Surviving Graduate School

Hi everybody, it’s me, Dr. Nic!

I created this course to share with you some graduate school advice. As a former survivor of the Ivory Tower, I decided to give a short interview to AllSumJobs a few years ago to help would-be grad students with the whole process of applying to graduate school, getting through it, and finishing up with a solid dissertation. The advice isn’t much (I mean, this was for YouTube originally!), but subscribers of this course are more than welcome to reach out to me for advice about graduate school.

So why ask me about graduate school? Let me start by saying— very few people actually know that a research degree pays you to attend. We all hear about spending $100,000 on a masters degree (or more) and as it turns out, this is only partially true. Truly unique individuals chosen for a Ph.D. can actually earn money, about $30,000 a year plus free or subsidized housing, for their tenure in a graduate school. And yet, many people like myself didn’t even know what graduate school was, let alone that it could be a viable (albeit, temporary) employment option. Why this is secret to most of society is tragic!

So what’s in my lessons?

I’ll be covering…

1. Getting into graduate school. The first, and most obvious question– how do you get into graduate school? Well, suffice to say, it’s a bit more than what you may have had to do to get into undergraduate programs. It’s much more like a job application!
2. Surviving graduate school. It can be intimidating at first, but I came up with some tips to help you get through it. The first two years can be heavy on courses, but even after that it can be a bit of a drain to get papers and conference experience!
3. Defending the dissertation. Dissertations are the 200+ pager you need to end your graduate program with. It’s defended in front of a committee of usually 3 to 5 professors, including your advisor. This can be intense, but there are some good ways to approach it that I’ll share here.

So, are you pumped to learn more about graduate school? I hope so. I can’t promise this’ll be the funniest course I’ll make for AllSumJobs, but as I said from the outset, feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

If you are considering applying to graduate school, you should definitely check out this course for more guides.

About Me

Dr. Nicholas Graham

I’ve got a Ph.D. in Education, I currently teach psychology courses at a small private college called Mount Saint Mary’s University, and I strive to make education more accessible to less privileged students— especially in a post pandemic online world. My passion is to make things fun and do things differently, not adhering to the status quo.

Also, you might not notice but I’m also a frequent contributor to AllSumJobs, since I’m not just a client, but also part owner! That’s a big reason why I’m allowed to write my own bio in first person and no one can stop me! Please enjoy, bwahahaha 😀