7 Years Later: Surviving Graduate School in Philosophy
Way back in summer 2011, I spent a lot of time browsing the internet for advice on how to succeed in graduate school, and while there was a lot of good advice scattered about the internet, it mostly existed in only small chunks. Moreover, some bits of advice conflicted with others, so it was hard to determine what perspective was correct when no consensus emerged. What I wanted was a single document that offered a comprehensive approach to graduate school in philosophy - something that synthesized all these bits and pieces of information into a digestible whole. But I could never find this elusive guide.
7 Years Later: Surviving Graduate School in Philosophy is my attempt to create the document that I wanted so long ago. While I suspect that I am still months away from completing it, the end is finally in sight. This guide offers a systematic approach to graduate school derived from the many posts I've written on The Philosophers' Cocoon over the last 8 years as well as insights I have gained from others in the profession and resources I've gathered from other corners of the internet. Here is the table of contents:
- Part 1: Preliminaries
- Part 2: The Basics
- Part 3: The 5-Year Plan
- Part 4: Coursework and Other Program Requirements
- Part 5: Research and Writing
- Part 6: Publishing Papers
- Part 7: Academic Conferences
- Part 8: Developing a Professional Presence
- Part 9: Teaching Competently
- Part 10: Teaching Well
- Part 11: The Dissertation
- Part 12: Job Market Preparation
- Part 13: Work-Life Balance
- Part 14: Obstacles to Finishing Graduate School
- Part 15: Leaving Academia
- Part 16: Final Thoughts
- Appendix A: Should You Go to Graduate School in Philosophy
- Appendix B: Applying to Graduate School in Philosophy
When the full guide is complete, it could be up to 60,000 words in length. My hope is that a guide of this length will contain enough information to make graduate students a little bit more knowledgeable about how to approach their studies. I will also be littering the guide with hypertext links to references and sources that offer alternative perspectives on these subjects. Look for this page to be updated with the complete guide sometime in 2021.
