GradSuccess held its annual professional development event focused on the academic job market in Week 7 of the Fall 2020 term. Given the scheduling challenges of the pandemic and the universal onset of Zoom fatigue, we chose this year to spread out the panels, workshops, clinics, and keynotes over a full week instead of having...

We’ve all had the experience where, excited by the prospect of gaining new information and expanding our minds on a topic of interest, we attended a lecture, a workshop, or a discussion group and immediately found ourselves lost. You probably double-checked the program description and—yep, right there in the description it says “an introduction” or...

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has created an enormous amount of adversity for people all over the globe. Humans, especially when experiencing stress and hardship, do a lot better with the plan, structure, and explicit expectations. But any “normal” pattern has been turned entirely upside down for us graduate teaching assistants, and our students. We have...

Do you want a career in academia? Has the story of doom and gloom in the academic job market gotten you down? Do you just want to know what opportunities are out there? T hen Academic Pathways Week on Nov 16-20 is for you! Academic Pathways Week is organized by GradSuccess as the Fall quarter’s...

The ability to find new research topics is an essential skill that should be obtained before you achieve your doctoral degree. It is, however, universally acknowledged that finding a new topic for your research is not easy. Rarely, professors may ask whether you are interested in some specific topics. If yes, you may be assigned...

Grad school can give you freedom you didn’t have in undergrad: freedom to pick up new skills on your own timeline, freedom to explore your interests more deeply, freedom to design and carry out your own research. Faculty advisors and mentors provide varying degrees of oversight, but in general, it’s up to you to set...

Here at the UCR Library, we include digital humanities under a larger umbrella of digital scholarship: using digital tools or methods for your research, teaching, or other scholarly activities. UCR Library is currently working to scale up support for digital scholarship for students and faculty across all colleges and schools at UCR. We’d like to...

[Image Description: A woman sitting at her kitchen table looking stressed, surrounded by dirty dishes, boxes, and papers.] Pictured: Likely a familiar scene at this point COVID-19 has had many effects on our lives and work. To prevent the spread of the virus, we must wear masks, maintain social distancing, not dine in restaurants, and...

The first day of classes can be daunting for your students and for you. With the move to online instruction, it can be even more challenging to get to know your students and develop rapport with them. Icebreakers can help your students form connections with each other and become more comfortable speaking or asking questions...

Writing a research paper? Not a problem! Book chapter? Done! Writing a blog? I have never done that! [ Image Description: Vanessa Lee smiling at the viewer.] Pictured: The face of grad student career know-how When I was asked to write a blog post to talk about UCR’s Career Center and our services for graduate...

We had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Kate Sweeny, a Professor of Psychology at UCR about her research, insight, and advice on navigating uncertain waiting periods. 1. Where did you get your undergraduate and graduate degrees? I got my Bachelor’s degree from a small college called Furman University, and I got my Master’s and...

We had the opportunity to chat with Daniel Harmon , recent Ph.D. graduate in Developmental Psychology about his time as a student at UCR. Daniel shared his insight, experience, and advice on grad student life. [ Image Description: Daniel Harmon smiling at the viewer.] 1. What did you get your degree in, and what are...

I defended my prospectus at the end of March 2020, just before the pandemic started. The beginning of the pandemic was doubly stressful for me because of this; it felt like I should not only take care of my health and everything else by myself but that I should also write the whole dissertation. To...

We had the opportunity to chat with Lauren Cappiello, recent Ph.D. graduate in Applied Statistics about her time as a student at UCR. Lauren shared her insight, experience, and advice on grad student life. 1. What did you get your degree in, and what are you doing now? I am in Applied Statistics and have...

Having trouble staying productive? Do you have goals but have trouble sticking to them? Here are some ways to stay accountable during these socially distant times! [ Image Description: Mabel, from Gravity Falls, waves her arms up and down, the sleeves of her pink sweater hanging well past her fingers as she bobs her head...

We had the opportunity to chat with Josh Dorsi, recent Ph.D. graduate in Cognitive Psychology about his time as a student at UCR. Josh shared his insight, experience, and advice on grad student life. Read on for insight and advice. 1. What did you get your degree in, and what are you doing now? My...

What do we teach students about life when they are asked to discuss rather than debate a topic? Before I dive into this perhaps philosophical, rather than practical question, it may be appropriate to explain how we are currently emphasizing discussion in the classroom and minimizing debate. I hope that by the end of my...

When UCR librarians shuttered the doors to the Tomás Rivera Library and Orbach Science Library to help contain the spread of Covid-19, my tears flowed freely and stained not a few pages of my overdue New Yorker. Even though this was the right thing to do for now and the foreseeable future, I miss wandering...

Are you interested in exploring open source and digital publishing options? This blog post will discuss the basics of open source, online publishing and digital publishing tools to help you share your research with a wider audience. While I learned about how these tools might be used in a digital humanities context – through the...

[ Image Description: A man confused by a lot of math equations and had a hard time with calculations] Pictured: You, preparing your data analysis Data analysis is the process of cleaning, transforming, and modeling data to then extract information from that data. Nowadays, data analysis is widely used for decision making in many different...