if you mentioned them in your application. What I would recommend is writing down in a Legal Pad (or whatever writing notebook you are going to take in with you to the interviews) a page for each professor, summarizing their research and the big takeaways from their most recent 2-3 papers (you can find them on PubMed). I did this for 3 professors I was interested in for each interview.
When they send an itinerary, you may be meeting with professors not on your list, but still be prepared! Research each of those professors and even if you aren’t interested in working with them at least get a gist of their research. If you are feeling particularly like a go-getter, include takeaways from those professors’ one or two most recent papers.
Interview Packing List
Most graduate school interviews are Thursday-Saturday, with Friday being the interview day. One lucky thing almost all science graduate programs do is pay to fly their interviewees out and pay for their hotel costs. Because they are paying for your flight, try to only bring a carry-on. I always pack extra but below are what I would always travel with to interviews.
Personal
Makeup/cosmetics
Deodorant/hair products/personal hygiene products
Pajamas (you will likely have a roommate)
Interview Day
suit and dress shirt (suit coat optional, but I like to bring it with me in case I get cold inside or want to impress someone particularly)
spare dress shirt (you never know what might happen!)
legal pad in a padfolio, or some sort of notetaking notebook
2 copies of your C.V. (in case you need to hand one out)
your notes about the professors you are meeting (preferably in your legal pad)
2 pens
a printed version of your personal statement (so you can reference it if a professor is referring to it)
Dress shoes (go with flats if you are a woman just because you will likely be walking around all day)
slacks and a nice shirt (lots of interviews have dinner with the faculty where you want to dress nice but maybe not as formal as the interview)
Downtime
swimsuit and coverup (if the hotel has a pool you might want to go for a swim!)
jackets/outdoor attire
casual outfit (jeans and T-shirt and sneakers)
club outfit (some grad schools take their students out after interviews)
First Day Nerves and Meet Fellow Applicants
Now you have arrived for the interview and start meeting the other applicants. Don’t shy away from socializing because these may be your fellow classmates! This is also a good chance to see whether the people drawn to this school and this program are the right fit for you. Remember you are all in the same boat so don’t treat this like an interview as much as a getting to know you time.
The Interview
The scariest part of this whole graduate school application process is the interview, but you don’t need to be nervous as long as you have prepared in advance! For each professor you are going to be talking to, review your notes on them the night before your interview. Also, come up with some questions you want to ask. Below I have included some questions I asked, but also think of your own!
Generic Questions
How did you choose to become a professor?
How did you get into __ field?
I thought ___ paper was very interesting in finding __, could you explain more about this?
What do you expect from your graduate students?
Questions if you genuinely want to join this lab
What is the lab environment like?
What is the size of your lab? (undergrads, graduate students, post-docs, research techs, etc)
How many years on average do your graduate students spend in your lab?
What type of teaching style do you use with your graduate students?
How often do you have lab meetings?
What grants is your lab funded with? (you can find this out online as well but this is a good opportunity to see how well funded the lab is)
What is your stance on graduates students writing their own grants?
What foundational papers do you have incoming graduate students read?
How often does your lab publish/how many papers do you expect a graduate student to publish during their time in your lab?
Socializing
The graduate school interview weekend will seem incredibly long because you are always trying to be on your best behavior. While you do want to be on your best behavior, don’t shut yourself off from enjoying the all expenses paid trip and getting a feel for the school. Make sure to talk with the current graduate students because they have the best idea of how you are feeling and can help answer most of your questions.
Also be mindful of what you say, even when you think it is just to a few other applicants, and NEVER say the school you are interviewing at isn’t one of your top choices. I’ve heard a few times of interviewees trash talking the school, bragging about getting into their top choice so none of these other interviews matter, or other things to sound like they are in high demand. No matter who you might be talking to, assume it will get back to the admissions. Needless to say, these people saying they don’t want to go to the school during interviews don’t get an acceptance.
You may also be offered to go out with current graduate students after the interview day, or to hang out with fellow applicants, and don’t waste these opportunities to start making connections right away! If you plan to join the school, great because you are making the first introduction for 4 or more years of knowing these people. Even if you don’t join the school, all these people will be your professional colleagues in some capacity who you may see in conferences or even collaborate with, so might as well start networking now.
Last, but not least, RELAX! You have already made it most of the way to getting into graduate school! Now let your personality and C.V. shine, and you will be getting those acceptance letters in no time.
Hi there! So many people are applying to Ph.D.s nowadays to get a leg ahead in their career, join academia, or simply because they don’t want to leave the lab. Whatever category you fall into, applying to a science graduate school is a beast in of itself and it’s hard to make heads or tails of the application process.
I am fresh out of the application process and, after having a number of my own struggles, want to help you get into your dream graduate school lab!
Below I am going to go through the whole application process and what to do and when, but the 4 major parts are here:
How you know you are qualified enough to apply for graduate school
Which schools to apply to
How to get your application to stand out
Submitting the Application and what to do while you wait
How do I know I am qualified enough to apply for graduate school?
Never doubt yourself! That being said, with the increasing number of applications for a Ph.D. in science, schools have become more restrictive in what they look for. Generally you want to have
at least 1 year lab experience (the more independent and longer the better)
good grades
superb Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) (less useful now, will get into below)
excellent recommendation letters
Lab Experience
As an undergraduate, it is difficult to get lab experience right away and typically it is by your junior year when labs are willing to take you on. In my experience, application committees like to see you have worked in at least one lab for over a year and had a significant, independent contribution. This could be an internship, senior thesis, masters program, or lab assistant work.
Now you don’t want to have worked in too many labs, as the committees might see this as someone who is flaky and cannot stick around. But more than one lab experience normally makes the applicant looks like someone who can step outside of their comfort zone.
I would argue this is the most important part of your application because no graduate school lab wants to teach you all the basic skills of how to make a solution or pipette correctly. But application committees use the other criteria (i.e. grades and GRE scores) to narrow down the applicant pool.
Grades
At first glance, this may seem obvious, but keep in mind the committees will look not just at your overall GPA combining your English major with your Science degree. No, they want to see that you excel in all your hard science classes, the Organic Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, etc. Now do I think this is the most fair way to judge who gets into graduate school? Of course not! Most graduate school programs you barely take any classes and your only actual worth is the amount of data you can produce in the lab. BUT it is a way for the Principal Investigators (PIs) to narrow down applications.
If you want to be a competitive applicant for the top 25% of graduate schools, I would say at the minimum you should have a 3.3 GPA, but most graduate schools, especially the more prestigious universities, have cutoffs where no one will even read your application if it falls between a 3.5 or 3.7. Don’t have these grades? Don’t worry, I didn’t either! Your GRE score, recommendation letters, and research experience can also help you stand out from the pack.
However, if you are worried that still may not be enough, consider doing a Masters in Science before your Ph.D.. Normally, a Masters in Science is an easy way to boost that GPA, increase your research experience, and show those application committees you are dedicated to getting a Ph.D.. The biggest worry of application committees, and the Graduate schools as a whole, is that you may give up after only just starting your Ph.D.. They are weeding out the people who they think can cut it; after all they are giving you a stipend and for at least your first year you will be doing more learning from them than producing data for them.
GRE Scores
The Graduate Record Examination, or GRE for short, is a glorified version of the high school ACT or SAT. It tests you on your basic English, Science, and Math.
Is it a comprehensive assessment of how smart you are and your worth? NO!
Do Graduate school application committees judge your whole life based off the GRE score? They USED to.
More and more schools are switching to GRE optional or not accepting the GRE at all. The logic follows similarly to people against taking the ACT or SAT standardized testing scores: the test tests you on your ability to take multiple choice tests and nothing else and disproportionately favors those in higher socioeconomic backgrounds that can afford to take the test multiple times or hire a tutor.
I did take the GRE because some of the schools I wanted to apply to still required it, but check your schools before studying for the GRE because you very well may not need to take it at all!
If you do plan on taking the GRE (which you can take multiple times), only send your results if you meet at least the 75% percentile for all the subjects. Even then, think hard about whether your score shows you as a better or weaker candidate. For example, if you have a 3.9 GPA but get only 75% percentile overall and your top choices don’t require a GRE, I wouldn’t send it. But if you have only a 3.3 GPA but get 95% percentile overall, I would consider sharing the results.
Finally, if you are committed to taking the GRE, the best resource I used was magoosh.com! This was an amazing way to learn a lot of vocabulary on the test, freshen up my math, get practice exams included, and a free 7 day trial! They even have a mobile app which was great to use in my downtime in lab for flashcards.
Recommendation Letters
This was the most nerve-wracking part for me because recommendation letters can make or break everything else you have to offer. Great grades, GRE score, and lab experience but a “meh” letter of recommendation letter you may as well waive good bye to that application.
All that aside, most recommenders do want to write you a good letter of rec, but equally you have to do your part in making sure you pick people who will speak highly of you. Typically you are asked to send 2-3 recommendation letters. Of these, you want at least 2 if not all of them to be from the heads of the labs you have done research in. If you have only done research in one lab or only trust one Principal Investigator (PI) to write you a stellar letter of recommendation, don’t fret. Application committees also like to see recommendation letters from a professor you took a class with, as long as it is personal and shows you added special value to that class.
When asking recommenders, try to schedule a time to meet them in person when possible and give them at least 2 if not 3 months advanced notice for when you need the recommendation letter in by. If they accept, offer them your Curriculum Vitae (CV) and essays that you will be sending for your you graduate school application. Feel free to follow up with them when the deadline approaches and don’t forget to send them a follow up thank you afterwards.
Which schools should I apply to?
You are ready to begin, but the list of graduate schools is never ending. The biggest bit of advice was something I got from a senior graduate student in my undergraduate lab: don’t be afraid to narrow down before applying rather than deciding you don’t want to go to any of the schools after you have been accepted. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration when looking at schools; the most important in my mind are:
labs that interest you
location
funding
career opportunities
I am not going to break each one down because each intuitively makes sense, but basically don’t spend the money and the time applying to a school if you don’t see yourself happy there. Some may argue with me and say going to any school, even if it is in a place you hate in a lab you despise with no career opportunities except academia and you have to write all your own grants in order to get funding, at least you are getting your Ph.D.. But see graduate school is already stressful in itself, and we already have among the highest rate or burnout and depression among all jobs, so we don’t need to be putting ourselves in an even more stressful situation. Look after your own mental health in advance and don’t bother applying to places you wouldn’t consider being in for the next 5-X number of years.
As you are narrowing down your options, I would recommend making an excel sheet of what each school requires, the pros for you and the cons, whether they want the GRE, and any specific requirements for the personal statement for the school.
How do I get my application to stand out?
To get your application to stand out from the rest (beyond the above mentioned grades, lab experiences, GRE scores, and recommendation letters) focus on writing a great Personal Statement, include any science outreach on your CV/Resume, apply for fellowships to secure your own funding, and never underestimate the importance of networking.
Curriculum Vitae/Resume
There are tons of different ways to write a Curriculum Vitae (CV) and there is no right way. You can see my CV here, but I also recommend looking around on the web for other examples of a science CV and go to your college’s career center (if they have one).
Basically, most CVs for applying to graduate school are a maximum of 2 pages (1 page front and back). Don’t get rid of all the white space on the page but also don’t leave huge holes of white space. Most professionals that give advice on CVs also suggest to keep it rather simple; don’t add lots of color, your photo, more than two types of font (regular, bold, italics, underlined). This all being said, it is a personal reflection of you! Generally, I see CVs start with their education, then research experience followed by other work experience and community outreach/volunteer work. Most committees may not look past the research experience, so make sure this stands out! Use power verbs to make your experience stand out.
Personal Statement
This is the one part of the graduate school application you must personalize for each graduate school you are applying to. Often these essays are 1-2 pages addressing “What are your research goals and why would this program be the right fit for you?” I like to format it like so:
catchy introduction paragraph about your introduction to science
1-2 paragraphs highlighting each of your research experiences in detail and how you know what you are doing in research.
the personalized part: why you are interested in this graduate school program, and consider mentioning one lab you are interested in.
thank you
The essay is the most time consuming part of the application, so consider starting it early. I started my generic template essay the summer before applying, asking for many revisions from anyone who was willing to help (graduate students in my lab, PI, career center, old class professors you kept in touch with). Look at the essay application requirements for the schools you want to apply to, and build your application around answering those requirements.
This is also the chance to explain any part of your application you think may be weak. Low GPA or GRE? Write about what affected this and how you learned and grew as a result.
Applying for Fellowships
Apply for fellowships early on. Some fellowships, like the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP), you can apply as an undergraduate, and comes with your own stipend funding and prestige if you win. This is a great draw for graduate programs because they don’t have to worry about funding for you.
Networking
I know many of us joined science in part because we thought we would never have to network; science is for the antisocial and as such networking doesn’t apply. Sadly, as much as I wish this were true, this is not the case. If your advisor or professor knows someone at another university, don’t be afraid to use this. I know quite a few friends who may not have even had a first glance from an application committee, but were picked out of a stack because their current PI told a PI at the university to take a look at their application.
Do I do anything after I apply but before I hear back?
The waiting game is excruciating, especially because a lot for graduate schools do a tiered system where they release interview times for their top tier before letting others know. Worse still, many graduate schools may simply never respond to you.
Immediately after applying, I emailed a couple of professors I was genuinely interested in joining their labs. I read some of their papers, and reached out stating my interest, that I applied to their graduate school, and asking whether they would be willing to talk about their research and any open projects. I also sent my CV along with the email. Many professors may never respond, but the handful that do know that you are very interested. This is actually how I got into my lab now, the professor I was interested in working with vouched for me so I could join the program!
If you aren’t hearing back from your top graduate schools and are hearing other people are, don’t feel bad about reaching out to their admissions office to ask about the status of your application. This is how I found out in a few cases I had been rejected or others that I was just about to get an interview offer.
Other Useful Sites
Wait! Before you go, remember you aren’t alone in the struggle applying to grad school. Below are some of my favorite sites that I used when I was applying.
Disclaimer: This is just my point of view while I was applying and is by no means meant to be a holistic view of the application process. Please check out some of the other sites I listed, and feel free to contact me if you feel like something should be changed or added!
