Given that many MA and PhD students will be either starting or returning to graduate school in the next month or so, I thought it might be good to have an open thread—much like our more general “how can we help you?” series—where grad students specifically can pose questions to the community.
When I started this blog all the way back in 2012, one of my primary aims was to create a place where graduate students in particular could find support—as in my experience, one’s years in graduate school can range from exciting and wonderful to extremely tenuous, stressful, and dispiriting. Indeed, like more than a few grad students I knew, I went through significant periods in grad school when I felt utterly lost, unsure of myself, and not altogether comfortable with opening up to other grad students or grad faculty about my struggles—and the data on the mental health crisis in graduate school indicates just how common these kinds of experiences (and worse) can be.
In any case, to all of the new and returning grad students out there: please feel free to share any questions or struggles you are facing in the comments section below (anonymously, of course, if you prefer). Do you have questions about course work? Could you use tips on finding a dissertation topic? Are you struggling with an unsupportive graduate advisor or a difficult department climate? Or, are you just about to begin your grad program and looking for general tips on how to start off well, do well, and flourish? Fire away!
As in our “how can we help you?” series, I will plan to run new threads to discuss each individual query as a community. Finally, a couple of important quick notes: (1) when posting comments/queries, please bear in mind the blog’s safe and supportive mission. This blog is not the place to make allegations or insinuations about particular individuals or institutions. If you are struggling with a difficult situation, please share only in very general terms in a way that cannot be used to infer the identities of individuals or institutions. We are here to help, but this aspect of the blog’s mission is vital to preserve; (2) readers may feel free to submit follow up comments in the thread below (responding to a reader’s posted query); however, to keep things organized in the thread below, I will not approve follow up comments but instead may post them in new threads introducing the topic for broader discussion.
Anyway, bearing these notes in mind, if you are a grad student with questions or looking for support or advice, please do ask away in the comments section below. We’re here to help!
I've written a paper for a conference that's due in the next few days. But then someone posts a forthcoming paper to PhilPapers on the exact same topic making the exact same points as my paper. And it is far better than my paper. What do I do? Not enough time to change my paper substantially. Do I submit my paper anyway? Or just scrap it? I'm a PhD student and have not attended a conference before.
Posted by: t | 07/30/2021 at 03:38 PM
I’m about to start a PhD in philosophy in the UK in October and wanted to know what exactly this entails other than writing my thesis. I’ve tried seeking answers to my question on other forums but most people who have replied have been in the sciences so often talk about lab work which I definitely won’t be getting involved. I know philosophy is really just a lot of thinking and writing (and rewriting...and more rewriting), but when I explain that to outsiders of philosophy it seems strange to say that I will spend 3 years (and a lot of money) to *just* write 80,000 words.
Posted by: Lauren Tate | 07/31/2021 at 06:56 AM