Finances

Probably one of the best pieces of advice I can give to anybody considering going to graduate school would be to get out of debt first.  If you're going to be a graduate student, remember your life will revolve around your thesis or dissertation.  That doesn't leave much room for things like a job.  Sure you can have a job, and if you're lucky you'll get a teaching assistantship, but forget about taking extra hours.  If you do, your project will likely suffer for it.  Any time you take away from your project to make ends meet, just tacks on years at the end of your stay.

Luckily if you have student loans, you won't have to make payments on them while you're in school. That doesn't mean take out all the loans you can, but you might have to if you have regular payments that you need to keep up with.  If you have credit cards or a car payment, consider getting rid of them.  I wish I had.  The time we live in has such benefits as Uber, so you might not even need a car.  However, you most likely will if you live off campus, like me.  I have pets that I couldn't bring myself to rid of.  What that pretty much means is that what little income I have left goes to taking care of them.  This wasn't so bad when I made a decent living, but now that I'm a student again, they are definitely eating better than I am.

Have debt and don't want to live on campus?  Well, I hope you're not watching your sodium intake, because this is your future (ramen):

Not so new chapter...

When I originally created this blog a few years ago, I had no idea what amazing adventures that I would soon have.  As an undergraduate student, I was lucky enough to spend every summer in the Bahamas, collecting data for various research projects. I knew then that I belonged in the world of field biology.  What I didn't know was how long the road ahead really was.  After graduating, I applied to a few schools, with no doubt that I would soon get my letter of acceptance.  I had plenty of service hours, research experience, and a great GPA.  I soon found out that none of that matters if the labs you want to work in are full.  What they don't tell you as an undergraduate is that you can have the greatest project in the world in mind, but if you don't have funding then you're pretty much out of luck.  While I was waiting to hear back from schools, I got a decent job and starting living a "normal" life.  By normal I mean I could actually afford the basics like food, a place to live, and random bills.  The kind of life that is unheard of for most undergrads. After about a year, I was getting pretty comfortable with my new lifestyle.  However, I felt like there was something missing.  I wasn't doing what I had always dreamed of.  So, I got myself back into the world of research and started making plans for graduate school again.  Long story short, I am now finishing my first year of grad school.  Sounds like a happy ending, right?  Well, it will be someday.  The road is still long, but I couldn't be happier with the choice I made. I guess the purpose of this blog is to talk about areas of graduate school life that aren't usually discussed.  There are a lot things that I wish somebody had told me.