Starting Fresh: Advice for New Graduate Students

Written by: Gabriella LoBue, MS Business Analytics, 2019

Just over four months ago I left Ithaca College for the first time as an alum. Though I walked across the stage and accepted my diploma, I was not ready to say goodbye to my home away from home. However, life notoriously goes on whether you are prepared or not. I arrived at Hofstra University only weeks ago with the expectation that it would never be able to replace Ithaca. And so far I’ve been right -- it’s different, it’s unfamiliar and it’s a step in the right direction.

Perhaps the biggest difference I’ve noticed are my classmates. Rather than the entire class being comprised of inexperienced twenty-something year-olds from the tri state area, I am sitting among people from all walks of life. In a single class, we have international students from China, Russia and India. There are other full time graduate students like me, but there are also working professionals who have their standard nine to five jobs. Some of us are fresh out of undergrad, while others have a decade or more of professional experience under their belts. It can feel intimidating, but once you realize that a classroom’s number one purpose is to learn, you start to feel at ease. The mix of perspectives and backgrounds can make for an incredibly rich environment for discourse, creating and sharing ideas.

Graduate classes themselves are also intensive and detailed, even more so than undergraduate. They typically only meet once a week, which means it’s on you to regularly review the material to keep it fresh in your mind. They can be less structured, which forces you to manage your time and workload independently rather than expecting the professor to delegate what needs to be done when. It is, however, entirely manageable. Navigating graduate school is simply a matter of finding your flow in a new environment, and making it work for you.

I was also fortunate enough to secure a job on campus as a Graduate Assistant for Graduate Business Career Services. With this, I am constantly surrounded by advice and tips for networking, interviewing and job searching, which isn’t a bad thing to have present in your subconscious. For example, with the upcoming Fall Career Fair I’ve already started memorizing essential preparation tips. First and foremost, research the companies beforehand so you know who you want to talk to and why. Make sure you have copies of your resume to share when you network and have a pitch ready to show people who you are, what you can do and what you want. Always follow-up with those you connected with to thank them for their time and to stand out among the various other students they spoke with. These are just some of the tips that will prepare you for a great career fair experience.

Though I’ve only been here for less than a month, from what I can tell, “success” in grad school can often be found in proactivity. Rather than passively waiting for someone to tell you what to do, initiate yourself! Instead of expecting an opportunity to fall into your lap, make your own! Whether it’s for a class or an internship or a side project, self-starting is the key. Not coincidentally, it’s also the key to “real world” success, or so I’ve been told. Make that connection, learn a new software on your own, grab a team and identify a problem to solve. These are all opportunities that can open doors down the road, and you’ll be happy you did.

The most important thing to remember if you’re a new graduate student is to not compare it to your alma mater. Whether or not those last four years are something you look back fondly upon, you have to approach graduate school as a new beast. There will be new challenges, new opportunities and new memories to make, all independent of your undergraduate experience. To embrace them for what they are, nothing more and nothing less, is one of the best things you can do to ease the transition.