“There’s a serious mismatch between the advice about grad school that’s currently available and our present reality. Grad students today are on average 33 years old, so why aren’t we talking about managing marriage and a thesis, saving for retirement, or the fact that nearly 57% of students are also employed outside of school? Not only that, but of the 50,000 students who complete PhDs each year, a shrinking number collect coveted tenure-track positions, even though everyone’s still being trained as if they’re all professors-to-be. Although more than half of these students are women, there’s no book out there explaining how to balance breastfeeding with benchwork, or childcare with conference travel. This book is one part pep-talk and ten parts pragmatic, down-to-earth advice on making graduate school work for you. Kory-Westlund explains how to persevere through the graduate school long haul-research projects, teaching assistantships, paper writing, presentations, failures, funding, and more. Since there are other how-to grad school books that share some secrets of academic research, writing, and study skills-this book talks life. Your life. Life-school balance. Family life. How to say no to overwork, and how to find the people and resources that can help you succeed. Life after school. Life before school. Why are you even in school? Kory-Westlund talks about preparing for alternative careers, points readers to resources in case they do decide to seek a room in the ivory tower, and shares why and how to connect with other grad students, researchers, and post-academic/alternative career experts. This book is not just about the challenges faced on campus, but also about deliberately choosing which challenges will get readers where they want to go. This book is designed to help readers make the most of both their professional and personal lives, so they can do research and keep their sense of meaning and self intact in the process”–
