Graduate Study in the USA: Surviving and Succeeding

The premise of this book is simple: if the chapter writers could go back in time and talk with themselves when they began their studies, what advice would they give? Isn’t hindsight a bonus? Each chapter offers this hindsight. The chapters are not personal stories, but useful lessons learned through experience. These lessons are offered to aspiring and current graduate students to help their studies be successful. Chapters contain contributions from a range of academics and academic-practitioners, from those getting established in their careers to those that are more novice and emergent. Contributors include scholars from many universities throughout the United States, and they cover essential aspects of graduate study, such as writing and publishing, relationships with supervisors, utilizing rejection and critique, and becoming a researcher. Contributors write of studying for higher degrees and coping with family, illness, disability, and distance. Culture is bridged between Hispanic scholars and their colleagues in mainstream academia, and international students offer advice to those wanting to study at an American university. This book provides indispensable advice that every graduate student can utilize and follows on from the initial, successful publication of Postgraduate Study in Aotearoa New Zealand: Surviving and Succeeding (2014). The US edition is part of an international ‘survive and succeed’ series also being produced in Australia, the UK, and South Africa.

Christopher McMaster (PhD, University of Canterbury) has taught for over 15 years as a regular and special educator in the United Kingdom, United States, Nicaragua, and New Zealand. He is currently Assistant Professor of Education at Augsburg College, Minneapolis. He co-edited and contributed to Postgraduate Study in Aotearoa New Zealand: Surviving and Succeeding (2014) and is currently lead editor for the Survive and Succeed series in the UK, US, Australia, and South Africa. He has recently published his first solo authored book through Peter Lang, Educating All: Developing Inclusive School Cultures From Within (2015).
Caterina Murphy (PhD, Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi) is an experienced book developer, presenter, and academic writer and has partnered with Chris McMaster across the global Surviving and Succeeding series. She has worked in the education sector for 29 years, and held senior roles in tertiary education since 1999. Her professional and research interests include early years education, teaching practice, mentoring, qualitative research, gifted education, anthropology, and oral history methodology. She actively mentors adolescents, undergraduates, and postgraduates in Aotearoa New Zealand and freelances her academic leadership services through AcademicExpressNZ.