Dating, Romance, and Grad School

By David Gretz

This was the topic of probably the most interesting conversation I had with an interviewee when our program hosted its interview several weeks back. I’m used to being asked about the program, my feelings on professors, and on finances. However, this was new; during our unofficial outing after the interview, I was asked by an interviewee about dating in a PhD program.

It is certainly not a new topic among cohorts; this has been a subject broached with fellow students before, both inside and outside of the department. Our professors were quite thorough in repeatedly informing us our first year that something like 50% of romantic relationships do not last through grad school. This apparently holds true even though we’re learning a profession that relies on building and repairing relationships just to do our job.

Something that stuck out to me initially was the lack of new relationships. Those of us who came in single tended to stay single, or to get back together with people we used to know. I found this depressingly humorous, as it struck me as a direct consequence of how few opportunities we have to leave our building and actually meet people outside of professional settings. This was a reality that the interviewee and I talked about; meeting new people in a PhD program is challenging. It’s probably not going to happen by accident. Going out and meeting new people takes time, and even if you meet someone, the relationship itself requires even more time. This is time that could be spent making progress on that latest paper, on your dissertation, or on getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep per night.

However, things have seemed to change during our second year; people have formed new relationships with others they have met since joining the program. I’ve been impressed and surprised by the effort some of my colleagues have put into this. I had thought it was something most would gripe about but simply view as unavoidable, but it would appear I was wrong. A few classmates are even getting engaged and married, although I do not envy them carving out the time for such arrangements before graduation.

Honestly, I think that pursuing a relationship in a graduate program takes a lot of determination. My classmates who do this seem to spend the majority of their free time with their partners. I don’t often see my married colleagues outside of class. Just entering the program can end relationships; not everyone wants to move around the country as their partner gets more degrees. Internship can present similar challenges, particularly since you don’t know where you’ll end up until six months beforehand.

I don’t have a conclusion to this, or a take-away. I’ve shared my experiences and I hope they’re helpful, particularly to those of you looking to attend grad school. I can say that I haven’t seen anywhere close to 50% of relationships fail, but technically my cohort isn’t even halfway through yet. Feel free to share your experiences as well; an n of 1 can always use more observations.

A Research Survival Guide

 

By Chesleigh N. Keene

This is a small compilation of things I wish I’d known about research as it relates to advancing in the field and some new realizations as I find myself mentoring master’s and doc students.

• It all counts. That research section on your CV only grows if you do something, anything research-related. Monitoring pigeon mating behavior in college launched my research experience. Pigeons and their mating habits don’t have a whole lot to do with my intellectual curiosity and investment in understanding how Native Americans are best served by psychotherapy, but those hours watching pigeons ignore or respond to mating bids secured a later job in a neurotrauma laboratory, which I feel secured multiple offers to PhD programs.
• Identify a burning question. If you want to get a PhD, you really should have a burning question and you’re going to be asked to convince people of it repeatedly. Programs want to be convinced that you are internally motivated and driven to read, think, write, and read a whole lot more on a specific topic and that you will be committed to it for quite a while.
• Join a lab that is exploring topics you find interesting. You’re going to work better and be more productive if you’re interested. I coded dozens of videos of mother-infant interactions and it was a slog. I wasn’t interested in studying infant emotions and dreaded sitting in a semi-dark, dusty room watching VHS tapes of babies reacting to their mothers. It sounds cute and adorable, right? Well, it was, for a while, but I wasn’t just watching tapes of babies, I was intensely watching an infant’s face for any expressed emotion… It was a valuable experience, but I would have been such a better research assistant if I’d been interested and I would have learned a lot more if I’d been interested.
• Attend conferences. Find posters or sessions that focus on your topic of interest. I kid you not, your brain is going to take in that information and give you all sorts of ideas. Ideas are brain gold!
• Publications are pure gold. Contribute to a manuscript or book chapter, if you can.
• Write those ideas down somewhere. Generating ideas is fun and you’re going to wish you’d written some of them down… Especially around the time you need to come up with a thesis or dissertation!
• Find a lab partner or mentor who can help you finish projects. I am amazing at thinking up projects. I’m decent at starting projects. I’m lousy at finalizing projects. This might be due to taking on too many or resisting endings/goodbyes, who knows? Luckily, I have a research advisor who is awesome at helping me organize and motivate myself to complete my projects.
• Submit that research to conferences! Seriously! Presenting your research can be highly rewarding and it helps the ego to hear positive feedback and genuine interest in something you did! Something you concocted with that big old brain of yours!
• Read PhD Comics. It’s so funny because it’s true. http://phdcomics.com/comics.php
• Find someone who loves research and is awesome at research. My boss in the aforementioned neurotrauma lab is so incredibly committed to research as a means of knowledge dissemination that I always left our lab meetings so dang excited to be investigating and discovering He got so excited about results that you couldn’t help but want to make more! He could also churn out a research proposal and manuscript like nobody’s business. Find and work with someone who makes research exciting.
• Read those clinical books. Most of us in psychology will have some clinical responsibility. Absorbing those clinical sources of information: 1) keeps your psychology IQ up to speed; and 2) starts to open thought channels about which topics still have gaping holes. There’s still so much to explore in psychology! Burning questions come from finding research gaps. Go close some gaps!
• If you can’t find a research opportunity in your department, look elsewhere! Research universities, especially, have extensive research opportunities in other departments. Check out social work, biology, business, and anthropology departments for opportunities. Like I said, it all counts!
• Share opportunities with the next group. If you landed an awesome position, pass it on to a new person! Research karma is real. It will come back to reward you when you need participants for that thesis, dissertation, or that multi-million dollar grant you just secured!

Contribute to the research survival guide below! Also, if you’d like to discuss specific research topics, let me know!