Thanks to Regina for passing on this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education. Karen Kelsky writes a detailed “to do list” for those exploring graduate programs and for students currently in doctoral programs. Her continual reminder? Graduate School is a Means to a Job.
A very smart, somewhat ruthless article that I agree should be required reading for grad students present and future. The only concern I have about it as advice is the narrowness of its vision. The world Kelsky describes is real, but it’s not the whole of academic culture. Gregory Colon Semenza’s *Graduate Study for the 21st Century*, which I read with the Intro to the Profession class this past fall, has similar but slightly less cutting advice. The answer to the question, “Which one should I read?” is, of course, what it always is in academic cutlture: both!