“Doing” Grad School: Promoting Possibility and Thriving for Grad Students
“I don’t know what I’m doing….this is really different from college, and a whole lot harder.” - 1st year MA student, 2024
“When I finished my required coursework, I did a dance of joy. But then I realized now it’s up to me to figure out what to do each day and how to make consistent progress. How do I learn how to do that?” - 3rd year PhD student, 2020
“Is thriving in grad school even possible?” - 5th year PhD student, 2021
Given the significant commitment of time, energy, and money necessary to pursue a graduate degree, persistently high rates of program attrition1,2, and pervasive mental health challenges among grad students3,4, it might appear that “well-being” and graduate education are mutually exclusive. But what if this isn’t necessarily the case?
Join educators and entrepreneurs Dr. Laura Murray and Dr. Kate Thorpe on February 14th to engage in an interactive conversation about the current state of graduate education, why a focus on student well-being in this domain is essential, and how institutions might more effectively promote flourishing for grad students. Laura and Kate will share key lessons learned from seven years of work developing evidence-based and theoretically informed programs to help grad students transition to and through their programs successfully while foregrounding well-being. Ultimately, they propose that learning how to "do" graduate school - both within and beyond classrooms and labs - should be an explicit and ongoing part of graduate education, ending with recommendations for ways to do this across campuses.
References
1 Denning, J. T & Turner, L. J. (2024). The Graduation Part I: Graduate School Graduate Rates. Working Paper 32749. National Bureau of Economic Research. Downloaded from https://www.nber.org/papers/w32749
2 Council of Graduate Schools. (2008). Ph.D. completion and attrition: Analysis of baseline program data from the Ph.D. completion project. Council of Graduate Schools.
3 Evans, T. M., Bira, L., Gastelum, J. B., Weiss, T., & Vanderford, N. L. (2018). Evidence for a mental health crisis in graduate education. Nature Biotechnology, 36(3), 282–284. https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.4089
4 Council of Graduate Schools, & The Jed Foundation (2021). Supporting graduate student mental health and well-being: Evidence-informed recommendations for the graduate community. Council of Graduate Schools.
BIOS
Laura C. Murray, PhD
A life-long learner, educator and psychologist, Laura has worked at the intersections of emerging adult development, well-being, and teaching and learning in higher ed. for over 15 years. After founding and leading an award-winning program to support all graduate students at Princeton University to learn and thrive, Laura recently co-founded a new venture, GradTLC, with Kate Thorpe to support grad students around the globe. Laura’s scholarly and applied work explores the potential of colleges and universities to promote well-being for emerging adults; evidence-based and inclusive mentoring as a tool to transform graduate education; and transitions to and through higher ed. for under-represented learners, especially students with dis/abilities and/or who are neurodivergent.
Laura holds a B.A. from Vassar College, an M.A. in Communication from Stanford University, and an M.S Ed. and Ph.D. in Human Development from PENN GSE. She has taught undergraduate and graduate students at Stanford University, Mount Saint Mary's College in Los Angeles, the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University.
email: lmurray@gradtlc.org
Kate Thorpe, PhD
A passionate and seasoned teacher, writer, and literary scholar, Kate has over a decade of experience teaching and working in higher ed. Most recently, she was an Instructional Designer at the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton and - later - an educational developer and consultant for Princeton’s Office of the Dean of the College. She has worked closely with Laura over five years to support graduate student learning and thriving at Princeton and beyond.
Kate holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University. She is a former Fulbright scholar and published poet, and has taught at the University of Iowa, Wesleyan University, the Technical University of Dortmund (Germany), Mercer County Community College, and Princeton.
email: kthorpe@gradtlc.org