A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum

by Jessica McCrory Calarco

Overview

An essential handbook to the unwritten and often unspoken knowledge and skills you need to succeed in grad school

Some of the most important things you need to know in order to succeed in graduate school—like how to choose a good advisor, how to get funding for your work, and whether to celebrate or cry when a journal tells you to revise and resubmit an article—won’t be covered in any class. They are part of a hidden curriculum that you are just expected to know or somehow learn on your own—or else. In this comprehensive survival guide for grad school, Jessica McCrory Calarco walks you through the secret knowledge and skills that are essential for navigating every critical stage of the postgraduate experience, from deciding whether to go to grad school in the first place to finishing your degree and landing a job. An invaluable resource for every prospective and current grad student in any discipline, A Field Guide to Grad School will save you grief—and help you thrive—in school and beyond.

Provides invaluable advice about how to:

• Choose and apply to a graduate program
• Stay on track in your program
• Publish and promote your work
• Get the most out of conferences
• Navigate the job market
• Balance teaching, research, service, and life

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691201108
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/25/2020
Series:	Skills for Scholars , #22
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	882,200
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Jessica McCrory Calarco is associate professor of sociology at Indiana University and the author of Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School. She has written for the Atlantic and Inside Higher Ed, and her work has been featured in the New York Times, Time, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, and on BBC Radio and NPR. Twitter @JessicaCalarco

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Choosing a Program 10

Chapter 2 Building Your Team 55

Chapter 3 Deciphering Academic Jargon 84

Chapter 4 Reading and Writing about Other People's Research 108

Chapter 5 Staying on Track in Your Program 119

Chapter 6 Doing Research and Finding Funding 152

Chapter 7 Writing about Your Research 177

Chapter 8 Publishing and Promoting Your Work 212

Chapter 9 Talking about Your Research 265

Chapter 10 Going to Conferences 285

Chapter 11 Navigating the Job Market 302

Chapter 12 Balancing Teaching, Research, Service, and Life 349

Conclusion 386

Appendix A Sample CV-Master's Degree 393

Appendix B Sample CV-Job Market 395

Appendix C Sample CV-Pre-tenure 399

Notes 407

References 431

Index 451

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Eye-opening and informative, this book will help graduate students who feel like they have been dropped in the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim.”—Anthony Abraham Jack, author of The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students

Editorial Reviews

"[A] much-needed practical contribution . . . a tremendous resource . . . [A Field Guide to Grad School] should be required reading not just for aspiring graduate students but for the faculty and administrators who shape the culture and structure of graduate education."—-Becca Spindel Bassett, The Harvard Educational Review

From the Publisher

★ 07/01/2020

Calarco (sociology, Indiana Univ.; Negotiating Opportunities) takes readers through the time line of graduate school, from deciding whether to attend to ensuring life-work balance upon employment as an academic. One of the strengths of her book is how she makes visible the "hidden curriculum," or the elements of graduate school that are taken for granted but not explicitly taught. Calarco provides practical and actionable advice about everything from finding mentors and advisers to pursuing publishing. Sample documents such as email templates (for instance, how to request a letter of recommendation from a professor) will be extremely valuable to students new to the process. VERDICT Undergraduate students considering graduate school as well as current graduate students will find the information contained here helpful, making this a useful guide for college and university libraries. Highly recommended for anyone curious about what to expect in graduate school.—Amber Gray, Fogler Lib., Univ. of Maine, Orono

Library Journal