Steve Mentz

THE BOOKFISH

THALASSOLOGY, SHAKESPEARE, AND SWIMMING

  • Home
  • Steve Mentz
  • Humanities Commons
  • Public Writing
  • The sea! the sea!
  • The Bookfish
  • St. Johns

Graduate Study for the 21st Century

December 7, 2010 by Steve Mentz 1 Comment

Too late for this year’s syllabus, but perhaps in time for your holiday shopping, I found Gregory Colon Semenza’s wonderful book on how to thrive as a grad student in these difficult times.   It came out in 2005, so before the current economic crisis, but it’s a very useful guide to some of the unspoken rules and norms of the profession, esp in terms of what you need to do when choosing an advisor, writing a seminar paper, going to conferences, and publishing articles.  Not to mention things like teaching and service.  It’s thorough, sane, and full of excellent insider information.

You may find Semenza’s standards high — he advises publishing at least two articles before finishing your doctoral degree, and establishing a daily routine of working at least 10 hours each weekday plus some extra hours on the weekends.  He doesn’t seem to have to work toward rent or food while a grad student, perhaps because he lived in State College, not NYC.  But I strongly recommend it for anyone uncertain about what professional goals grad students should be setting for their academic work.

I would think about assigning this book the next time I teach this class.

Filed Under: E. 110 Fall 2010

Comments

  1. Danielle Lee says

    December 7, 2010 at 4:54 pm

    I think I have seen this book or ones like it mentioned on GradCafe.com. I think these books are extremely useful. In my case, no one in my social circle pursued academia so I had no one to tap for inside information. All of friends are already established in their careers and had not seriously thought about switching careers at this point in our very old age. I think making books like this part of the course is an excellent idea.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About Steve

Steve Mentz
Professor of English
St. John’s University
Read Bio

Pages

  • Coastal Studies Reading Group
  • Public Writing
  • OCEAN Publicity
  • Audio and Video Recordings
  • Oceanic New York
  • #shax2022 s31: Rethinking the Early Modern Literary Caribbbean
  • #SAA 2020: Watery Thinking
  • Creating Nature: May 2019 at the Folger
  • Published Work
  • #pluralizetheanthropocene

Recent Posts

  • Sailing without Ahab – coming in April 2024!
  • Shax and the Sea / Greenwich ’23!
  • Shakespeare, the Sea, and the Folger
  • #ASLE23: The Blue Humanities Goes to Portlandia
  • Noah’s Arkive by Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in