What advice would you pass on to someone just about to start grad school?

Make sure that your values dictate how you spend your time. I know that when I started grad school, I wanted to please my professors and eventually I said ';yes'; to so many responsibilities that I got overwhelmed. This is a disservice to them and yourself because you won't be able to do your work well if you don't have as much time to spend on any one thing. So, my advice is, choose carefully about what projects and what activities you want to spend your time on. This means: don't take too many classes in one term, don't take on too much teaching/TA/RA responsibility.





I would include that you shouldn't put your life on hold for graduate school. When I started grad school my attitude was ';I'll just sacrifice these two years of my life and focus only on school and then pick things up when I finish.'; I've found that I'm much happier when I continue non-school activities that are important to me while I continue to pursue my graduate studies. If you look to your professors for advice on this, they might share the attitude that ';everyone just gives up their life and happiness for a while to be a graduate student; that's the way it should be';. But I don't agree.





Ultimately, pushing yourself too hard and giving up things that you love can lead to poor health and feeling miserable. Keeping school in its proper place and perspective is really helping me. For example, I've decided that, for the rest of my grad school career, I will only teach one class per term, even though they want me to teach three classes a year. I think it'll help me to make sure that I have time to focus on other things in addition to school.What advice would you pass on to someone just about to start grad school?
Work hard and sleep well is my advice to youWhat advice would you pass on to someone just about to start grad school?
study from day one, don't leave things to pile up