GradHacker

There is no doubt that online education has arrived in Higher Education. Each year, the numbers of colleges and universities offering online courses increases. There is certainly appeal for these types of courses: students can better fit them into busy schedules and traveling to campus is no longer required. While I dabbled in teaching hybrid and online courses for a while, I have been teaching online for most of the past two years. Additionally, I began my graduate career in a hybrid PhD program: two weeks of face-to-face instruction with the rest of the instruction and work provided entirely online, and mostly asynchronously. Having been on both sides of online learning has taught me a few lessons about how best to help students learn in an environment that provides as many challenges (if not more) as face-to-face teaching.

Graduate school entails taking a lot of criticism. Now, for the most part this is constructive, meant to build us into the colleagues our professors want us to be. However, it sometimes feels like we are constantly under negative scrutiny, our advisors nitpicking our every action and tearing us apart for their own pleasure. Sometimes when you take leaps you fail miserably, often in front of your peers. Failure is difficult to deal with, especially when the risks can be high, such as fighting for a fellowship or grant money. Failure is also fairly common in grad school. With thousands of grad students in your discipline and economic depression leading to reduced funding, failure is something you need to learn to deal with.

Graduate school entails taking a lot of criticism. Now, for the most part this is constructive, meant to build us into the colleagues our professors want us to be. However, it sometimes feels like we are constantly under negative scrutiny, our advisors nitpicking our every action and tearing us apart for their own pleasure. Sometimes when you take leaps you fail miserably, often in front of your peers. Failure is difficult to deal with, especially when the risks can be high, such as fighting for a fellowship or grant money. Failure is also fairly common in grad school. With thousands of grad students in your discipline and economic depression leading to reduced funding, failure is something you need to learn to deal with.

Valentine’s Day is fast-approaching, and for many singletons out there, just passing by the grocery store’s “seasonal” aisle can be an unpleasant reminder of one’s relationship status. Of course, being single, even during Valentine’s Day, can be a liberating experience and also a time of personal growth and discovery. But what if you’re single and you’d like to start dating? What if you also are in graduate school? As we’ve discovered, dating while you’re a graduate student poses its own challenges. Here is some advice from Amy (who is happily taken) and Katy (who is currently negotiating the dating scene).

Today, February 1, is Digital Learning Day. As part of the celebration of all things digital learning, we here at Gradhacker are offering an invitation to our readers to participate with us. Check out these suggestions and resources so that you can celebrate Digital Learning Day with us!

I had worked for weeks on my first conference paper. I had received comments from multiple faculty members, and rehearsed it in front of friends. I had the slides perfectly lined up with the text, and had inserted just enough animations to emphasize my points, but not take away from the entire presentation. I felt ready. I was nervous. I was anxious. I spent the first three days of the conference worried about the presentation. What if no one liked it? What if my computer crashed? And then the time came, and I stood in front of a nearly empty room and gave my presentation.

Academic, professional, and personal cross-training will prepare advanced degree holders for a variety of post-graduation situations, including, but not only, employment outside of academia. In fact, based on my experience, cross-training can help one to land an academic position in a glutted academic job market. On the one hand, a diverse skill set might make increase one's attractiveness to search committees. On the other hand, a diverse skill set might create more job opportunities by expanding the kinds of positions for which an applicant can apply. Cross-training, then, engenders the flexibility needed to navigate challenging employment climates. (As for cultivating the emotional strength and endurance for the job search, that's a different post for another time -- and one that I hope to write for GradHacker soon.)

One of the first things that I tell my first-year writing students at the beginning of the semester is that writing is hard, and that anyone who says it’s easy is a liar. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but as Trent stated in a previous post, writing can be difficult for the even best among us. Here are some more distraction-free writing tools that I’ve found helpful for composing just about anything.