If your graduate program requires you to move, you may find yourself in an entirely new city or state at the same time you are on the precipice of the scholastic unknown. The easiest cure for this relocation shock is to move to your new city as early as possible. One consideration is to spend the summer before you begin school in your new location. This may seem radical, but if you consider that an average Ph.D. can takes five years, three months getting to know the town isn't a long investment. Consider your status as a town newbie when you select housing. Living with other graduate students might be a great way to avoid isolation. Contact the graduate administrators at your future academic department for apartment ideas. They are there to help new students settle in and have plenty of information about local resources. Finally, attend any and all graduate student functions offered by the university, local bars or your classmates. These can range from graduate student bar night to faculty luncheons. Being a part of the academic action will make you feel like you belong, which of course, you do.
The first warning about graduate school you are sure to hear is to mind the work load. Graduate students, especially advanced doctoral students, are notoriously buried under overwhelming amounts of reading and writing. Above and beyond your first few years of coursework, you'll also be expected to apply for academic grants and fellowships. And you're expected to get them. This simply means that sometimes you will have a seemingly impossible amount to do. As you slowly learn to stay organized and prioritize your many important tasks, you can certainly juggle all the facets of graduate work.
The graduate work load, as well as the long duration of most doctoral programs, means it's easy for your schooling to take over your life. If you allow yourself to become consumed with school, which, with so much work to offer, could take up 24 hours of your day, your personal life will certainly suffer. Don't forget that your professors, even as they tell you war stories about all-nighters at Princeton in 1972, still went to the occasional party or two. Pay attention to how much time you spend working and not playing, and you'll have an easier time walking the tightrope of the work and life balance.
Most often, graduate students pay off their tuition and make a small salary by working as either course graders or teaching assistants (TA). You may feel a lot of pressure to get mass amounts of grading done early or be petrified of lecturing in front of 100 students, but both of those issues are surmountable and neither is nearly as important as your own school work. Don't ever allow your schoolwork to suffer because of your grading duties. This is a must and a surefire way to alleviate the stress from many hours spent working as a teacher-in-training. Of course, the bitter aftertaste is your salary will likely be below the poverty line. Lots of work for little pay? Sure. On the other hand, you're technically getting paid to go to school for something you love. Remembering this makes grading that 100th exam a little easier, doesn't it?
The academic job market for Ph.D.s is always in a state of flux. After a boom of professorial hires in the 1970s, job opportunities for future professors have severely dwindled. Some estimates put the numbers at 1,000 doctoral students per open academic position. Unfortunately, since the 1970s, the number of doctorates has increased too -- more Ph.D.s, but fewer jobs. Luckily, Ph.D.s are qualified for many jobs outside of academia that require specialists. From the publishing industry to museums, other markets hold hidden treasures for unemployed PhDs.
Whatever you do, don't succumb to dreaded dissertation inertia. This is when the doctoral student enters a permanent state of dissertation writing with seemingly no end in sight. They may spend 10 years on their dissertation without producing a single good draft. Don't let this happen to you. If you have entered the dissertation writing stage in which you have complete freedom over your time and are tempted to avoid your dissertation, call a friend or an adviser and get yourself a good old-fashioned pep talk. The best lesson for doctoral students may be to get in, get out and get on with it.