September 2021
My first niche in my graduate studies journey. Many more to hopefully come.
I consider myself very lucky that I managed to find a program with faculty so welcoming and understanding of just how absolutely abnormal it is to start graduate studies; no matter what stage of your life, coming into graduate studies is like nothing else. Sure, I worked around graduate students in my previous institution so I figured I had the gist of what I had signed up for, but experiencing it is a whole other story.
Besides all the typical things that are expected to overwhelm us in the beginning of any transition, the sheer size of this institution was alienating for me when I first arrived in College Station. Texas A&M is gigantic, and I came from a large public institution (or so I thought); there was comfort in finding my niche within my program – all eight of us first-years taking classes together, experiencing A&M and College Station for the first time together – and I’m still trying to wade the waters to find my other niches in this new life.
From what little I’ve experienced here so far, the biggest takeaway I have is to find your niche, be it with your program, an extracurricular, or anything really. It will help you. The niches I’m beginning to form are adjusting me to this new life I’ve set for myself. I entered knowing I was accepting to move from the East Coast to the middle of the country – much more south than anywhere I’ve lived – to a college I knew nothing about and a program that could tangentially relate to my interests, but one that almost everyone in my undergraduate major had steered clear from in favor of human microbes (plant diseases are just as important to humans; see Interstellar if you don’t believe me, but I digress). With all that newness and abnormality, I am finding my way and my place, even if it’s different from who I was at my previous institution, and so too will you.
I may be a more drastic example, but even if you’re a tried-and-true Texan who went to A&M before opting to stay here for your graduate studies, you still will have new experiences here, new expectations, and this place that is home to you may feel abnormal. This should hopefully excite you because you get to join the rest of us in the newness, and maybe get to see A&M or yourself in a completely different light.
The cool thing about starting new is that you can completely start new. Graduate studies are a new start no matter who you are. Sure, it’s new for our degrees, new for the people we meet, and where we live, but it can also be new for who we are and want to become. It will feel abnormal trying something out for the first time, going back to something you long forgot about, and maybe you'll even think we’re too old and set in our ways by now. But right now, everything is new and abnormal, so why not find out what your niches truly are? You might find comfort in the most surprising places.
– Cara Deromedi
Cara is a doctoral student in the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology
I consider myself very lucky that I managed to find a program with faculty so welcoming and understanding of just how absolutely abnormal it is to start graduate studies; no matter what stage of your life, coming into graduate studies is like nothing else. Sure, I worked around graduate students in my previous institution so I figured I had the gist of what I had signed up for, but experiencing it is a whole other story.
Besides all the typical things that are expected to overwhelm us in the beginning of any transition, the sheer size of this institution was alienating for me when I first arrived in College Station. Texas A&M is gigantic, and I came from a large public institution (or so I thought); there was comfort in finding my niche within my program – all eight of us first-years taking classes together, experiencing A&M and College Station for the first time together – and I’m still trying to wade the waters to find my other niches in this new life.
From what little I’ve experienced here so far, the biggest takeaway I have is to find your niche, be it with your program, an extracurricular, or anything really. It will help you. The niches I’m beginning to form are adjusting me to this new life I’ve set for myself. I entered knowing I was accepting to move from the East Coast to the middle of the country – much more south than anywhere I’ve lived – to a college I knew nothing about and a program that could tangentially relate to my interests, but one that almost everyone in my undergraduate major had steered clear from in favor of human microbes (plant diseases are just as important to humans; see Interstellar if you don’t believe me, but I digress). With all that newness and abnormality, I am finding my way and my place, even if it’s different from who I was at my previous institution, and so too will you.
I may be a more drastic example, but even if you’re a tried-and-true Texan who went to A&M before opting to stay here for your graduate studies, you still will have new experiences here, new expectations, and this place that is home to you may feel abnormal. This should hopefully excite you because you get to join the rest of us in the newness, and maybe get to see A&M or yourself in a completely different light.
The cool thing about starting new is that you can completely start new. Graduate studies are a new start no matter who you are. Sure, it’s new for our degrees, new for the people we meet, and where we live, but it can also be new for who we are and want to become. It will feel abnormal trying something out for the first time, going back to something you long forgot about, and maybe you'll even think we’re too old and set in our ways by now. But right now, everything is new and abnormal, so why not find out what your niches truly are? You might find comfort in the most surprising places.
– Cara Deromedi
Cara is a doctoral student in the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology