Being in graduate school gives you the impression that you always have time. Time to run this experiment. Time to write that paper. Time to schedule a committee meeting. Time to get back into the mood of working hard. Time to come up with an idea for your independent proposal. Time to lead in this organization. Or time to volunteer in that program. There is always this sense that you have time because after all, graduate school is a four to six-year commitment in most cases right? And that’s a lifetime. But what happens when time runs out. And you have no time to get those revisions in when your resubmit is past due. Or you have a qualifying exam tomorrow and wish you had more time to study. Or you didn’t realize your advisor really wanted data from that experiment today and you hadn’t even begun planning it at all.
One of the traps of being in this state of being a student and in a school environment is that it is easy to perceive that there is an endless amount of time that you have towards your dissertation defense and securing a job. But the reality is, your time is finite in graduate school. At the minimum each program has a maximum time period in which they will even allow a graduate student past their candidacy to work towards completion of their terminal degree. Now maybe this is 7 or 8 years which seems like a lifetime but still, it’s a finite period.
I believe that operating with the ideology that there is no reason to rush in graduate school can sometimes be flawed. For example, consider that you take all of the time and space you need to prepare for your independent proposal knowing that it has to happen in a given semester before you graduate. You continuously put off finding papers to read that can help direct your ideas and you wait until the last minute to not only pull together your idea, but also to think it through, write it up, prepare a presentation, and study. The final product is done and you defend it but more so just for the sake of checking a box and not necessarily fully embracing all of the learning objectives of that exercise. The intense effort that you spend over weeks towards this milestone end up being super stressful, cause you anxiety, and send you through a host of emotions. However, once you get it done (and you do so successfully), you crash. You’re emotionally, mentally, and physically spent. And now you get into a funk that is a state of dramatically lessened productivity and a lack of desire to do anything really related to your graduate studies. And this funk can last weeks or sometimes even a whole semester. And now the cycle repeats.
So while there isn’t a typical rush or someone pushing you to work towards the finish of your degree along the way (until you’re taking up space from someone new or you and your advisor are beyond ready to part ways), I offer that there should be an internal sense of urgency that you operate with on a daily basis as you navigate your program.
Urgency is defined by Oxford dictionary as follows:
NOUN
- importance requiring swift action.
synonyms:
importance · top priority · imperativeness · weight · weightiness · gravity · necessity · exigency · seriousness · momentousness · cruciality · extremity · hurry · haste
- an earnest and persistent quality; insistence.
synonyms:
insistence · persistence · determination · resolution · tenacity · earnestness ·
When you look at all of the synonyms for urgency it becomes clear that it’s not just about rushing and moving fast all of the time but it also is about being clear on your main priorities, being persistent with your actions, having determination towards your goals, and knowing the necessity with which you need to act towards your doctoral degree.
I have found it extremely helpful to operate with a sense of urgency over the course of my studies and professional career. As a first-year graduate student, I had the opportunity to see first-hand what this sense of urgency looked like. And no, it didn’t look like someone walking around with a Venti Starbucks Cappuccino in the lab and always being on 10 every time you stopped to ask them how they’re doing. But what it did look like was, one of my lab mates coming into the graduate program with a clear reason for being there and a focus that kept them from getting distracted by pesky students such as me, or experiments or activities that did not directly advance and move their dissertation work forward. This lab mate worked generally 8 hours most days, with some occasional full Saturdays, commuted an hour both ways from work to home. But the end result was they finished their PhD in 4 years flat. I recognize this was this person having a sense of urgency everyday that helped them to buckle down and turn around manuscript revisions over a few days, instead of toying with them for a month. They were able to go all in when experiments were working good and knew to keep going to get as much data as possible, so that when everything broke down with instruments, they still were able to keep advancing towards their degree.
Now I’m not saying that you have to rush through your graduate studies or rush through writing a chapter and move so fast that the quality of the work isn’t there. But what I am saying is operating with a sense of urgency as you navigate your graduate studies, will help you to maintain your focus and certainly can help increase your productivity. In addition, it can also help free up your time over the entirety of being in your program so that when you do want to operate with a sense of infinite time, you are mentally clear to do so because you’ve taken advantage of and spent the rest of your time wisely.
So, I encourage you today to put a little sense of urgency into whatever it is that is your top priority right now, and see if it doesn’t help you hit that deadline or cross that milestone with a little less stress and a little more ease.
Until next time,
Renã Robinson, PhD
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