What I Wish I Had Known

"What I Wish I Had Known"

...Tips for Newcomers from Veteran GSAS Students

Before I came to Harvard I was afraid of what the other students would be like (I thought they would all be much smarter than me), and whether I would fit in and make new friends.
.....I soon found out that most other students had the same fears as me, and that with the help of Dudley House I soon made lots of friends.

Looking back, I think I was both too ambitious and too nervous. I thought to myself that I would do my best by studying really hard. Maybe that is what you think now, and there is nothing wrong in itself. However, it is very important to strike a balance between the academic and the social.

If you are a foreign student whose first language is not English—and especially if you haven't been schooled in English—it is going to take some time even to understand most of what is said in class. What I'm saying is that you should not be frustrated in the first few weeks. Just understand that it takes some time. My English still needs correction after five and a half years, but the good thing is that it improved considerably anyway. Of course, you should use any kind of institutional help that is available, for example, the graduate tutor at the Writing Center, the ESL courses at the Institute of English Language, or the ESL tutors at the Bureau of Study Counsel.

I was afraid of how well I would do in my classes during the first term, so I studied really hard and did well in them. However, that made me a little over-confident and in the spring term I took three difficult courses in fields that I was not familiar with. I had to withdraw from one course after the mid-term exam and my self-esteem plummeted. One thing that you may want to bear in mind is that the second semester may be harder.

I wish I had known that my dissertation advisors are not infallible and that I would be able to find flaws in their work and be able to rely on my own judgement, as I do now. That is, I wish I had known that I would eventually cease to feel inadequate and incompetent as compared to my brilliant professors and fellow graduate students.

The main thing I would have liked to know is that Harvard is a very decentralized institution and that it can be very hard to get information here. It's very important to ask your questions of as many people as possible if you don't understand the answer you're given.

I wish I had known how different graduate school is from undergraduate life. I came here somewhat expecting a continuation of that life both academically and socially. I was in for quite a surprise! I had several expectations which didn't materialize and which sometimes blinded me to the many virtues of graduate student life.

I wish I had known that in Boston, when someone greets you, they say "What's up?", what they actually mean is "How are you?", and that when they ask this question, they do not necessarily stop to wait for your answer.

I wish I had known that I should be more direct, and ask when I did not understand something. I was not used to the expectation from professors in class, that you COULD ask questions whilst the professor was talking. Class participation as part of a course assessment was very foreign to me. I was accustomed to listening, and then only asking questions AFTER class.

I wish I had known that it was perfectly acceptable to challenge the ideas of the professor and fellow students openly in class. In my previous studies, it was more expected that students never question what the professors said or taught.

I wish I had known how important the first week of classes ("shopping week") is and that courses are not always what you expect from their descriptions. It is really important to plan your shopping week—go to as many classes as you have the slightest interest in, so you can make an informed decision. Don't worry about the work that first week, just concentrate on picking the right courses. And don't forget that you can do virtually any course anywhere in the University and even at other Harvard schools and other local universities!

Time management is one of the most important skills to develop in graduate school. You always have as much time as you allow yourself. This applies for social activities as well as for academic ones.

I wish I'd known a simple way to convert Fahrenheit into Celsius. Just start from 30, that's about 0 C, and halve the difference. So if it's 50 F, that's 20 above 30. Now halve 20. It's about 10C, so wear a jacket! There'll be a couple of 100F days during the summer (that's 70 above 30...halve it... 35C...shorts)...and a couple of perfect months in the spring and the fall...you'll learn to love the sound of 70...!