The chemistry graduate school experience

Abstract

Graduate school. For those who have been through the experience, those two words can conjure up a roller coaster of memories and emotions. Because graduate school is such a unique and defining experience, we wanted to trace the journey from beginning to end. In the next five stories, we tackle the major milestones: deciding whether to go to graduate school, choosing a research program and adviser, navigating the ups and downs of the experience, coping with unanticipated changes, and finally, preparing for life after grad school ends. But really, who better to describe the experience than graduate students themselves? So in the second part of this package, we invited graduate students to give us a glimpse of the issues they have faced. They shared tales of battling impostor syndrome, confronting sexual harassment, pondering a future in chemistry with an undocumented status, and much more. Lego Grad Student injects a dose