What kind of person succeeds in grad school?

Teresa Rothrock: I am glad I was not aware of the completion statistics while I was working on my degrees! Besides naivete J, from my experience and my awareness, here are the qualities I see as most useful during grad school: tenacity, resourcefulness, intelligence-mixed-with-creative-thinking, self-reliance, and enough social and political awareness to navigate the program in which one works.

I will add that I call myself the second-chance candidate. On all of my degrees, which I accomplished while working full time and raising a family in a town at least ½ to 1 hour’s commute away, I started a program, had to stop for a semester or more, and then returned to finish. It required discipline and an advanced knowledge of the system. I joke that my minor is in bureaucracy!

Jennifer McMahon: Self-starters make it in graduate school. People in graduate school love their discipline. That’s why they are there. The students that make it though are self-motivated and can work independently. Generally speaking, graduate faculty are not going to hold your hand. They aren’t going to send emails reminding you that assignments are due. Graduate school is not grade school. Faculty are not there to inspire or cajole you into doing your work. If you have trouble getting into your classes or getting your work done at the undergraduate level, the forecast is not good for graduate school. If you love your discipline, graduate school is awesome. You are with a bunch of other people who love learning as much as you do and are as excited about talking about your discipline as you are. Malaise and boredom with academia are the exception in graduate school, not the rule.

Steve Benton: According to a study published in December 2007, only about 52% of those admitted to Ph.D. programs in English end up graduating within ten years. Having a healthy working relationship with a dissertation advisor who is focused on helping you finish is crucial. It can also help to have other strong faculty advocates in the program, so I recommend cultivating those relationships as soon as you get in. Show your professors that you take your work—and their work—seriously and that you are a reliable, diligent student. It is also a good idea to keep the end game in mind. Think about how each class you take might contribute to your dissertation or your portfolio and think about what you are doing to make yourself attractive for the job market that awaits you.

Josh Grasso: You have to have passion and be willing to work hard. I've known brilliant people who never finished their MA or PhD, and the reason was simple: they couldn't do the work. You have to motivate yourself to do the reading, write the papers, and be willing to go the extra mile. In graduate school, everything you do benefits you on your comprehensive exam or dissertation, so NOTHING is wasted. The less time and energy you put into a graduate degree, the less likely you can cross the finish line. If you don't absolutely LOVE the idea of studying, don't do it. Graduate school is honestly all about studying and learning. I think that's cool, personally. But if you don't, no big deal, just do something else you do love.