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Want to know how to overcome common graduate school challenges? These are common grad school difficulties and how to overcome them.
Sometimes challenges arise in graduate school. It can be helpful to be aware of some potential challenges and how you might approach them.
These tips are also for those struggling in graduate school so you can figure out how you can most enjoy grad school.
After making note of these strategies, you will be more prepared to take on what grad school might throw your way.
Graduate School Challenges and Strategies
Challenge 1: Having a Hard Time Managing Obligations
In grad school, you may find that you start feeling like your obligations are difficult to manage all at once. This may lead to feelings of overwhelm or negative impacts on your work performance.
Strategy: When these feelings arise, it is important to perform an assessment of your priorities and then time block your calendar to make sure there is time in any given week to work on all noted priorities. This also may involve removing obligations that determine are not priorities.
Challenge 2: Feeling Isolated
Many grad students can start to feel isolated under the weight of so much work and the fact they may be living further away from their support systems.
Strategy: Be intentional about connecting with cohort members or graduate student organizations on campus. This approach will help you form relationships with other graduate students who have similar workloads and responsibilities. It’s also important to prioritize connecting with loved ones outside of school – as these relationships can be very grounding.
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Challenge 3: Research Topic No Longer Feels Like a Fit
You may find that as you delve into your research topic, it no longer feels like a fit, or that other research questions arise that feel more pressing.
Strategy: Forging collaborations with colleagues in your department, and in other departments, can breathe new life into your research topic. It might be that you are able to approach your question from a different angle, or use different methods to answer the question.
This post was all about graduate school challenges and strategies and how to overcome them.
What other challenges have you faced?
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