4 Ways to Conquer Graduate School Before Actually Attending

By Julia Dunn on June 28, 2017

If you’ve gotten into graduate school, you should feel extremely proud. It’s a grueling and competitive application process that only increases in selectivity year after year. It’s important to start preparing as early as possible (just as you hopefully did during the application process), so the summertime before your first term of graduate school is a great time to get started with planning for your new program.

Here are four ways to get ready for grad school over the summer.

1. Create helpful organizational documents

Make a table on Google Docs or Microsoft Word that can act as a record of your assignments due in a given week. The number of columns you make in the table should be five or seven (labeled for each weekday, or including weekends if you have weekend classes or deadlines). The number of rows should equal the number of classes you’ll be taking. Then, using the “fill” button that looks like a paint bucket, fill in the cells for the days you don’t have class.

For instance, if you have a phonetics class on Tuesday and Thursday, go to that row of your table and use the paint bucket button to fill the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday cells (with black ink or another color of your choosing). Do this for all of your classes, and you’ll end up with a grid where the only empty cells are the days you have a certain class.

Image via Julia Dunn

Throughout the semester or quarter (ideally each week), fill the cells with the assignments and readings that are due on their respective dates. This grid is a fantastic tool for students looking to keep all their homework details in one spot that will be accessible on both a phone and a laptop. It will help you prioritize assignments too, as you will see the most pressing assignments towards the left of the grid in the earlier half of the week.

This is a pretty quick document to create over the summer, and any grad student can make one to best suit their needs. Underneath your rows of classes, you can even create a row simply labeled “life,” where you’d type bullet points of miscellaneous tasks and obligations (like paperwork for financial aid, notes regarding your work hours, and other matters you need to remember).

2. Start reading

Oftentimes, professors and graduate departments release a summer reading list (or syllabi for fall classes) prior to the start of the term. If you’ve got time over the summer, do your best to start on it early. Even if you don’t actually start reading the books yet, read their covers and do any necessary research to get familiar with their contexts.

This is one element of critical reading that you should master before graduate school; hopefully, your undergraduate degree prepared you well for critical reading and analysis, because those skills are crucial. If you get a head start on your reading, you’ll have a slightly more manageable first term and probably get a stronger handle on curriculum material.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

3. Make a money plan

Graduate school can get expensive — and don’t forget, textbook costs will be a thing yet again (after graduating with my B.A., I somehow forgot that I’d have to pay for even more books in my upcoming M.F.A. program). It’s best to start making a money plan or budget in summer, where you spell out all of the expenses you’ll have upon starting your program.

This money plan can take form in a spreadsheet or a simple word processing document, and when it comes time to implement it, you can even create private events in your online calendar to help you keep track of when rent and utilities must be paid, when tuition is due, and so on.

In your money plan, articulate your monthly expenses and consider any financial aid you might have. Getting your budget straight over the summertime will be a great help to you when fall comes around.

4. Gather necessary supplies and furniture

In your money plan, you might have included the costs of moving (if you’re moving to a new town for graduate school). Factor in expenses such as furniture and security deposits, as well as amenities you may have to start paying for individually, like internet. If you don’t already have a good desk, you’ll probably need one for graduate school. If you don’t already have a highly-functioning laptop, you’ll definitely need one for graduate school — and this should be added to your money plan as well.

Some universities have departments that focus on student success, so if purchasing a laptop is a financial stress, you may be able to receive assistance from your graduate school.

The more preparation you do over the summer for grad school, the more successful you’ll be at managing your time, resources, and energy!

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