This resource book consists of ten chapters written by sixteen graduate
student authors and two academic professional staff members. Each
chapter is accompanied by a short video that dramatizes the theme along
with probing discussion questions. The chapter topics include seeking
funding, the challenges of the first year of graduate school, finding a
thesis advisor, working with thesis committee members, balancing family
and graduate student life, and life after graduate school. Where these
subjects have been treated in an academic style many times, this book
conveys its message through personal narratives of the challenging
circumstances its graduate student authors encountered and solved. It
does not give its readers long lists of statistics about graduation
rates or most advantageous actions for best outcomes. What it does
instead is provide readers with a vivid sense of the types of life
experiences one can expect to encounter when undertaking a graduate
degree and the opportunity to discuss these real-life issues with
others. The book was started and developed as a project under the
Midwest Crossroads Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate
(AGEP) and completed as part of the professional development activities
under the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) AGEP.
