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What I Learned Teaching My First Course as an Associate Instructor!

For context, I’ve been a TA every quarter since Summer 2020 and have served as a teaching assistant for various courses, from introductory-level psychology to more advanced upper-division seminars. Sometimes, I had as few as five students; other times, I had as many as 30 in a single session. Though there are many skills afforded...
By Shannon Brady | | Professionalization, Advice

Why Mentoring Matters - Open Mentoring Opportunities in GSMP

Mentorship in graduate school matters because national attrition rates are as high as 50%. At UCR, they hover around 30%. A study conducted in 2018 found that of the students who participated in the Graduate Student Mentorship Program (GSMP), fewer than 10% of mentees had dropped out of graduate school. What is the moral of...
By Monique Posadas | | Professionalization

Looking Forward to Career Pathways Week

Are you considering teaching at a Community College (CC) or California State University (CSU)? Then you are in luck — this quarter is Career Pathways Week: Teaching! Come learn about what it is like to transition and teach at CC or CSU. You will also have the opportunity to learn what skills and knowledge can...
By Nathaly Martinez | | Professionalization

Why I Took UTC: A Call to Better Teaching

Have you ever wished you had more exciting teaching practices that invited students to learn more deeply in your classroom? Me too! Before taking the University Teaching Certificate (UTC) Program, my teaching had hit a rut where I was doing the same activities over and over again. I felt stuck in a loop. This was...
By J Selke | | Professionalization

ORCID iD For Graduate Students

Have you ever wondered what the green bubble with the white text “ID” next to an author’s name means when reading a research article? It refers to ORCiD! ORCiD is a free and helpful resource for researchers of all backgrounds to link their work in one place. This is possible due to its global reach...
By Camila Alvarez | | Professionalization

Spring GradQuant Workshops

As the Spring quarter begins, GradQuant offers an exciting lineup of programs. For UCR graduate students and postdocs, GradQuant is a valuable resource for data analysis. If you're unfamiliar with GradQuant, here's a brief introduction to our staff and programming. GradQuant Consultants At the core of GradQuant programming is our team of consultants. GradQuant consultants...
By Da Gong | | Professionalization

Upcoming Spring 2024 GWC Workshops

Hello Highlanders! We hope all of you have been having a great year thus far. The 2023-2024 academic school year has been flying by! Many of you have been working diligently this school year and knocking out assignment after assignment. Or maybe, though you managed to turn in that paper, you felt like that writing...
By Christopher Valencia | | Professionalization

Peaceful and Relaxing Places to Read or Study Around Campus

As the sun begins to stay out longer, you may feel the itch of being outside to enjoy the nice weather and ditch your seclusion inside! UCR offers many indoor places to study, but what about outside? And how do I avoid high-traffic areas if I am trying to stay focused? Well, we have some...
By Matthew Kersting | | Wellness, Advice

My Top 5 Albums of All Time

I venture to believe that most people listen to music because it’s enjoyable. I also venture to believe that a substantial number, if not the majority, of graduate students and postdocs here at UCR listen to their favorite music sometime during the week, if not every day. Here at GradSuccess, music is a significant part...
By Jason Chou |

Polishing Your Paper

Many of us have our own writing methods. Some of us lock ourselves in our rooms for several hours and crank out our first draft. Others write for one hour, stop, rest for another hour, and repeat this process until the first draft appears. But, regardless of your process, getting the initial draft out is...
By Christopher Valencia | | Professionalization, Advice

What I Learned at Beyond Academia Week

Are you graduating within the next year? Are you interested in pursuing a career outside of traditional academia? Do you ever wonder what kinds of opportunities there are outside of the confines of the campus? Do you want to understand more clearly what “transferable skills” you have attained by earning your degree? This month, the...
By Nathaly Martinez | | Professionalization

Maintaining Physical Wellness as a Grad Student

The journey towards and achievement of a graduate degree is a significant life milestone, but it should never come at the expense of your health. As graduate students, we typically have sedentary lifestyles, hunched over a desk or lab bench like with many professions nowadays. We might also take shortcuts in our diet and nutrition...
By Gary Qin | | Wellness, Advice

Meet the 2024 Grad Slam Semi-Finalists

UCR Graduate Division is proud to announce the semi-finalists for this year’s UCR Grad Slam competition. Grad Slam is a UC-wide public speaking competition in which graduate students talk about their research or creative project to a general audience in three minutes. The winner of the UCR Grad Slam will receive up to $5,000 and...
By Gary Qin |

UCR Career Center's Self-Service Photo Booth

As the Special Topics Peer Mentor specializing in academic and professional development for the Graduate Student Mentorship Program (GSMP), I want to share a resource to help graduate students prepare for their future careers. The UCR Career has a self-serve photo booth available to all students! Here, I want to go over the process and...
By Camila Alvarez | | Professionalization

A Few Tips on Giving Presentations

During my first quarter here at UCR, along with several other students, I was asked by one of my professors to give a class presentation on a set of readings for one of the designated weeks of the course. The presentation was on a theoretical textbook, around 250-300 pages, and my presentation had to be...
By Christopher Valencia | | Advice, Professionalization

Looking Forward to Career Pathways Week

We won’t sugarcoat it: the academic job market can be rough! In recent years, however, the relative scarcity of academic jobs has opened up many other, equally edifying job prospects for us PhDs. This quarter’s Career Pathways Week will be themed “Beyond Academia,” and will explore the many burgeoning “alt-ac” career opportunities available to us...
By Victoria Romano | | Advice, Professionalization

Words of Advice from my English Teachers

When I look back on all my English teachers, I notice a few who taught me some valuable things related to writing (and sometimes maybe about life). Most of my English teachers were always interesting characters. During my high school years, I recall one of them – a short woman with a strong character –...
By Christopher Valencia | | Advice
Picture of Allyn Nguyen holding a snake

Introducing One of the New TADP Consultants

Hi hi! My name is Allyn, pronounced UH-leen, Nguyen. I am a 4th year PhD student in the Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Ecology Department, or EEOB for short. My specific field of research is in comparative muscle physiology. I am very into the fitness/active lifestyle and love the outdoors. I was born and raised in...
By Allyn Nguyen |

Introducing One of the New TADP Consultants

Hi everyone! My name is Shannon Brady, and I’m a 5th-year PhD candidate in the Psychology department. I grew up outside Washington, DC, but I have been in Southern California for over ten years. I came out to Los Angeles for college and decided I would never leave (if I could help it)! I always...
By Shannon Brady |

What Can Re-Orientation Do For Me?

Incoming graduate student orientation has been described as a “firehose.” There is so much information coming at you at once that, at some point, you are saturated and can’t take in anything more. And much of the information is (hopefully) super important at some point, but it just doesn’t stick. [ Alt Description : Two...
By Dawn Loyola, EdD |