How To Decide Which PhD Program is Right For You | Applying to Grad School

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Hello, friends! It’s that time of year - grad school application/interviews/admissions time! Since it’s likely a topic that’s on your mind if you decided to apply to grad school this cycle, I thought I’d take some to share what were some of the determining factors when I was deciding what grad school was the best fit for me 3 years ago!

To start, a little about what my perspective was (and still is) before starting my PhD program. My primary focus has always been long-term well-being and happiness. My belief is that you have to work on cultivating a life and mindset that bring you joy and that it ultimately cannot come entirely from a career, a place, or a person. I came into my graduate program from this wellness perspective because I had experienced many workplaces that I didn’t enjoy and wanted to create a career for myself that focused on what brought me joy.

Though there’s a lot of advice out there that focuses on the prestige of a program or the reputation of an advisor, my perspective will be a little different because my focus has never been on the highest pay, the highest prestige, or “getting to the top” of any career. So, as always, take my advice with a grain of salt and make sure that you know what’s important to you in a graduate program!

(1) What’s the vibe of the department and/or the program? (aka the culture)

Admittedly, I’m very much a person who goes by the “vibes” of a place - which may not be the most rational thing in the world. But, what I mean by that is checking in with how you felt about a place! Were the people nice to you? Did it seem like a competitive environment? A nurturing environment? Did it seem like people were genuine? If you’re someone who thrives off of competition, maybe a program where you felt competitive vibes is a good thing! For me, I usually try to get a sense for whether an environment is nurturing and genuine because that tends to be a good fit for me personally.

(2) Are there people there who study things you want to study? What is the relationship between faculty and students?

Since the researchers in your program are likely going to be the ones who serve as your mentors and advisors throughout your PhD, it’s important to have people in the department who do research on topics you could actually see yourself studying. Now, this doesn’t mean that they have to study exactly what you want to study but oftentimes, faculty may move to other universities, or your personal research interests may change, so it’s nice to have options within your own program should you need to change direction.

Alternatively, if there are very open, highly communicative relationships between students and faculty members, you may not need to have people there who study the things that you’d like to be studying. If they’re open to studying the things you’re interested in and open to supporting you in your own research interests, that can work, too!

(3) Who will your advisor be? Or how will your advisor be determined?

For me personally, this was priority number 1 when I chose a PhD program. It’s listed at #3 here because I know that it’s actually not top priority for everyone! In my personal experience, my mentor or direct manager has a HUGE effect on my happiness so I knew that who my advisor was and whether or not we connected was a VERY big factor for me. I was also very particular about having a mentor who understood my work style, what I needed as a mentee, and would be an advocate and friend to me throughout my program. So much so that who my advisor was slated to be ended up being about 75% of my program decision.

However, that’s just my story based on how important a mentor connection is to me. A specific relationship or work style may not be what is most important to everyone - for some it may be a mentor’s reputation, their connections, the funding they might provide - but it’s worth thinking about what kinds of mentors or managers you’ve worked with in the past and what kind of mentor you think you’d work well with for the next 5-6 years of your life. Your advisor has a lot of power over you and your career so it’s important to find someone who is a good fit for you. They don’t have to be the perfect mentor for every aspect of your life (you can always find support in faculty members who are not your advisor as well!) but they will serve a very big role in your life for this next chapter.

(4) How will your physical and mental health hold up there? What support do you/would you have outside of the program? Do you like the location?

What kind of support do you have from the university? Are there opportunities to meet and connect with people and resources outside of your program? Also consider the general area - do you have people you know in the area? Friends or family - or even social groups, networks and organizations that could support you outside of the program?

I also advise everyone who asks to seriously consider whether they like the location of their program. There is A LOT of pressure in PhD world to go to whatever school is the “best” (subjective in my opinion) and to forsake your own happiness to commit to your career and education. Frankly, life is too short for that shit. If you know that you get depressed when it rains (hello, it me!), maybe a program in seattle isn’t for you. If you are miserable in the cold, maybe a program in the north isn’t for you. There should be no shame in choosing a program that allows you to get the degree you want while also not making you miserable 🙂

Personally, I chose to get my PhD in a location where I was familiar with the resources available to me. I’ve moved for jobs in the past where I knew very few people in the area and had to figure out what was available on my own. There’s nothing wrong with an experience like that - in fact, it can be quite exciting! - but for the start of a PhD program - which I knew might affect my anxiety levels - I wanted to reduce my stress levels as much as possible and knowing that I had social support and local knowledge was extremely helpful in making the transition.

(5) What are your goals after the program? Will your program get you to those goals?

This might seem like a silly thing to ask yourself before you even start a program but I’ve found that having your reasons WHY you want to start a PhD program are important to determining what program is right for you and how you distribute your time once you are in your program! Do you want to teach? Is research your priority? Are you aiming to go back to industry after your time in your program? Do a deep dive into what you want and, if your program can get you there, that’s really all that matters.

My last piece of advice is always to TRUST YOUR GUT and BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF. Be honest with yourself when no one is watching and no one is in your ear telling you what they think you should do. We often have these little voices inside of our heads that are echoing societal pressures, what our families want us to do, what we think others will think of a choice we make. If you can, try and quiet those down and determine what matters to you and only you. There is more to this life than your PhD, and there is more to your life than this career. What matters to you matters - because it’s your life and no one else’s. Maybe that’s just a reminder to myself, but I figure maybe you need to hear it, too 😊

I hope this was helpful! Have any other questions about PhD programs? Let me know in the comments or send me a message - I’d love to hear from you!

How I Set Goals for the New Year as a PhD Student & Academic | Goal Setting in Academia

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Ahh, goal setting. Boy do I have a lot of thoughts about goal setting haha! As much as a I often roll my eyes at its prevalence in the productivity world, goal setting is one of the most research-backed ways of getting things done - especially if you’re setting goals that are specific, measurable and achievable. But what happens when you’re a grad student or an academic and you’re working on projects that take months, if not years (IFYKYK)? Here’s how I like to goal set at the top of the year:

TIPS FOR GOAL SETTING IN ACADEMIA

Some of the challenges for goal setting in academia and in any other profession that require lots of long-term planning are:

1. there is often an overwhelming amount of stuff to do.

2. there are LOTS of demands on your time.

3. it’s often difficult to feel like you’re making progress on long-term projects.

4. goals are often changing or need to be altered to fit changing situations and expectations.

These challenges make goal-setting especially difficult because it’s important to make sure that goals are specific and achievable. When your projects are super long, tedious, and feel like they’re never going to get done, it can be super discouraging (at least for me!). So, my main tips for setting goals in academia is to keep a couple of things in mind:

1. Flexibility: One of the things I find especially challenging about research projects is how they feel like they are never done and are constantly changing/bouncing around. Most of the time you submit a paper, it gets rejected or at least requires a relatively time-consuming revision, so a project that felt like it was “done” was only really done temporarily and gets bounced back onto your to-do list. For me, this means that I have to goal set on a digital platform. As much as I love a written to do list and used to love goal setting in a notebook, nowadays, it’s completely impractical because the deadlines and requirements on my projects change on a regular basis. With my goals on a digital platform, I’m able to update my goals as needed without feeling too stressed by the change 😊

2. Keep your goal setting low pressure: On long-term projects, goals often change and update as the situation changes and it can feel like you’re not making any progress. So when goal setting, I try to focus on keeping my goals low pressure. A common piece of advice is to make sure that your goals are achievable. I find that this is especially important in grad school or academia because we often have such pressure from the industry to publish 1,000 papers. Remember that you’re a human. You can only do so much with your time, and that’s okay.

   We also face a lot of pressure as a society to set all of these lofty goals at the beginning of the year, but it’s worth remembering that you can always update and change your goals - no matter WHAT day of the year it is. As I’m writing this, it’s January 8th and I’m just now starting to set up my goals. It’s okay to take your time thinking about what you really want out of a year - what’s most important to you - and what is most achievable that year.

3. Focus on breaking things down: In order to make these big, long-term goals specific, measurable and achievable, you HAVE to focus on breaking down those big projects! I like to break things down into small pieces that I can tackle by month, week, and day - which I’ll talk more about next!

MY GOAL SETTING BREAKDOWN

Alright, now let’s get down to the actual the nitty gritty about how I actually break down my goals for the year!

(1) Theme of the Year

I like to pick a theme for each year depending on what I feel like I need for that year and what I’ve experienced in the past year. In the beginning of 2020, my theme for the year was being my own advocate because I’d experienced a lot of things in my program that felt like they were out of my control. In 2021, my theme was peace. This year, my theme for the year is to make space - because over the past year, I’ve often felt like I didn’t have enough time for my work, for my social life, or for my own well-being. This year, I want to focus on what I do have time for and realizing that oftentimes, the belief that I don’t have time or space for certain parts of my life is really something I’ve imposed on myself and something I’d like to reframe in my approach to life. I usually put this theme of the year on a post-it note or a letterboard as a constant reminder.

(2) Divvy it up by Personal vs. Work

Next, I usually divide up my goals by personal and work goals. Though at one point I would put all of my goals in the same document, I now prefer to put goals into separate personal and work notes because I have a tendency to overly focus on my work goals and not my personal ones. Having them separated helps me devote time and energy to my personal goals when I choose to set aside time for personal goals without being distracted by all the work I think I should be doing 😛

(3) Categories

After dividing it up by personal and work, I categorize goals into 4-5 broad categories. For my work goals, it usually involves admin, research, teaching, and dissertation. For personal this year, I’ve included categories like blogging, travel, hobbies, and wedding. Within those broad categories I’ll note important dates and big high-level projects within each of those categories (e.g., defend my dissertation, spring semester or book winter trip). I’ll also usually set numeric goals for myself in each category such as hitting a certain number of average pageviews on my website by the end of the year or submitting a certain number of research papers for publication by the end of the year. Though I don’t always hit those numbers, I find it motivating to have numbers in mind as long as they don’t seem too unachievable! 😊

(4) Break it Down by Time Frame.

Finally, I focus on breaking things down by time frame. For me, the important thing about planning for the year is to keep things big picture. I break down my annual goalsetting notes by month so that for each category I know what my goals are for the year, but also how that shakes out for each month. I also typically only shake out the smaller goals for the first 4-5 months and then fill out the rest of the months as the year progresses. For example, I know that this year, I’d like to work on getting 5 research papers under review, so I’ve divvied it up so that I spend January (when I’m on winter break) working on getting 2 papers out and then the rest of the spring semester (when I’m busy with my dissertation) I’ll go at more of a slower speed at 1 per month. That’s the timeline for now, but it can certainly changed based on how the semester shakes out! So, rather than just making one huge list of all the lofty things I want to do during the year, I also try to break it down by month so the plan to get there is more concrete.

So, how do I use these goals in everyday life?

Well, since I like to keep my goals on a digital note (usually on icloud notes), I re-visit them on a weekly basis to figure out what I need to do each week. If I know I need to send in a paper by the end of the month, I’ll delegate a week to cleaning and analyzing the data and pick another week to get the paper written. Even though it might sound a little over the top, I find that going through this methodical process of breaking everything down means I’m less likely to get overwhelmed and not so hard on myself. It also makes me feel more like I’ve achieved something in a career where positive reinforcement is rare 🤣

Welp, I hope this helps you set your own goals for the new year as a grad or phd student! Have any other questions? Leave me a comment - I’d love to hear from you!

The Best Notetaking Apps for Grad Students | My Favorite iPad & Macbook Notetaking Apps

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The most common questions I get on my blog posts are what apps I use as a grad student and specifically, what apps I use for notetaking! Today, I'm happy to share with ya'll my TOP FIVE notetaking apps and how I use each of them in academic and personal life. They each have their own pros and cons and what works for me may not always work for you - so I hope that sharing my experiences will help you determine what app is the best fit for you work style!

First Off - My Tech Setup:

I have a Macbook Pro and iPad Pro that I primarily use for notetaking. The reason I mention this is because it has a huge impact on what notetaking apps I use. I also have an iPhone and an Apple Watch that also work together with my Macbook and iPad so working on platforms that all sync seamlessly between my devices makes my life a lot easier and has a huge impact on what platforms I end up using.

My MacBook Pro Setup

• 13 inch MacBook Pro

• MacBook Pro Hard Case

• Keyboard Cover (best, thinnest keyboard cover ever!)

• Apple Magic Mouse

• Apple Magic Keyboard

My iPad Pro Setup

• 12.9 inch iPad Pro, 256 GB

• Apple Pencil 2

• Apple Pencil case

• Thin case from Amazon

• Keyboard case from Amazon

• Matte screen protector

(1) ONENOTE

OneNote is hands down my top used note-taking app of all time. I've been using OneNote for over ten years and for as long as I've owned an iPad. It's free on the iPad and usually free for most students with Microsoft Office. I love OneNote because it has pretty much any feature you could possibly ask for. Is it a little clunkier than some newer apps? Yes, absolutely - but every time I try to completely switch over to a new notetaking platform, I always end up back on OneNote because it has remained the most consistent and offers the most variety in features.

As a grad student and academic, I use pretty much every feature under the sun on OneNote. I love being able to type, draw, insert voice memos, insert pictures, embed links and videos, and attach entire files to OneNote files. On top of that, OneNote also has a really convenient tool that allows you to share an entire note as a PDF to collaborators. This tool has been so convenient for me because I often think through research projects on OneNote - I'll copy and paste images and tables, draw out models, insert output files and then export that all into one easy document that my collaborators can review rather having to send them 100 files to review. With how many different files and components are necessary in academic life, I find that OneNote is the most powerful when it comes to putting that all together.

I've also found that OneNote tends to be the most reliable platform for how powerful it is. Usually within seconds of adding something on my iPad, I can already see it on my laptop which is a huge help when I'm bouncing between the two devices. Though it's structure may be a little clunkier than some newer notetaking platforms with how high stakes some projects are, OneNote has always served me best in reliability and consistency. If I had to give up every notetaking platform but one, OneNote would be my pick.

Best For: reliability, consistency, and an already organized platform that has pretty much any feature you could possibly want. OneNote is my favorite platform for working on research projects and keeping all project ideas organized and separated. In my experience, it also syncs seamlessly and is the most consistent across devices.

Some Cons: If you're someone who doesn't like a pre-created structure, OneNote may be a struggle for you. It can be a little clunky because there aren't as many keyboard shortcut available to use and you are forced to organize things by notebooks and sections.

(2) ICLOUD NOTES

A close second for notetaking is actually Apple's in-house notes app. The notes app actually also offers the ability to create folders, different text sizes/styles, and different colors. Though it's more limited in what it can offer, the notes app wins by a landslide when it comes to jotting down to do lists and shorter notes. It's an app that I visit every single day for work-related thoughts but also personal notes on what recipes I want to make, books I want to read, or workouts I want to try. Every list I've ever made generally lives on my notes app.

Personally, I use my iCloud notes most for both personal and work-related planning and goal setting. On a monthly and semester long basis, I like having the flexibility to update and check off the goals I set on a simple, easy to use platform. For daily planning, I use my iCloud notes on busier days where I need to check off errands and it's nice to be able to see everything on a smaller screen as I'm running around!

Another huge pro of iCloud notes for me is that syncing is super fast and seamless. Because I use nearly all apple products, that means I can access my tasks and goals on any of my devices which makes my life SO much easier.

Best For: Apple users of course! Also great for planning and organizing tasks and to-do lists because it has such a simple interface and isn't too overwhelming. Free for apple users.

Some Cons: May be somewhat lacking if you are someone who likes to have a lot of different tools for notetaking since it's so simple and to the point.

(3) NOTABILITY

I've talked extensively about Notability because it (along with Goodnotes at number 5 on my list) are two of the most popular apps for taking notes on an iPad - and for good reason! For me, Notability functions as my filing cabinet for books and articles that have A LOT of notes on them (aka when I'm writing a paper on a specific article's theory or if I'm reading the article for a class and need to highlight and take notes on the article pretty extensively). Notability is by far the best, most intuitive tool for PDF annotating because all of the annotation tools are available right at the top, you can flag your favorite pages, and even leave post-it notes.

The way in which you organize files in Notability is also relatively similar to a filing cabinet in which you would store each document separately but in different file folders. This is different than a platform like OneNote where you either attach a PDF file to the note or insert a printout of the pages onto a note. The issue with storing each file individually is that sometimes my notability page can get a bit unruly and it takes up a lot of space - causing slow downs in syncing or no syncing at all when my devices run out of space.

Best For: Annotating and taking notes on existing PDFs! Super, super great if you're a grad student reading 1000000000 pages of articles/books each week and don't want to waste paper printing it all out.

Some Cons: Syncing tends to be slower than comparable platforms. Because files are stored separately, organizing everything can be time consuming and not very intuitive. Paid app on both Mac and iPad so you need to buy both apps in order to sync across them, which can be expensive!

(4) NOTION

Alright y'all - it's time to talk about Notion. Notion is hot, hot, hot in the productivity space and I have some thoughts. I actually do love Notion and am using it as I type this! - But, there are pros and cons to every tool and I think that's exactly how everyone should view Notion - as a tool rather than an all encompassing life management platform.

I'm going to start with the goods. Notions database functions are completely unmatched - seriously. If you need a database that has notes within the database where you can link a million different notes together and create different ways to display that information - you NEED Notion. The two primary ways I use Notion are for planning & writing blog posts and for doing literature reviews when writing research papers. Both of these tasks benefit hugely from having linked databases where I can tag concepts, link notes to other notes, and sort through those notes in multiple different ways.

My biggest gripe though is Notion's instability. If you do a quick reddit or google search on "is Notion down?" you'll find tons of people wondering why they can't access their Notion notes. I've been using Notion for several years now and though I've only experienced Notion being down 4-5 times over that time period, that's 4-5 times more than I've experienced it with any other notetaking app. A huge reason for this is because Notion does not have an offline mode. When other notetaking apps are offline, you can continue to access and work on your notes, though the updates you make on those notes might not sync until you're reconnected. In my experience, when Notion is offline, I either cannot access any of my notes at all OR all of the updates I make on notes while offline are completely wiped as soon as I'm back online.

One time, Notion was down while I was preparing for a big research meeting (of which I was the lead) and as a result, my notes were completely lost and inaccessible to me until several hours after the meeting was over. For me, this is a HUGE dealbreaker in a notetaking app. Prior to this experience, I'd been considering Notion for a majority of my notes but after this experience - I now use it more as a temporary tool for organizing my thoughts rather than a place to store long-term high stakes notes.

Best For: Great for linked databases! In grad school - awesome for organizing and connecting articles/article notes for a literature search.

Some Cons: No offline mode so when Notion is offline, you can't access your notes and any updates you make while you're unknowingly offline might not be saved!

(5) GOODNOTES

Though Goodnotes is #5 on my list, it is by no means least! I use Goodnotes on a daily basis because it serves as my digital planner platform and I absolutely LOVE using it for digital planning. Because of the way Goodnotes is formatted, I find that it's best for use as a digital planner because it allows you to visually see your documents as "notebooks" where you can customize the covers of each notebook. I've found that this has psychologically helped me with the transition from paper to digital planning because it still feels like I'm opening up a notebook to visit the pages of a planner.

Goodnotes definitely rivals Notability when it comes to ability to annotate documents and has many of the same annotation tools. I think both are comparable when it comes to this function. For me personally, I just like to have my planner function and my school article notetaking function separated so I house them in different apps.

Best For: Using as a digital planner or notebook! Also really good for annotating documents and taking notes/highlighting things on a digital textbook or article

Some Cons: Similar to notability, sometimes syncing is a little slow and both the macbook app and iOS iPad app are paid so you have to buy both apps in order for it to sync across devices.

Honorable Mention: EVERNOTE

Although Evernote is a very popular notetaking app, I do not personally use it for notetaking anymore so I didn't include it in the main list - However, it has easily become my favorite app for another reason - as a digital filing cabinet.

Anytime I receive a paper document, I try to digitize it as quickly as possible so that I don't lose it and can find it easily later on. Evernote has an amazing app called Scannable that works seamlessly in tandem with Evernote where you can scan the document and then immediately file it away in Evernote. This also makes it super easy to find anything I've ever scanned because it's already filed away into the correct category and is searchable based on a couple key words. Though it's not directly related to notetaking, I've found this so, so, so useful and it has saved me so much time in the long run that I thought it was worth an honorable mention!

Best For: Digitizing and saving documents!

Some Cons: Once you hit a certain upload amount or a certain device count, evernote is a month to month paid subscription. If you're sticking with the free version like I am, you can only sync 2 devices and usually can only upload 60 MB of content per month.

Whew that was a long one! Long story short though - every notetaking platform has its own pros and cons and I find that it always helps to view each platform as a tool rather than the end-all-be-all-only-app-you'll-ever-use. Not all of them are good for everything and you definitely don't NEED all of these notetaking apps. It's just about finding the tool that you need for your specific notetaking style that will help make your life easier :)

I hope this was helpful! Have any other questions about notetaking, apps, productivity, studying - all of the above? Leave me a comment or send me a message - I'd love to hear from you!