How to Prepare for Grad School Before your First Semester
Congratulations on being accepted to grad school! If you are reading this post, that means that you are likely starting your grad program soon.
And maybe you are a little nervous about it.
Or a little anxious about it because your new department hasn’t sent you any updates or prep materials in a while.
Or maybe, you’ve already done a lot of research on grad school and how to succeed in grad school.
But it’s likely that all of the information that you’ve found isn’t applicable until AFTER you’ve started your program.
What if I told you that you can actually start preparing yourself for grad school success RIGHT NOW?
I’m Dr. Toyin Alli, the founder of The Academic Society. I got my PhD in Mathematics and landed my dream job as a lecturer at a university. And I started The Academic Society to support grad students in the areas that they weren’t being supported in graduate school.
Areas like time management, productivity, and accountability.
I’ve worked with hundreds of grad students and they all say that they wish they had found me before they started grad school.
And look at YOU! You found The Academic Society before you started grad school!
Now you can set yourself up in a way that will position you as a leader in your new program!
I’ve identified four areas that you can work on right now, before you start grad school, to make the transition one hundred times easier.
It’s called The Gradboss Method. And there are 4 steps to prepare you for your first semester of graduate school.
You may want to save this post so that you can review the steps as many times as you need before you start grad school and throughout your first semester.
The Gradboss Method
Before we get into the method, let’s discuss what and who a gradboss is. It’s a term that I coined to refer to the amazing grad students in my community.
A gradboss is a grad student who has figured out how to balance grad school and real life. They are productive but they also have a social life. In addition to killing it academically, they've built a supportive community around them AND they help others. Can you imagine being completely successful in grad school without being overwhelmed?
The Gradboss Method helps you prepare for grad school before your first semester starts!
It’s my signature method to help grad students prepare for their first semester of grad school so that they don’t have to feel anxious about the fear of the unknown of grad school and academia.
Step 1: Uncover Grad School Secrets
It’s so important to learn about the culture of grad school before you start your program. You’ll need to learn about your professors’ titles, the expectations of a grad student in your specific program, if collaboration is expected or frowned upon, how to send an email, and when you should start assignments.
Grad school can be a major culture shift from what you experienced in undergrad and it’s important to be aware of those differences.
Step 2: Transform your Mindset
You will have to change about the way that you think when you start grad school. For example, the way you will approach your assignments in grad school will be different than how you approached assignments in undergrad.
And let’s not forget about imposter syndrome! Did you know that there are techniques that you can work on now to overcome negative thoughts in grad school?
You may have feelings of isolation, you may feel like a failure, and you may feel like you don’t measure up to your fellow grad students.
You can learn tools and techniques to reverse those thoughts before you start your program so that they don’t paralyze you in the middle of the semester.
Step 3: Uplevel your Productivity
The level of productivity that you had in undergrad will not be sufficient in grad school. You’ll have to learn to create a schedule that gives you room for flexibility; but also, provides structure to help you stay focused.
A big mistake that I notice grad students making in their first semester is that they only plan to be productive once an assignment is due.
Instead, what is required is for you to train yourself to be productive and engage with the course material before you are given an assignment. This will help to reduce procrastination and burnout.
You’ll also find that you need accountability outside of yourself to get your work done in grad school. And setting up a productivity and accountability plan are things that you can do right now, before your program begins.
Step 4: Master Time Management
THIS IS THE MOST ESSENTIAL SKILL FOR GRAD SCHOOL SUCCESS!
You want to be able to get your work done but you also need to have time for yourself if you don’t want to burn out. Burn out and procrastination typically go hand-in-hand in grad school. And it’s a vicious cycle.
Here’s an example of what can happen after your first month of grad school: You get an assignment. But the excitement of grad school has worn off. And you’re tired. So you lose a bit of your initial motivation. So you procrastinate on completing your assignment. This means that you have to get it all done in the last minute, forcing you to work for many hours at a time.
And after that assignment is due, you burn out. Then, when you get your next assignment, the memory of the previous burnout is fresh on your mind. And you don’t want that to happen again. So you procrastinate on starting your assignment. Which means you wait until the last minute to get started. And of course, you burn out again.
A vicious cycle.
Instead, I recommend building a productive weekly schedule that includes me time. So that you can have more balance in your life. And so that you avoid procrastination and burnout.
So what can you do now to help you with time management?
I recommend starting with your non-negotiables. What are you going to do for me time? You can start figuring out your priorities and educate yourself on time management skills before grad school starts.
Your next steps!
If you made it to the end of this blog post, you are likely starting grad school soon and you need to go through The Gradboss Method.
And that’s exactly what my Grad School Prep course does! It teaches you:
The culture, lingo, and expectations of grad school
How to transform your mindset from an undergraduate mindset into a grad school mindset by guiding you through techniques to overcome imposter syndrome
How to uplevel your productivity with my signature Productivity Accelerator Method for grad students
How to master time management so that you don’t get trapped in the burnout + procrastination cycle
If that sounds amazing, then you need Grad School Prep. You’ll learn more about it in my FREE masterclass for new grad students. In that masterclass, I walk you through The Gradboss Method, share grad school secrets that most grad students don’t learn about until after they’ve started, plus how to avoid the 3 big mistakes that new grad students make in their first semester.
You can get access to the FREE masterclass for new grad students at theacademicsociety.com/free
If you found this blog post helpful, share it with any friends who are starting grad school soon! Do you have any questions about starting grad school?