It’s that time of year again – summer days are growing shorter, your friends are trying to fit in one last trip to the beach, and the backpack aisle at Target is about to be cleared out to make way for the Halloween costumes.

Yes, it’s back-to-school time. From toddlers to teenagers, this time of year instills foreboding about the school-year ahead. But as a first-year graduate student, you may have other feelings.

For most, it’s the start of a new adventure. For the first time, you’re pursuing the one subject in the world you love best, surrounded by other equally brilliant and passionate people.

It’s the end of being told what to learn and how to study, and the beginning of blazing your own academic trail.

It IS a new experience – different from your matriculation in high school or college – and it may be difficult to know what to expect.

This week, we lay out a ten-ish step plan for putting your best-foot-forward in that first semester of your graduate journey.

Back to School

We heard from Gary, who is about to start his own journey:

Hello,I really enjoy listening to your podcast. I will be starting grad school in the fall studying geology. Do you have any advice for a person starting grad school and to make the first semester a good one?Thank you,Gary

Gary’s question brought to mind many ideas we wish we had known in OUR first semester of grad school. We also reached out to current and former students on Twitter to hear their ideas.

Here are the Top 10 themes we heard:

1. Try new things

You’ll have plenty of novelty if you move to a new town and meet a completely new set of people, but don’t stop there. Take this transition period to try out new types of science in fields that you may not have studied before.

2. Get organized

Many listeners recommended getting a calendar, and filling it with discrete tasks you can check off when you’re done.

It will both keep your project on track, and let you visualize the progress you make each day.

3. Read more

You’ll be tempted to spend your first days and weeks running experiments and generating data. After all – these rotations are short!

But make an effort to spend time in the literature. Deeply understand the project you’re working on, and the foundational research that led to it. There’s no other time in your graduate training where building this foundation will be more likely, or more valuable.

4. Ask for help

You’re in graduate school for training. You don’t need to pretend you know everything, and you wouldn’t need to be here if you did!

Just like spending time reading the literature, asking for help early pays dividends over semesters and years.

5. Combat imposter syndrome

At some point in your graduate career, you will feel that everyone else is smarter, more skilled, and better equipped than you are to succeed in the lab. You’ll feel a knot in your chest when you wonder how you managed to fool everyone into thinking you were ready for this, and you’ll wish you could sneak out the back and avoid the embarrassment of being identified as a fraud.

That feeling is called imposter syndrome,