Well, Kellee McGahey doesn’t quite make coffee nervous, but I have absolutely no idea how the woman finds the time to sleep.  Not only is she the Assistant Director of the Lowcountry Graduate Center, but she is a grad student in our Communication program and serves as the Chair of the Charleston Young Professionals.  If you’re at a Chamber meeting, an AMA meeting or any other meeting, don’t be surprised if you see her there.

Kellee recently opened up about balancing work, life and graduate school in Smart Family magazine.  You can find her two-page spread starting on page 74, including three reasons why you should go back to school.  Other women featured include Shari Bouis, Principal at Cario Middle School; Heather Woolwine, Media Relations Director for MUSC; and Lisa Wade, Social Work Case Manager for the Ryan White HIV Care program.

Balance is a delicate thing, but something you can certainly achieve when you’re a grad student.  Take the time to talk with friends and family that have received their degree, or are in the middle of their program.  See what works best for them.  Also, use social media to your advantage.  There are so many groups out there dedicated to helping graduate students like GradShare, LinkedIn, and Mom it Forward.  If you’re stuck, you can always talk with your program director.  S/he might know of a student in a similar situation, or might even have similar experience of his/her own.

Related links:
Rantings of a Thesis Writer
A comic for your Monday
One working professional’s path to a master’s degree

*The first person to email me with what 1998 movie that quote is from will receive a free GRE or GMAT book.

From www.classesandcareers.com

While expanding our social network, we’ve come across a new website exclusively for graduate student networking and information sharing.  GradShare is a platform that allows graduate students to ask and answers questions related to research, teaching and career development.

I spent a little bit of time on GradShare this morning, and explored the questions regarding Work-Life Balance.  A lot of working professionals have this concern when considering graduate school, and there were some really helpful responses online:

• Set aside two days as exclusive family time. This will make the family a bit more understanding and flexible when you have work engagements.
• Hire a cleaning service to come once every two weeks.
• Sign up for a prepared frozen dinner service.
• Make a schedule with your spouse regarding who can work late on which nights.
• Get up early and start work sooner. This way, you can get out early and spend more time with family before bedtime.

Getting your master’s degree is a big commitment, but it’s incredibly rewarding.  It’s also quickly becoming a requirement for many jobs.  According to the Council of Graduate Schools, “the number of occupations that typically require a master’s degree will increase by nearly 20% between 2006 and 2016.”  And with the current state of the economy, “the unemployment rate for those with a master’s degree as their highest degree was just 1.8%, compared with 2.2% for those with only a bachelor’s degree.”

Convinced yet?

If you need more convincing, then we have a new program just for you.  It’s called the One Course Initiative.  We are offering 50 application fee waivers on a first-come, first-serve basis and access to 12 hours of free GRE study preparation.  You can take one graduate-level course as a non-degree student, study for your GRE, and earn credit towards your graduate-level certificate or master’s degree.

There is a lot of support out there if you are interested in graduate school.  Let us help.  Or, if you have a good tip, share it.

Follow the Graduate School, the Dean, and the Director of Admissions

Today has been full of responding to emails and updating our social networking page.  We have always had a Twitter account (GradSchool), but we added two more accounts today.  You can now follow our Dean, Amy Thompson McCandless (TheGradDean) and our Director of Admissions, Susan Hallatt (shallatt).

Now that we conquered a little more of the virtual world, it’s time to get back to something bigger.  Like a new website!  You can get a taste of what the new site will look like here.

Our Dean returned this weekend from Washington, D.C. for her annual Council of Graduate Schools conference.  As always, she has goodies to share like the new GradShare beta site.

GradShare is a networking site designed to unite graduate students of all disciplines.  Topics and subtopics are filtered according to users’ disciplines (Arts, Business, Education, Engineering, and Life, Physical and Social Sciences.)  Questions range from, “Do you know car insurance companies who honor driving experience gained abroad?“, to “I’m having a hard time keeping myself motivated to keep my Dissertation moving. How can I stay motivated?!”, to “What should be goals in attending/participating at a conference?”.

Networking sites for graduate students are steadily increasing, including some that I included in a September post.  Have you found any networking site that’s worth mentioning?

Another resource for those in the humanities, education and social sciences is the wrk4us listserv.  This international email listserv is geared towards those who are interested in exploring careers outside academia.

Are you a member of either the Graduate Junction community or wrk4us listserv?  What are your thoughts?  Or, do you belong to another community or listserv that’s been pretty useful during your graduate experience?