At the end-of-the-year gathering hosted by the Psychology department, I asked my cohort friends if they would go back in time and apply for the program again. To my surprise, many answered NO.
Their response made me wonder: What contributes to graduate students’ regret/satisfaction attending grad school?
Of course, many factors contribute to graduate school regret vs. satisfaction. However, I believe that there is at least one important factor that is within students’ hand: whether they have a clear plan for graduate school and being able to achieve it or not.
Let’s dive in how to make your own plan.
Contents
- Having a clear goal
- Do your research on available opportunities
- Make a list of opportunities to focus on
- Set a threshold to evaluate your experience
1. Having a clear goal
Before planning out your years in graduate school, it is important to decide what you want to achieve.
Some of the questions to help you decide your goal:
- Why did you decide to apply for graduate school at first place?
- What are the questions you want to answer by attending graduate school?
- What does your future self look like after finishing graduate school?
- How do you want to use your degree after graduation?
- What knowledge, skills, and abilities do you want to develop during graduate school?
You may find yourself having a long list of goals after answering these questions. Unfortunately, you only have a limited time there. I suggest choosing only the top three, and preferably, they complement each other.
To pick your goal(s), ask yourself: What is the things I need to achieve to feel satisfied with my experience when I graduate?
Tip: The more specific your goal is, the more likely you are to achieve it. You can use the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goal framework to make sure your goal is specific.
2. Do you research on available opportunities
There are many things you can do to achieve your goals. However, not all of them are available at your institution or around your area.
After having a goal, the next thing to do is to find out what opportunities are available in your program, the area where you will stay during graduate school, and within your field.
Some of the common types of opportunities are: competitions, projects, and participation in a group, club, or association.
Here are some ways you can find out available opportunities:
- Talk to the faculty and current students in the program
- “Stalk” current or graduate students’ LinkedIn profiles
- Find out on the school or relevant association websites
- Ask Google or an AI chat box
Make sure to take notes on all the opportunities you can find and how it helps you achieve your goal.
3. Make a list of opportunities to focus on
Hopefully, you found a handful of opportunities that you can take to achieve your goal. However, you may not have enough time to try them all, so you want to make sure to pick and choose the important ones to focus and the ones that you can skip.
There will be some that make you more excited, and others that you are more reluctant to do. Now what should you do?
- If it is important to achieve your goal and there is NO alternative, keep it in the list.
- If it is important to achieve your goal and there ARE alternatives, cross it out of the list. Focus on the other one that is more interesting to you.
- If it is not important, of course cross it out.
The goal is to prioritize anything that excites you while also helping you to achieve your goal.
4. Set a threshold to evaluate your experience?
You only know for sure if you are satisfied with your graduate experience or not if you have clear evaluation criteria. What is the list of things/activities you need to complete for your future self to feel your graduate school experience useful?
Tip: Many unexpected things come up during the time you attend graduate school. We want to make sure the criteria are set at the minimum level – enough to make you satisfied. I call it the satisfaction threshold.
The threshold can be both quantitative (with a clear number) and qualitative (based on your subjective judgement). Either way, this threshold has to be itemized.
Here is an example itemized satisfaction threshold:
- GPA > 3.5
- Attend at least 3 networking events
- Find out what are my niche
- Build a good relationship with at least one professor
- Have at least 1 mentor
- Do at least 1 activity among items 1,5,6,9 in the list
- Do at least 2 activities among the items … in the list
Be creative, but also be concrete.
Conclusion
Having a clear goal and achievable plans will help make the most out of grad school experience and avoid feeling regret afterward.
This helps reduce biases and subjective judgment of your future self (due to peer pressure, new perspective, life events, and many other factors).
It also helps you know when to take an opportunity and when to turn one down to save energy for something more important.
And lastly, it can boost your confidence when starting a new journey.
Let me know what are the plan for your grad school experience!
