How to be a poli sci rockstar

[eve2008]

So it's April 15th. We have all (for better or worse) married ourselves to a new institution and a new career, or are resigned to try again next cycle. I was wondering if any of the lurkers here who are already graduate students or faculty could offer some words of wisdom. How do we get the most out of our first two years of coursework, set ourselves up to write a kick-ass dissertation, publish, and (hopefully) land a great job. What are the markings of a great graduate student? How do you stand out among your cohort? And how do you stay (reasonably) happy and balanced through all of that?

[AllFiredUp]

See Melvin & Joan Lane Graduate Fellow Neil Malhotra.

[FuzzyDunlop]

A lot has to come together for somebody to become a full on, Iggy Pop circa 1974 rockstar. But here are a few suggestions that I think are just good practice for anybody:

1. Take methods seriously. You don't have to be a methodologist or be extremely teched up. You don't even necessarily need to know much of anything about formal theory (although that's one route to go down). But definitely build some statistical skills, learn about research design and the idea of causal inference, and cover some basic methodological issues that are often thought of as "qualitative" but really transcend the the qual/quant distinction - like what is a concept, what is a measure, etc. You can do this stuff in classes, in summer institutes, or - with appropriate motivation - on your own.

2. Don't burn bridges or crap needlessly on other peoples' work. Scholarship is hard, and its a lot easier to be a critic than to be a producer. While being critical is obviously fundamental to improving on extant scholarship, keep your focus on what you're doing rather than criticizing others just for its own sake and when you are critical, do it respectfully. That goes not just for conversational interactions but especially when discussing other work in papers.

3. Get empirical as quickly as you can. Don't just write a lit review for that class paper, see if there's a dataset out there that might allow you to shine some light on the problem. Even if the paper you write isn't for publication, its important to start experimenting with the analysis of actual evidence. If you are doing comparative or some IR projects, use a summer after one of your first two years to take a brief trip into the field to poke around a bit.

4. Try to maintain somewhat of an even keel. Its easy to blow things way out of proportion that aren't very important in the big picture. An unsatisfying interaction with an adviser might just be because that person had a ton of other stuff on their mind that day. A class grade lower than you wanted really doesn't matter that much. Understand too that you will probably go through a long series of failed or semi-failed dissertation ideas. The great idea you have one day will sometimes seem stupid three months later. Or you'll come up with an idea only to realize later that somebody else has already covered that ground. Its a gradual process of slowing working your way towards an interesting, original, and tractable problem to explore. Really good dissertation topics don't just fall from the sky.

5. Work hard.

[ontrack]

I don't know about rockstardom, but to be at least moderately successful I'd offer the following:

1. Don't let coursework get in the way of your professional engagement and networking. The most successful grad students in my program were ones who made attendance at department events (guest speakers, job talks, chair-grad students meetings, etc.) and participation in professional activities a priority; the ones who were always "too busy with work for classes" (or worse -- TAing) generally haven't gone too far.

2. Attend conferences early and often. Ideally, go to one or two of the big ones (especially APSA) to observe what goes on as soon as you can, well before you're ready to start presenting. Pay out of pocket if you have to -- "I never went to conferences because my department didn't fund grad student travel" isn't going to impress a search committee.

3. Don't be obnoxious. You never know who can help or hurt your career down the line.

4. Learn how and when to say no.

5. Don't expect professors to "hold your hand" through the PhD and professionalization processes -- it's up to you to figure out when you need and ask for help, advice, and favors.

6. Never, ever piss off the department secretaries.