Grad Academic Milestones: Mapping Your Resources
Academic milestones are long-term projects that often serve as a checkpoint for completing a particular stage of your graduate program. Examples of academic milestones include comprehensive exams, oral exams, theses, and dissertations.
Completing an academic milestone often involves planning and managing multiple aspects of the project, such as the logistics, content, and overall process. Stressors and unexpected challenges can also arise along the way. Mapping out and utilizing resources for support can help you to feel more confident and maintain a sense of well-being as you navigate these projects.
Resources can take a variety of forms. For instance, there may be tools, strategies, and materials you can use independently, and simply having a record of these resources can serve as a reminder to utilize them regularly. At other times, there may be people or places you can connect with to gain additional perspectives on your work. Below are some questions and examples you can consider as you’re brainstorming resources to include on your resource map.
Independent Resources
- Logistical support: Are there key links or pieces of information that you want to store in one place to easily remind yourself of the logistical requirements?
- Content support: Are there examples of the milestone project you can review? What kinds of materials might provide guidance for this milestone or for your specific area of study? For instance, if you are working on a dissertation, you might look at past student dissertations provided in the Stanford Library theses and dissertations repository or peruse books about writing a dissertation.
- Process support: What kinds of tools and strategies have worked well for you in the past when you’ve worked on projects? For instance, perhaps you have certain strategies or tools you like to use for managing tasks, or maybe there are times of day or environments where you feel most productive.
- Emotional support: What kinds of strategies give you perspective when you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or unmotivated? These might include spending time outside, engaging in non-academic activities you enjoy, journaling, or reflecting on your goals and values related to the project.
Network Resources
- Logistical support: In addition to your academic advisor, who else might be able to provide logistical support? For instance, consider staff within your department (e.g., student services officers), faculty mentors, or perhaps peers who have already completed the milestone.
- Content support: Consider peers, instructors, postdocs, and staff both within and outside your department (particularly if your work is interdisciplinary). Stanford Libraries also provides multiple forms of research support through Software and Services for Data Science (SSDS), Research Data Services, and Subject Specialists. If you have a research advisor/mentor, consider what type of feedback might be helpful to receive from them and at what cadence (see our handout on Working Effectively with your Advisor for additional ideas).
- Process support: Co-working with friends, enlisting an accountability partner, or forming a writing group are several ways to utilize your network for process support. Meeting with an Academic Coach, a tutor at the Hume Center, or a Technical Communication Program consultant are all ways to discuss particular aspects of your process.
- Emotional support: Friends, family, and mentors can be great sources of emotional support, and you can also connect with numerous campus resources if you are feeling overwhelmed, such as the Graduate Life Office, Counseling and Psychological Services, and Well-Being Coaching.
Try It!
Using the guiding questions and ideas above, take some time to complete your own resource map. Feel free to add other categories of support that might be relevant to your specific project. If you are having trouble identifying resources for any of the categories, schedule a session with an academic coach!
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