By Jane R. Elgass
“Lighten up and learn to enjoy this place.”
“Inject a a bit of adventure in what you do.”
“The feelings of anxiety that you have are those you should have at the beginning of a new phase of your life.”
“Take some risks.”
“Let yourself learn about all the ways your graduate career can serve you.”
Participation in conversations about diversity “is an opportunity you can ill afford to waste.”
Those are among the words of wisdom that were shared with some of the University’s 2,000 new graduate students last week at their convocation in Hill Auditorium.
They also were warned by Graduate School Dean John H. D’Arms that “the faculty will treat you as committed professionals. They won’t remember that many of you just graduated three months ago or are returning from a life outside the academic world. … You may feel uncertain, like leftover undergrads.”
D’Arms reminded the students that they have been well educated and prepared and carefully selected from among 16,000 applicants. “This is a great University with a distinguished faculty that is attracted by the prospect of working with graduate students of high quality,” he said.
He also told them that they are embarking on a new phase of their life in which research and education come together, an environment in which they will take risks, build things on their own, go in new directions.
“You face a number of unpredicted futures, and can prepare yourself best by being adventurous in your work. Become familiar with the alien and alienate the familiar,” he urged.
Patricia Y. Gurin, chair of the Department of Psychology and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, briefed the students on what they might expect during their studies here:
—“Discipline matters enormously in how you experience graduate life.” In some disciplines, especially the sciences, research is more critical than life in class. The reverse is often true in the humanities.
—Research varies widely across disciplines, from the image of the solitary scholar to large-scale collaborative endeavors.
—“You will have a lot of learning of technique, of how to do,” and will shift from problem formulation to identifying issues to study.
—“You will experience the emergence of enormous independence and originality that goes on throughout your career if you choose to be an academic.”
—“You have a lot to learn from your mentors. Be demanding of their time, of their excitement.”
Gurin also noted that one of the won
