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You will have so many opportunities in grad school as well as life and you need to pick and choose what you do. One of the biggest lessons that I learned in the five years that I have been a graduate student is when to say “no”.

As I said, you will have soooooo many opportunities in graduate school. These will be going to conferences, writing papers, doing extra experiments, taking up part time jobs, and maybe even teaching a class. There are probably way more opportunities for you as well. These are just a few that I was offered.

The main reason you are in grad school is to learn, to become a scholar and researcher. This needs to be your main focus. I have a hard time saying no to many things that cross my path. I have a part-time job even though it may cause me to get behind on many projects. I blog, though blogging is actually extremely helpful and allows me to express myself as well as gain valuable writing experience. So blogging is a good thing that I took up. I have said yes to doing extra papers, more experiments, and even peer reviewing a whole dissertation because I could not say “no”.

Picking the right things to say yes to is almost a skill in itself. We often say yes to too much because we fear missing out on opportunities. This will cause us to take on way too many responsibilities all at once and will eventually lead to burn out. Now if you have not experienced burnout then I envy you. I experienced it pretty badly in undergrad and, for a few months, just getting out of bed was difficult. My grades suffered, my mental health and physical health suffered, and I was tired all of the time. Luckily, I was able to get back into things and continue on, but I can definitely see how people leave college after burn out.

Grad school has too many added stresses which makes this way more common. By taking on too much, you risk burn out a lot sooner.

Saying no to some things will cause your mental health to strengthen, you’ll have more energy, and you will finish on time. I wish I could go back and say “no” more often to my younger self, but if I said no, I probably wouldn’t be here, writing about it, helping others learn what I have learned. I suppose it wasn’t so bad after all, for you, the reader, not me lol. I will definitely learn when to say “yes” and when to say “no”. I am quite certain that my overall health will improve and I believe that I will finish my doctorate on time.

There is always one thing to say yes to, in my opinion, and that is anything that will help you strengthen your mental state. Say yes to therapy. Say yes to exercise. Say yes to eating right. At the same time, say no to those things that will stress you out so much that you burn out. Life is too short to be so stressed out.

I hope you guys have a great night. I will see you in the next blog.