Navigating Grad School: Advice on Success, Balance, and Overcoming Doubt

Victors in Grad School

Graduate school is often called a journey, and for good reason. In the latest episode of the "Victors in Grad School" podcast, host Dr. Christopher Lewis sits down with Dr. Abby Parrill, the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan-Flint, to unpack what it truly takes to succeed as a graduate student. Whether you’re contemplating applying, awaiting your first semester, or knee-deep in research, the experiences and advice shared in this episode offer practical guidance and inspiration for every stage of the process.

One of the key themes Dr. Parrill discusses is intentional decision-making—knowing why you’re choosing graduate school and how it aligns with your long-term goals. She recounted how, as an undergraduate at Central Michigan University, her co-op experience at Dow Chemical revealed to her that advanced degrees opened doors to more autonomy and interesting projects, prompting her to further her education immediately, rather than settling into a job right away.

Dr. Parrill also shares her experience of choosing the right graduate program, highlighting the importance of considering personal and professional factors. Her decision to attend the University of Arizona was influenced not only by its academic offerings but also by where both she and her then-fiancé could study complementary fields on the same campus.

Preparation is another recurring theme. Academic preparation, such as building a solid foundation during undergrad and leveraging work experiences, paid off for Dr. Parrill—especially when it came to placement exams and early graduate coursework. She stresses the importance of treating graduate school as a full-time commitment, dedicating oneself not just in the classroom but also through research, networking, and even tutoring or mentoring others.

The transition to graduate-level work often brings feelings of imposter syndrome and self-doubt. Dr. Parrill’s candid insights into these struggles—and the importance of leaning on mentors and building supportive networks—underscore that such challenges are common, but surmountable.

Finally, Dr. Parrill shares wisdom on balancing responsibilities and being intentional about time management, whether you’re juggling teaching, research, work, or family obligations. Her advice, derived from mentoring students with complex lives and her own experience, rings true for anyone seeking to thrive in graduate school and beyond.

Are you considering graduate school, or are you currently navigating its demands? Tune into this episode for actionable tips, personal stories, and the reassurance that the path, while challenging, is absolutely rewarding.

Listen to the full episode to glean more practical advice and inspiration to fuel your graduate school journey!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]: Welcome to the Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:08]: Find success in graduate school. Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate Programs for the University of Michigan Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. And as always, we are here to talk with you, to work with you on this journey that you're on. And I call it a journey, because it truly is a journey. And every one of us, as we think about graduate school, have to go through a process to be able to prepare ourselves, to work through the process of not only applying to graduate school, getting into graduate school, but getting through graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:41]: And to do that, there are things that you can do to find success in that journey, and that's why this podcast exists every week. I love being able to bring you different guests with different experiences, people from different walks of life that have gone before you. They've gone to graduate school, they've been successful, they've come out the other end mostly unscathed, and they have been able to learn things along the way. Learn things about themselves, but learn things about the process of going to graduate school and what they had to do to find success. This week, we've got another great guest. Dr. Abby Parrill is with us today, and Dr. Perel is the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic affairs at the University of Michigan Flint.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:23]: And Dr. Parrill joined the University of Michigan Flint about a month ago. She has transitioned from working at the University of Memph for a number of years, and now she's here, and I'm really excited to have her here to talk to you about her own experiences and to be able to help you better understand some of the things that she had to learn along the way. Dr. Pero, thanks so much for being here today.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:01:46]: Absolutely. Thank you for the invite.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:48]: Well, I really appreciate being able to talk with you today. I'm always excited to be able to learn from other people and the journey that they're on. And I know that when you were in your undergraduate work, at some point back at Central Michigan University, there was a point in time. There was a point in time where you made a decision. You made a decision that you were going to continue your education, weren't going to just finish that degree and go off and work and maybe go over to Dow Chemical down the road, but you made a decision to continue on. Can you take me back to that point and what was going through your head and what made you Decide that that was the right step at that point.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:02:25]: Absolutely. So it's funny you mentioned Dow Chemical, because I was actually in the cooperative education program at Dow Chemical while I was an undergraduate student. Great learning experience. Let me see how to use what I was learning in the classroom in a real chemistry lab. But one of the things I learned was that the chemists that had doctoral degrees had a lot more autonomy and more interesting projects. And those with bachelor's degrees tended to do very routine, repetitive things that did require chemistry knowledge. And I enjoyed doing those routine, repetitive things as an undergraduate student because it allowed me to get really good at a few of the skills I had learned as an undergraduate. But I couldn't see myself doing that for 10, 15, 20 more years.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:03:10]: And there had been a panel held, sponsored by Central Michigan University, I think it was our student affiliates of the American Chemical Society sponsored a panel about graduate school, med school, or work as being some of the common directions someone might go after right after completing the bachelor's degree. And there were people on the panel who had started employment first and then gone to graduate school and others who had gone straight to graduate school. And they talked about kind of the challenge of getting into the work environment, getting used to a particular salary, and then stepping back to graduate school and going back to that kind of restricted income as being a very sincere challenge that they faced. And I decided that since I knew I didn't want to remain at the bachelor's level for my entire career, that I was just going to grit my teeth and move on and get the graduate degree right away.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:09]: Now, one of the things that I always am interested in is, you know, you decided to go and continue your education, like you mentioned, and you ended up applying to schools. But I'm sure that you went through a process of exploring schools to try to find the right fit, and you ended up finding a fit at the University of Arizona doing organic chemistry. Talk to me about that process that you went through for yourself to explore, but also to identify that final decision of the University of Arizona. And what was it about the University of Arizona that made it the best fit for you?

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:04:48]: So searching for graduate schools was very different when I was searching for graduate schools than it would be for today's prospective graduate students. My first shopping for graduate schools was to go to the big rings that our undergraduate institutions had bolted on the wall. And they had big paper flyers hanging from these rings. And each flyer was for a specific graduate program in chemistry. And they had little tear off cards, and you could fill out your contact information and put them in the mail. And they would mail you information much faster. Now to use the all of the wonderful online tools you have, you can go to a website and shop instead of having to send off a card and wait. But another avenue of exploration is very much relevant today, and that's to talk to your faculty.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:05:36]: I asked some of my faculty. I'm looking at this three foot thick pile of programs and I have no idea how to choose. And I got a piece of interesting advice from one of my undergraduate faculty members who said, try somewhere really different for graduate school. Because graduate school is a limited period of time. Once you graduate, you have the opportunity to stay near where you go to graduate school or go somewhere else if you don't like that that region of the country or that part of the world. And I found that very interesting advice. And so as I was actually applying to graduate schools, my not then yet husband and I each agreed we were going to pick several schools. We were both going to apply to each other's schools as well as our own.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:06:25]: And we were going to see where we got our acceptances and then decide. And out of the schools I had visited and the ones that I had acceptances at that my husband was interested in, my future husband at the time, now currently husband, we narrowed it down to the University of Arizona and the University of Pennsylvania. I was going to go in chemistry, he was going to go in pharmacology and toxicology. And at the University of Pennsylvania, those two were on two different campuses, two hours apart. And at the University of Arizona, they were on the same campus across a major street from each other. So maybe a 10 minute walk. And given that we both liked both of the institutions and our respective programs at those institutions, we opted for the let's go where we can be together. And the desert Southwest is about as different from Michigan in terms of climate and native flora and fauna as you can get.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:21]: So it was an opportunity to try someplace really different.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:07:24]: Definitely very different. And I'm sure that along the way you definitely learned a few things about the the desert Southwest versus here and things that you like or don't like as well as when you're in the Midwest and things that you like or don't like. And I guess one of the things that I think about as you made that move, when you made that move down to the desert Southwest, there's things that you can do to prepare yourself both academically, professionally, personally to make a move like that, as you think back to that move for yourself, how did you prepare academically, professionally, personally, before starting graduate school to help you to make that transition into graduate school?

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:08:08]: Well, I will say, while I didn't intend it to be preparation at the time, participating in that cooperative education internship opportunity where I could use chemistry daily in a work environment rather than just study it academically, and that repetition of a certain subset of chemistry was phenomenally important. So when I headed off to graduate school, the chemistry department administered a set of, let's call them placement exams. That isn't what they were called, but we'll call them that. And the ones I did the best on were the ones that overlapped with not just my academic experience, but my work experience. So that opportunity to use what I had learned and use it over and over and over really did cement what I had learned and make it so that I could be very successful on that subset of what I had learned as an undergraduate really shifted it into long term memory. And so the opportunity to go back and review things and use things in a different way, I would say the more you can view your entire undergraduate curriculum as connected and building transferable skills and use them from one class into the next, or find work experiences where you can use some of those things that turned out to be one of the best preparations I could have done, even though I didn't think about it that way at the time. And really the move across the country, there's no preparation for that. I will say I learned from the experience though, because I have now moved across the country again for the third time in maybe fourth time in my life.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:09:51]: And one thing I didn't do that first time that I have gotten better at every time is don't pack things you're going to throw away when you unpack them. Start your packing early enough that you're really being discriminating about what you pack.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:06]: That's great advice. I think everybody could probably learn from that and not just if you're going to graduate school.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:10:12]: Yeah.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:13]: When you transition into graduate school, there is a difference. There's a difference between the way that you're taught as an undergraduate student as a way that and the way that you're taught as a graduate student. There's different expectations, different perspectives. And as I mentioned at the beginning, you did get your degree, so you were successful getting through that degree. And I guess as you think about your transition in to the academic work, talk to me about what you had to do to set yourself up for success and what are some things that you had to do to maintain that success. As you went through the entire academic experience.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:10:51]: Yeah. So as an undergraduate student you will probably take, probably will have taken more classes at a time than you will as a graduate student, but that doesn't mean you should treat it as less work. So I treated my graduate experience the way I had treated the combination of my full time undergraduate program and my halftime internship at dow and really treated graduate school as the same time commitment. And less of my time was in class, but more of it was invested in other aspects of being successful. Reading literature in my field that I was studying so that I could learn what's going on in my field, find things that I could apply into my research project, just be generally well informed. I did some tutoring in part I did it for some money on the side, but it was also to really repeat those kind of early chemistry concepts by helping an undergraduate student learn them for the first time to make sure I was always fresh and I always had that solid foundation to build from. It also gave me some one on one teaching and mentoring experience that has been tremendously useful throughout my career. And so treat graduate school absolutely as at least a full time job, if not more.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:12:16]: Even if you weren't scheduled full time, find useful things to do that will help you advance through the program in the other part of that full time experience.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:27]: You know, one of the things that I think about when you talk about that is the fact that as you make that switch for yourself, many times graduate students talk to me about a feeling of imposter syndrome, especially as you become a graduate student, because you're looked at in a different way and you're held at a different standard than you are as an undergraduate student. And especially if you're in a PhD program where maybe you're being asked to teach or do high level research, there's expectations that are there. Did you ever face imposter syndrome or self doubt during your graduate studies and how did you handle it?

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:13:06]: Self doubt? Yes. I don't think I knew the word imposter syndrome when I was a graduate student. I had been academically successful. I knew how to learn in a classroom. But it's different when you are asked to be creative and develop a project and contribute to a project. And it can feel overwhelming that how can I go look in the literature in my field and find what's missing, what projects still need to be done. How can I add something to this discipline when there's 500 journals and I'm 50 years behind? Well, hundreds of years behind. There's so much to Learn to know how my project that I'm supposed to be generating to be the basis for either a thesis or a dissertation.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:13:52]: How can I decide what my value add to the field is going to be? That certainly felt overwhelming. And luckily my first challenge at developing a project proposal was actually within the context of a class. So it wasn't necessarily my dissertation project. That was my first challenge to create my own project. And so the field was narrowed to the top topic of the class. And, and the t. The professor did a really nice job of giving us some strategies of how to identify a project that might need to be done. So there was a lot of guidance.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:14:29]: And so what I would say to anyone who's feeling overwhelmed and, and like you don't know how to start. You're going to have a graduate committee, you're going to have a major professor or a mentor. Go to them, share how you're feeling and ask for some strategies on how to get started. It's, it's okay to lean on your mentors. I have leaned on mentors through my entire career. And as I transition into my new role as provost, I had a one year opportunity to try out the role at a different institution as an interim. But trust me, I leaned on prior provosts that were still at my institution. I leaned on the president at the University of Memphis.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:15:08]: Now I'm leaning a little bit on the chancellor. As I, as I onboard into my new role. I still have mentors and I'm not going to say how long I've been in my career, but it's been a while. Or to borrow from the south, it's been a minute. And those mentors, I think can be tremendous supporters and they can support you better if you share a little bit of that vulnerability about how you feel overwhelmed because then they know kind of how to, how to reassure you and share maybe an experience where they felt overwhelmed and how they overcame it, but also some strategies to, to, to, to get going. Once you get going and you start making progress, it changes a lot. You, you see some progress, you say, oh, I can do this and a mentor can help you on that path to, to making some progress that helps you feel like you belong and, and that you were admitted to graduate school because you really are capable of it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:05]: You know, earlier you said that someone told you it is a finite amount of time and it truly is a finite amount of time. When you're in graduate school, it is a finite amount of time. There are that are going to be thrown your way and you're going to be asked to learn a lot in that short amount of time. It may look like it's a long amount of time, but you're going to find very quickly that it goes very fast. Now, as you went through your own graduate experience, as you mentioned, you were there with your significant other, and not everybody has that experience, but everyone has to learn how to balance. Everyone has to learn how to balance school, work, family, and any other personal responsibilities that they may have in their life, while trying to also focus on why they're there, which is the academic experience. Talk to me about how you balanced all of those competing factors for yourself so that you could still be successful.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:17:04]: So for me, I had been, before I went to graduate school, a full time undergraduate student taking 15 or more credit hours a semester. I'd been driving 20 minutes each way to get to Dow Chemical on my internship days. They expected me to put in 20 hours a week. I was doing a lot of studying. I was engaged a little bit as an undergraduate student in some student, in particularly the chemistry student organization. So there was a little bit of the campus life that I was participating in when I got to graduate school. And I treated it like an 8 to 5 job. I could actually get all my work done between eight and five.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:17:43]: And this is attending classes, preparing to teach my classes, teaching my classes, doing a little bit of tutoring. At least in the first semester, that was all I was expected to do while shopping for my research mentor. And then when I found my research mentor, I tutored a bit less because I had to invest time in the research project. So as I transitioned through the graduate program and I needed to spend more and more time on my research, I decided very deliberately, here are all the things I'm doing. Which of these do I need to do less of so that I can make time for this new thing that's, that's part of my graduate program. So initially it was okay, well, I was tutoring a lot because I was taking only three classes and that didn't fill up my eight to five time, even with the studying. So I was doing a lot of tutoring in the first semester. Once I had my research group and I started my research, I paired that way back.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:18:36]: And then of course, at least in a doctoral program, you're not going to be taking classes for the full period. So the classes are going to start dropping off as you complete the course based requirements and then you just simply choose to invest that time in the research that you need to do. And so being very deliberate about what am I doing? What new thing is coming my way, and what am I going to kind of do less of in order to make time for this new thing? The people I am super impressed with in terms of balance, I actually mentored as doctoral students when I was a faculty member, two different mothers of four children. And they amazed me with their balance. And so I'd actually share a word or two of wisdom from them. One of them waited until her youngest child started high school. So she had. Her oldest was in college with her as an undergraduate when she started graduate school.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:19:31]: She had gotten her undergraduate degree before starting her family, but she came back for graduate school once her. Her young child got into high school. And part of her way to carve out time to be a graduate student as well as a mother was everyone in the family agreed that they wanted to help mom go to school, go back and earn her her next degree. And so everyone in the family picked a day where they were responsible for dinner. They had to do the meal planning. They had to add things to the grocery list. She would do the grocery shopping on the weekend for the week, but they had to have planned their dinner that they were responsible for. And with everyone in the family picking a.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:20:10]: That meant that she could do put in the full day, get her research, come home just in time for dinner, and it would be ready to go on the table, and the family could still eat together. And that was something she found tremendously helpful in balancing her academic work with her family obligations. I had another mother of four. Her situation was very different. She had children with learning challenges. She had a deadbeat dad. She was spending time in court trying to get the child support out of. So she had a very strange schedule and set of obligations.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:20:46]: And yet when she dropped her kids off at school, she came in and she did her work until the kids started coming home, and then she would spend time with her kids. And because I was a computational chemist and her work was all on a computer, she could then log in and after they went to bed and do some more work after the kids went to sleep. So very different scheduling, very different way to kind of manage the work versus the family. And so hers was to kind of split the time so she would leave at 2 so she could make sure to be home when all the kids started coming home from school, and then from two to whatever time was theirs. And then she would do more in the evening before getting up and starting all over again.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:26]: Completely inspirational stories. I mean, those individuals that are able to balance all of those things are ones that amazes me because there are so many expectations on you as a student and you have to have support along the way. I know you mentioned that you learned quite a bit inside the classroom and you do, you definitely do that while you're going through graduate school. But there's a lot of learning that happens outside of the classroom as well. As you think back to the experience that you went through, what was the most valuable thing that you learned outside the classroom during graduate school?

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:22:01]: I want to say networking. I had an opportunity to go to a research, my first research conference as a graduate student very early in my graduate career, great big national conference in my discipline probably had thousands of people, probably tens of thousands, over 10,000 people at this meeting. And that was a daunting experience. Here I am a brand new graduate student giving my first presentation at this huge national meeting. And so I kind of felt like I was following my research mentor around and he took pains to introduce me to people and, and urge me to actually talk to them and you know, to. Sometimes he would kind of just give me the little, the little motion that I should go talk to such. And so without the introduction. So he kind of weaned me into the, the go out and meet people and talk to them about their work, tell them about yours.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:22:56]: And. And in my talk, I was doing work based, kind of building off of something another scientist had published. And that scientist was in the room and actually asked me a question, asked, you know, where did I get the basis for this thing I was talking about? And I said, well, from your paper. And of course his response was to laugh. And he came up and talked to me afterwards and it was just very gratifying to me that a senior scientist actually came to my talk and then came up to me afterwards to say what he liked about it and that he appreciated that I was building on his work. But the networking aspect, meeting other people in your discipline, it may not show, but I'm a little bit reticent about meeting new people, which is strange in the role I'm in moving to a new institution, I'm having to meet lots of new people. But one strategy I convinced myself to use the first time after that that I went to a conference by my. Without other members of my group is I challenged myself to find someone different to have a meal with every day.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:24:05]: It didn't have to be every meal, but if I'm at a poster session and I meet another graduate student and we have a conversation, just ask, did you have plans for dinner? Do you want to find a place to eat. And that can be a great starting point, I think kind of getting to know other people in your field. And don't always think about the senior people in your field. Find another graduate student in your field at the meeting because those are relationships, if you start building them are going to last a long time throughout your Career, they definitely can. And you'll find yourself reaching out to them in many different ways throughout the year.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:31]: You talked earlier about not only mentors, but people that you can contact that are, they may be just peers, but there's still people that you rely on to be able to help you and that you have as a confidant along the way. Because there's going to be points in time in your career where you may need someone that can just be that listening ear that understands what you're going through or can at least empathize with what you're going through and can give you some words of either solace or advice.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:25:05]: And you never know when someone who's up here now may be on a hiring committee for a job you're interested in later.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:11]: So true, so true that has happened. Was there any type of defining moment for you or turning point that really shaped your academic journey?

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:25:20]: Oh, absolutely. So when I first marched off to graduate school, I was interested in kind of interfacing some discipline of chemistry with a research problem of biological significance. So I was looking for bio something chemistry projects to work on because I thought I was going to earn my doctoral degree and march off to the pharmaceutical industry and be part of the research that creates life saving medications without having to deal with sick people. So as I marched off to graduate school I was envisioning for myself a life in the chemical industry, the business side of chemistry, but, but the research aspect. And as I did my teaching assistantship and my tutoring, I would come home and talk to my future husband and, and talk about how, oh, you know, this student today was so confused when they came in for tutoring and I, you know, kind of talked to them about the problem and they were still confused. And so I tried explaining it a different way and tried backing them up to find out why they were confused. And on the, I just saw their eyes light up when they got it and they could get through that problem and solve it. He said, sounds like you really like to teach.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:26:38]: Oh, I love to teach. He said, so you really want to go into the pharmaceutical industry? Like I'm sure I can find a way to teach on the side or something. Maybe I'LL teach a class at a nearby community college. He's like, okay, we must have had that conversation a dozen times over the course of about a year and a half. And finally I said, you know, I probably should just look for an academic job when I finish here, because I do really love to teach. And having a family member to kind of be that sounding board and just ask me a question, are you sure that's the direction you want to go? Made me think about it again and again and again. And so as you think about potential career pathways, share them with someone who knows you well and have those conversations about why you're thinking of that pathway and what do you really love and does that pathway way, you know, scratch that itch and let you do what you really love.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:32]: So as you think back to that graduate school experience as well, how did graduate school change the way that you think, work, or approach problems?

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:27:41]: Oh, so one of the most embarrassing things that happened to me in graduate school was during my oral exam. So my comprehensive exam had an oral component to it. It. And one of my research mentors, I had actually had co mentors for my project, asked me a question and I answered it badly. And so she asked it again with a little bit of help, because in your oral exam, that's what they do. They want to push you past where you can answer questions well and then see if a little bit of help allows you to rescue yourself. Right. They're testing your limit.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:28:17]: You're not going to feel like you passed your oral exams, not if your mentors are pushing you. And she gave me a little bit of context. And the context was to remind me that another member of our group had been looking at something like this and had talked about at a group meeting recently. And I could not connect the dots. I had sat through. I can't tell you how many group meetings not paying close enough attention to my other grad student fellows in my group, what they were doing and what they were learning. And so one of my take homes is to really learn from everybody in every meeting I'm in and not just mark time until it's my turn to tell about my project, but to learn about everyone else's also. And to me, that is an invaluable skill, that listening skill.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:29:06]: And I was embarrassed that I could not connect the dots to something one of my grad school colleagues had probably talked about a dozen times in our research group meetings, which were weekly by the time I did my oral exam. So learning to listen, I think, was very much something that I hadn't really put enough emphasis on before that point. And after that point, I started paying much more attention and listening and taking notes and learning from my peers.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:38]: As you think back to the very beginning, before you started graduate school, what's something that you wish someone had told you before you started graduate school that would have helped you in that graduate school experience?

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:29:51]: I think I probably could have started reading the literature a lot earlier than I did. You know, there were lots of topics in even my undergraduate program where there's a rich kind of set of primary sources I wasn't reading. I was just reading the textbook because the textbook was assigned and the primary sources upon which the textbook was based were not assigned. And it wasn't until I got to a senior level kind of advanced, advanced undergraduate course. It was kind of a half graduate, half undergraduate course where I actually had to use primary sources in problem solving. But again, the textbook had the problems and it actually had recommended primary sources. So we'd all go to the library and we'd all go find them and stack them on a table, and everybody that had to do this assignment would then have them all there. But there were a lot of things I could have learned earlier.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:30:48]: And in my field, there's the hardcore primary sources where they expect only someone within the discipline who already has a doctorate degree to ever read them. Maybe not those sources, but certainly some of the more general audience sources, something like science. Often those are written for a broader audience, certainly trained scientists, but not trained scientists in a specific discipline. And so some of those are more approachable. And I could have been reading things like that much earlier. So if you have an interest in graduate school, I would find a few journals related to your discipline that are not quite so narrowly focused at the all the people who already have a PhD degree in X, but are a little bit broader. There are lots of journals that publish lots of review articles, and those are great starting points as you're exploring an area. And they're still secondary sources, but they're not textbooks.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:31:42]: There's a lot more in them and a lot more current things in them.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:31:45]: Finally, as you think back to your graduate education and you think about other individuals that might be thinking about graduate school, what are some tips that you might want to offer other students that would help them find success sooner?

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:31:59]: Oh, don't be afraid to ask questions. Lots and lots of questions. And it can be questions of other graduate students. Maybe if you're looking for a graduate school school, that's step one, and you have an opportunity to go visit one, make sure there's time set aside while you're visiting to talk to some graduate students that are already there. What do they like about the program? What have they found challenging about the program? Do they find unnecessary barriers within the program? Who are the mentors they like to work with? Who are the mentors that maybe aren't flexible enough for someone with a challenging work life balance or children to take care of? If you can work a regular schedule, maybe it doesn't matter. But if, if you have child care responsibilities or even parental care responsibilities and you need some flexibility, you need to make sure you have a mentor that's going to be understanding and be flexible. Not every mentor works the same way with their students. They all have great content expertise.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:33:01]: But if you work best with someone who's going to leave you alone until you ask, that's one kind of mentor. But if you need someone who's going to check in with you every day and say, how's it going? Do you have any questions? If you need that kind of more one on one in intrusive mentoring, you'll need to know who the intrusive mentors are. So thinking about your own work habits and what kind of mentoring you're going to respond best to helps you ask good questions. When you're shopping for the graduate school and the graduate mentor that you're going to work with most closely and ask all those questions while you're shopping. And then once you're in graduate school and you hit those stumbling blocks, you have a graduate committee for a reason. They are supposed to be your resources. Don't wait until a committee meeting. If someone on your committee has expertise that you would benefit from.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:51]: All great advice and as Dr. Parrill said, if you are on a research oriented trajectory and you do have a committee and you have an opportunity to have some say in who your committee is, make sure to identify individuals that, that you connect with, that you work well with, that you have a relationship with, because they are going to be spending a lot of time with you and you need to be able to trust them, that they have your back and that you can come to them with those issues, those questions, those things that you need. So that is very important and something that you definitely need to make sure that you are dealing with handling as you are moving through that process. So Dr. Pero, thank you so much for sharing your journey today. I really appreciate your time and your willingness to share everything and I truly wish you all the best.

Dr. Abby Parrill [00:34:47]: Thank you so much.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:48]: The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of master's and doctorate programs if you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you're looking for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint as programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [email protected].