What Grad School Doesn't Teach You

I once took a class that was an intro to the field for English. It was a foundational class for me. We had to join a list-serv, analyze conversations in the field, create an abstract for a conference, then a paper. This was 10 years ago now, but it became the class I measured other grad classes against.

If I was going to create an Intro to English Studies class now, or any graduate class, I would aim to fill some of the gaps I see in what grad students are taught:

• Join the lis-servs in your field
• This is a great way to learn the people in your field (for good and ill) and conversations in the field
• Join Twitter
• Does the same thing but more up to date, skews younger
• Assignments would include:
• Abstract for a conference that you'd submit
• Conference paper you'd present to class 
• Turning conference paper into a journal article, submitting it
• I'd work with you on it until it was accepted
• Students should also take a class on cultural responsiveness that teaches them how to be anti-racist in practice and research as well as how to best serve their students. These approaches should also be built into content classes.

Other things that grad school doesn't teach you, and really should, in a class you take the semester you graduate:

• How to write a book proposal
• How to submit it, shop it around
• Key ways to approach your first monograph
• How it differs from diss
• How to use/read reviewer notes
• Differences/choices between monographs, edited collections, articles, how to prioritize them

Also, as part of a job market prep class that should be the semester before students go on the market:

• The economics of a university/college job
• Awareness
• Also, how engagement and enrollment is key, and how you'll be expected to contribute
• How higher ed has changed especially the last few decades and what this practically means for you as a professor
• Differences in fit
•  R1, SLAC, CC, HBCUs
• What this life really looks like, expectations, tenure, lecturer, precarious
• What you can and cannot negotiate

Somewhere in the first year, maybe as part of the Intro to the Field course, grad students should be introduced to the idea of service, presented with options of the kinds of service they could do, opportunities in the department, and uni. In general, grad students do very little that we'd consider service, yet every job interview will ask you what service you'll do at the department and college level. 

These are all pretty easy moves, changes, that grad programs could make and would make a huge difference.

In addition to all of this, I think all programs need to post up to date data on percentage of students who finish/graduate, what they do after graduation, how long those moves take them, and partnerships department/uni has with alt-ac places. Students need to be aware of just how horrible the market is before they take on tens of thousands of debt. I'm still in disbelief that at a dinner a few months ago two grad students graduating in May, were totally and completely unaware of the numbers and reality of the job market. This is a systematic failure.