The Summer Before School - Commitments?

[amyvt98]

This is putting the cart waaaay before the horse since I haven't gotten in anywhere yet, but I've been wondering about commitments during the summer before starting a PhD program. Are there other activities prior to mid/late August that I should be thinking about before the semester starts that schools might expect new students to attend? An orientation? Some sort of pre-class assignment or workshop? I'm applying in political science if that helps clarify things.

[Adelaide9216]

Maybe try to publish something (either a newspaper article, or a scientific article) based off your master's thesis ? I am in social work though. I am going to try to do that this summer. 

[PsyDuck90]

There's usually a new student orientation before the fall semester starts. Mine was about 2 weeks before the semester started.

[psykick]

It varies, but I'd say orientation is a pretty standard summer activity. We were required to attend both a one-day departmental one and then the broader graduate school orientation with other programs. There was also a department specific coding bootcamp we had to attend prior to starting our stats sequence, but that was in-house and only a week long. 

Also, don't be too worried if there's radio silence about any commitments until the last couple weeks of July. I had moments of STRESS because I wasn't hearing anything, but it turned out to be better to just soak up the free-ish time since the semester kicked off so quickly. 

[virusologii]

One of the places I just interviewed at said that students living in on-campus apartments start coming mid-July, and the orientation is either the last week of July or the 1st of August. That's a lot earlier than I had expected, I was thinking that graduate school would run on a similar timeline to undergrad. I don't know if that's a general trend or just this specific school, though

[drfigue]

I've been told to take time off stuff - and makes sense. A PhD is more than commitment so I'd recommend doing stuff you probably won't be able to do in your 4-6 years of PhD.

[brightorangesocks]

I haven't heard of anything outside of orientation.  I'm planning to be moving across the country so at this point my summer looks like packing, moving, and getting settled wherever I end up!

[amyvt98]

Thanks, guys - this is really helpful. Wow, mid-July is a lot earlier than I expected. It sounds like once I hear back from schools, I may need to press them on what they have planned in terms of summer schedules. If I end up getting in, I'll be an older student with teenage kids' calendars that are outside my control, so it will help if I can plan ahead.