387: Seven Graduate School Myths That Hold Students Back

387: Seven Graduate School Myths That Hold Students Back

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[00:00:00] When I was a child, I thought you could only have one best friend. So when someone told me that they had multiple best friends, it blew my mind. I had never considered that you could have more than one person who could hold that important role in your life. Years later, I carried a similar assumption in college.

I thought you were supposed to find one faculty mentor, that you were supposed to work with one person who would guide you, answer your questions, help you make decisions, and teach you how to navigate academia. Then I started meeting people who had multiple mentors, and once again, my mind was blown. I wish someone had told me that because by the time I applied to grad school, it wasn't as easy for me to identify multiple recommenders.

That realization that someone could have multiple mentors completely changed how I understood mentorship. One person rarely has the knowledge, lived experience, [00:01:00] skills, or perspective to meet every need you have. You can also build a network of support where different people contribute different forms of guidance.

But again, I didn't know any better when I was in college. And similarly, many students enter grad school believing that they have to find the perfect advisor and that this person is gonna give them everything they need. And then when that person can't, students assume that they maybe chose the wrong mentor or that they chose the wrong program or that maybe they're just asking for too much.

This is one of several grad school myths that can impact the type of experience you have and also how much support you receive. in this episode, I am going to break down seven of these common grad school myths, and I'm also gonna be showing you how to unlearn them so that you can pursue a [00:02:00] more sustainable way to successfully finish your program.

Welcome to the award-winning Grad School Femtoring Podcast, the place where first generation BIPOC students and professionals can listen in on inclusive grad school stories and gain practical tools for sustainable success. This is Doctora Yvette Martinez-Vu, a certified coach, consultant, author, and speaker.

I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you thrive in grad school and beyond.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, Doctora Yvette. I am gonna dive straight into [00:03:00] these different myths that I'm gonna talk about today. The first one of seven myths is that the smartest students are the ones who succeed. Grad school is described as a place where a lot of intelligent people thrive.

I'm sure you feel this way too, because you probably take a look at some of the professors around you and you're like, "Whoa, there's no way I could ever be as smart as this person." But if you think that way, that description only gives you a very narrow understanding of intelligence and also an incomplete picture of what graduate education requires.

Completing a graduate degree involves many skills, and a lot of them have nothing to do with your intelligence or your IQ. You may need to read strategically, manage long-term projects, recover from disappointing or harsh feedback, communicate with faculty, [00:04:00] navigate interpersonal conflicts, locate funding, teach, present your work, build relationships, and make decisions that sometimes involve not having all of the right information You may also need to learn how to structure your day without a lot of external support.

So you've gotta figure out how to keep working on a project for an extended period of time, and even when challenges come up. You also need to learn how to change your approach when needed, and when to ask someone else for help. These are all learned skills. So a student who speaks confidently during a seminar may have attended a highly resourced undergraduate institution where discussion-based courses were the norm.

Or maybe they have parents who themselves have advanced degrees, and where this is all similar to the dinner table conversation that they have. And actually, I'll mention that in my experience, I [00:05:00] did have someone in my program who had parents who were both professors, and I envied this person because they were so articulate and felt so comfortable in a graduate seminar.

But in your case, you might be the student who's encountering this type of format and environment and dialogue for the first time, so it's understandable to feel a bit timid or to feel a bit intimidated by that space. If you see a student who knows how to approach a professor during office hours, that means they may have grown up around people who explained that process for them.

But maybe you were taught to avoid taking up space and to not take up a lot of time, especially from someone who is in a position of power or is an authority figure. So what looks like someone's natural academic ability is actually reflecting their previous exposure, mentorship, access to privileges, [00:06:00] resources, cultural familiarity, and insider knowledge.

None of this diminishes your abilities. Instead, you need to remind yourself that it reflects the fact that grad school preparation is unevenly distributed. We don't all get the same support. So if you're thinking that only the smartest students succeed, please remember that grad school success depends on a collection of skills, and again, these are things that you can learn over time.

And even if you're feeling like, "Oh, no, I should know more than I do right now," please remember what I tell my own clients all the time, which is that if you came into grad school knowing everything, you wouldn't need to be going to grad school in the first place.

Okay, let me get to myth number two, and that one is that struggling means you don't belong in this environment.

This myth appears a lot [00:07:00] after you're going through a difficult moment. Let's say you went through a very challenging exam, or you just got out of a really confusing seminar, or you were rejected by a grant application or fellowship application, or maybe you just got out of a meeting where someone else seemed to understand something that you missed.

You might be thinking, " Maybe I'm the only person who doesn't get this. Maybe they made a mistake by admitting me." I know because I once had those thoughts as well. Graduate education asks a lot of people to work near the boundaries of what they know, but keep in mind that confusion and uncertainty are also part of that process.

Again, it's okay to not know everything. At the same time, I wanna remind you that a lot of us have several responsibilities and challenges that have very [00:08:00] little to do with our academic potential. You might be someone who has to navigate racism, ableism, financial insecurity, a caregiving role, inaccessible classrooms, your own chronic illness, cultural isolation, and so on.

The list can keep going on and on. You may also be learning expectations that other students learned through family members, access to elite institutions, or more informal mentoring than you received. These conditions affect how much time, safety, energy, and support you have available. So if you find yourself doubting your abilities, keep in mind that there's a good chance that it's due to your environment.

When you think about you struggling, please remember that this is also information about the challenges that you're experiencing, about your current resources, and about the type of support you might still need. [00:09:00] So take a look at that information and see, okay, how can I use that to clarify an expectation?

How can I use that to maybe ask for more time? Maybe I need a different learning strategy. Maybe I actually need an official accommodation. Maybe I should tap into a writing group, or maybe I need a tutor. Maybe I need a better advisor, or maybe what I need is an actual break. You deserve to ask whether the environment that you're part of is meeting its responsibility to support you and your learning.

And also, belonging shouldn't have to be conditional, and it shouldn't have to be based solely on your performance. You're still worthy of care, support, and respect while learning to navigate something difficult.

Let's get into the third myth. This one is that your advisor should meet all of your needs.

And this is the one that I mentioned earlier at the top of the [00:10:00] episode. I mentioned that a lot of students enter grad school thinking that their advisor is gonna be their main source of guidance, career advice, mentorship, advocacy, and so on. And if you've got a relationship with someone who's an advisor that feels disappointing or lacking, you might start to feel abandoned, maybe even neglected.

And so again, you might think, "Did I choose the wrong program? Am I supposed to be here?" And maybe you just kind of stick with it for a while, but you don't realize that actually, even though my advisor does play an important role, they don't have to do everything. Yes, your advisor can help you shape your research questions, understand your field, help you find funding, help you with publishing your work, and ideally helping you with navigating your institutional and program requirements.

But [00:11:00] they may not be the person who can help you explore different career paths. They may not be the one who can share different aspects of your identities. Maybe they're not someone you can talk to about departmental politics, or maybe they're not someone who is going to remind you to have a life outside of academia.

This is where building relationships with multiple people can be helpful and even essential to a lot of us, because you're not gonna get all the types of support you need from your advisor. And one of the ways that you can support yourself through this process of exploring different types of support is to create a mentorship map for yourself.

I'll go ahead share a link in the show notes to a former episode that I recorded, where I talked about how to create a femtorship map, and I also provided a downloadable resource. Please feel free to check it out. But in short, what I want you to think about is: What is the support that [00:12:00] you need?

Do you need more research guidance? Do you need writing accountability? Do you need career exploration support? More information on funding? Do you need more of a sense of identity affirming community? Do you need emotional support? Do you need someone who can help you navigate the ins and outs of an institution and its bureaucracy?

Or do you need a sponsor or an advocate? All of this is gonna help you to map out, do I have support in these areas? And if I don't, and you have some gaps, that gives you an area to reprioritize. And so all of this to say that next time you think that your advisor should meet all of your needs, remember that you need more than one advisor.

You need a support team.

Applying to graduate school can feel overwhelming, especially when you're navigating the process without insider guidance. Through my grad school admissions consulting services, [00:13:00] I offer first-generation and/or BIPOC students who want strategic and culturally relevant guidance throughout the application process.

Together, we can build a thoughtful grad school list, help you refine your CV or resume, develop a compelling personal statement, help you prepare for interviews, review funding offers, and accept an offer that excites you. I meet you wherever you are in the process and provide feedback and guidance every step of the way.

Consulting packages also include access to my graduate admissions resource library with dozens of resources, as well as email and voice memo support between sessions. Past clients have submitted applications they felt comfortable with that reflect who they are and what they stand for. They have also been admitted to competitive programs, secured over six figures of funding, and say that this was the best investment they've made in the [00:14:00] process.

If you're preparing to apply, visit gradschoolfemtoring.com/consulting to learn more and schedule a free consultation.

I'm gonna now transition to the next myth. Myth four is that asking for help makes you look unprepared. Oh my goodness, that's a big sigh for me because I know this myth all too well. So many of us, especially first gens, especially the eldest children, especially those of us that were taught to grow up soon and to be more independent than others, it's hard for us to ask for help.

You might be thinking, "Wait, I got admitted to grad school because of my independence, because of my academic potential, because I was able to complete an independent research project and I did a good job at it." So you might be thinking, "That means I've gotta handle every problem that I encounter in grad school alone."

And this is complicated, [00:15:00] right? Because if you're first gen or if you're a student of color or if you're someone who feels more added pressure to prove that you belong in the space that you're part of, you're probably not gonna wanna ask for help because you don't want to experience judgment. You might be afraid of someone dismissing you, or you might be afraid of someone flat out discriminating against you because of you showing any sign of weakness.

But this is the problem with the hidden curriculum of academia. It shouldn't be hidden at all. You shouldn't be evaluated based on not knowing everything about your program and based on needing to ask for help. Asking for help is a skill because if you're doing research, if you're working on any kind of professional work, a lot of us have to collaborate in some way, shape, or form.

We rely on feedback, and we need to be able to ask others for that support so that we know what's missing in the work that we do to make it better. [00:16:00] And so this is all just a reminder that it's okay to ask for help. If you're a little nervous doing it, you can always just share a little bit of your context, share what you've already tried, and then make the very specific request of what you need.

And for the most part, a lot of folks will be willing to offer you support, and if they can't, they will redirect you to someone who can. So just remember that you deserve to tap into support before anything potentially becomes a crisis.

Myth number five is that successful graduate students are always working.

Why do I feel like I'm calling myself out and my own grad school experience as I name these myths? Oh my goodness. Let me tell you this. Academic culture doesn't give you the opportunity to [00:17:00] identify any stopping points. There's always something else to do. There's another article to read, another paragraph to revise, another conference to apply to, another email to reply to.

So many things. It never ends. And if there's no clear endpoints, if there's no clear breaks, you're gonna assume that the time that you use is supposed to indicate how hard you work and the level of commitment that you have in your program. So you working late means that you care.

You resting means that you don't, so you feel guilty. And so if you've got a week where life happens, or you have a lot of medical appointments, or you've gotta take care of someone, or you are just flat out exhausted because of a previous week that was draining, and you just aren't as productive as other times, you might feel like, "Wait, this means I am not a successful grad student because [00:18:00] I had a moment where I wasn't always working."

But let me tell you this from personal experience. Constant work carries a big cost. It can affect your sleep, your health, your relationships, your creativity, your attention, your ability to make even thoughtful decisions. And I am so grateful that I am here, that I am alive, that I survived my graduate school experience, but you shouldn't have to overwork yourself.

You shouldn't have to work yourself to death to be a successful student. And you have to be even more careful about this if you are disabled, neurodivergent, chronically ill, if you are a parent or a caregiver, because you don't have the same time, energy, and capacity as everyone else around you.

Some weeks, yes, you can focus on your complex research analysis. Other weeks, you are gonna have more things that come up. Maybe teaching becomes [00:19:00] an especially demanding week, or maybe you suffer from a health flare-up, or maybe you're just having an emotionally difficult time and you need to tend to those needs as well.

You need to give yourself a break. The point is that you can't and should not always be working. And rest and recovery is part of the process. It's what's gonna allow you to keep doing the work, and it matters just as much as your productivity. It matters independent of it because we all deserve rest.

We're all human beings with bodies, with lives, with needs, and so you deserve to remember that and to account for that. So don't believe this myth that successful students are always working. You might see that around you, but you don't have to replicate that. Successful students can and do take breaks. Oh my goodness, that one really got me [00:20:00] heated.

Let's go into the myth number six, which is that a successful graduate journey follows a linear path. This one is a big one, and this one is something that I see all of the time with my own clients. Why? Because I work with a lot of non-traditional students, and I work with a lot of individuals who have valid reasons for having to take longer timelines than other people around them.

Let's say you go to grad school, you come in, you have a very clear idea of what you're gonna study. You think you're gonna meet each milestone on time, and that eventually you're gonna graduate. This is gonna lead to you finding your ideal job, and then you're gonna seamlessly transition into the career and life you want.

Unfortunately, life usually doesn't turn out this way, not just in academia, but just in general, no matter what profession you [00:21:00] pursue. I want you to account for that, at every stage of the process, things can come up. Your research questions may change, and in fact, that's a good sign. That shows that you've done enough research that things progress over time.

Sometimes your funding is gone. I hear about this all the time, and I've heard about it even from STEM students. They're being pressured to apply for grants from their advisors because their advisors are losing big projects, big sources of funding. So what do you do then? What if your advisor moves?

What if your advisor gets a new job and they're not taking you with them? Then what? What if your experiments fail? What if the archive you really wanted to go to is no longer physically accessible? What if your health needs change? What if your family responsibilities completely change? Or what if you suddenly start changing your mind about your career?

All of this impacts your timeline. Even if you have the same [00:22:00] potential capability as someone else around you, there's still so many conditions that could change that make it so that you need a different timeline. And a revised timeline doesn't erase or minimize your progress, and it doesn't also mean that you are failing or that you are going to quit your program.

And I see this a lot too with folks that I work with. Sometimes I work with graduate students who have to take incompletes because life happened for them, and so they think, "Oh my goodness, now that I have this incomplete, it means that I am a failure," or, "It means that what happens if I never get it done?"

But all it means is that you might have needed a couple of extra weeks, maybe a month, two months, sometimes a couple more months than that, maybe one or two extensions, and then you get it done, and then it's out of the way, and then you can keep going. So I want to remind you that grad school can include pauses, changes, [00:23:00] revisions, redirection, and none of this means that you're not successful.

It might just mean that you need to redefine your definition of success.

Let's get into the last myth, myth seven, which is that the degree will automatically land and create your career. This one makes me sad because I know so many people work so hard, and they're working towards a very specific career path, and even if they do all the right things, they might still not land the right job.

They might still not land a job at all. You know what a graduate degree does guarantee? It guarantees specialized knowledge. It guarantees research experience, especially a PhD. It guarantees that you'll walk out of here with some credentials. It almost always guarantees you developing some pretty solid relationships, and you'll have some [00:24:00] access to professional opportunities.

But what it doesn't guarantee is a specific job. There is no guarantee. No one is gonna say, "Okay, you finish this program, and you are 100% gonna have this job waiting for you." Or at least that's very rarely the case. Graduate programs also vary widely in terms of the career preparation that they provide.

I see this all the time because I do facilitate career preparation workshops for graduate students, and there are some, some universities that are doing a much better job than others. I've also partnered with universities to have graduate student interns and externs, and again, there's just a big difference in terms of the type of career prep that is available.

Some universities provide hardly any career resources for grad students, while others are doing a better job. But in general, we still see that [00:25:00] if you are pursuing a PhD program, the focus is primarily preparing you for academic and professorial careers, faculty careers. And that means you might not necessarily get the support to look into other options.

Like, what if you wanna work in government or for a nonprofit or in industry? Maybe you wanna consult. Maybe you still wanna work in education, but not necessarily in higher ed. Or what if you wanna become an entrepreneur with your skills? There's a good chance you're not gonna get that support. And so by the time you get to the end of your program, you might start to freak out, and I see this again all the time because I support graduate students throughout the full duration of their program, where no one's gonna tell you to necessarily prepare for careers outside of academia.

And so by your final year, you're thinking, "Wait, I have nothing that's guaranteed. What do I do to make sure that I have [00:26:00] some options?" Well, lucky for you, you may or may not be an advanced graduate student. Maybe you're in your first year, maybe you're in your second year. Maybe you're even a college student that's already thinking way ahead.

That's okay. You can start to think about these things now. You can start paying attention to the work that you are doing now. Think about the type of experience you're getting. Think about the type of skills you're acquiring. Think about how these translate in other industries. Consider internships, consider externships, consider volunteer work.

All of this is gonna help you tap into different options, so that way, by the time that you graduate, you don't have to wait till the last minute to do that career exploration and career development work that's needed for you to start applying to other jobs.

All of this to say, I do [00:27:00] think that students deserve better institutional support with preparing for careers outside of academia.

That may not happen across the board, but what you do have control of is how much you explore right now, no matter where you are in your higher ed journey. Please, please, please tap into what are my interests? What are my values? What are my skills? What are my strengths? How does this translate to some potential career paths?

How can I talk to people in those career paths? What advice do they have, and how can I start to slowly but surely apply that advice so that before I know it, I'm gonna have some contacts, I'm gonna have some referrals, I'm gonna land some interviews, and lo and behold, you have a job. Okay. All right. Those were the seven myths.

Let me just say it quickly once more if you already forgot, because some of us have poor working [00:28:00] memories. That includes me. So the first myth is the smartest students are the ones who succeed. Second one is that struggling means you don't belong. Third is your advisor should meet all of your needs.

Fourth is asking for help makes you look unprepared. Fifth is successful grad students are always working. Six is a successful grad journey follows a linear path. And seven is the degree will automatically give you a job and create your career.

All right. Please let me know which one resonated with you most, how you are going to do something about it to rethink and to reframe this myth so that you have a better, more sustainable grad school experience.

And if this episode also helped you to think about something in a different way and you found it helpful, [00:29:00] please, please, please send it to someone you know. Leave a review. Send me a DM. I love hearing from you all. I know I say this all the time, but I really do mean it. Thank you so much for listening.

And as always, I'll talk to you all next time.

Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and curated podcast playlists to guide you through applying to and navigating grad school.

The third way to support my show is by joining my email newsletter, where I share key takeaways and additional resources. Thanks again for listening, and until next time.