Individuals who are thinking graduate school are often overwhelmed with the “what will happen after I get my graduate degree?” question. The answer can often be found by utilizing the resources readily available.

Tennessee Tech University’s Center for Career Development could be considered a “one stop shop” for those graduate students seeking a new career and for those who are simply hoping to move up the career ladder in their current careers, all at no cost.  

They offer help with resumes, either updating a current resume or starting from scratch and creating a new resume. Professionals in that office know the latest trends and the skill sets that employers currently place high emphasis on. They can offer advice on showcasing those skill sets and creating a professional resume will stand out in any competitive market. 

The center also offers the program Handshake. This program is Tech’s “part-time, co-op, internship, fellowship and full-time job gateway for students in all majors.” Handshake offers self-help items to assist with activating, setting up an account, and engaging with employers for the first time. In Handshake one can build your profile from a resume, request appointments, learn how to make a profile public to employers and even create and save job searches.  

Career fairs are another great career resource for graduate students, and are not, as commonly perceived, only for undergrads. The center hosts various events during both the fall and spring semester. This is an excellent resource, and the list of employers who will be attending the various career fairs ahead of time are posted on the center’s website. This will allow one to plan, research potential employers and their job openings to attend the fair with well-prepared confidence and create that all important first impression. 

As most graduate classes are online, and the student may not be in the same city as the university, having the list of employers attending the fairs posted in advance is extremely advantageous. This allows time to prepare and make any arrangements, either travel or work related, possible. 

A career resource that is also readily available to graduate students is the professors in their courses and their fellow graduate students.

This was something that Natalie Robbins, who is obtaining her Professional Science master’s degree with a concentration in environmental informatics, learned while in the program. 

“One thing about the professional science master’s program that I don’t think is highlighted enough is how much everyone in the program cares about making sure you succeed,” Robbins said. “I never felt like I was on my own or had to just figure it out, even post-graduation. Everyone in the program is invested in making sure the graduates are able to find a job in their wheelhouse and the program has created a great network of post-grads looking to help each other succeed, as well.”

Individuals can also utilize LinkedIn for networking and job searches. LinkedIn is the “world’s largest professional network on the internet.” LinkedIn can be used to find the “right” job or internship, build business connections and enhance professional relationships.  It also offers opportunities to learn or improve the skills one needs to succeed in their career. 

The future after graduate school does not have to be scary or intimidating. For those  thinking of attending graduate school and obtaining that dream job, utilizing the career resources available can help make obtaining that goal a reality. 

The current availability of online classes has changed the face of higher education and the rewards and benefits are multifold, and it has never been easier or more convenient to attend graduate school. However, for those considering it, some may fear that ‘connecting’ with their peers in this scenario could be a struggle.  

This does not have to be the case; the availability of connections is there for all to utilize. Those connections can be valuable resources, either academically, professionally, socially, for moral support, or simply to vent when it is not a good day. 

As you consider graduate school, keep in mind all the opportunities that are now available to make connections that otherwise would not be accessible. 

One connection that will be available to all graduate students: the professor teaching the course. Professors are such a simple and easy connection to take advantage of. Professors and instructors are there to help, and they will if asked. They were all once graduate students themselves, so they have been in your shoes. They will answer emails, and some will even give out their cell phone numbers so students can connect with them and ask questions.

Alexis MacAllister, who is obtaining her Master of Professional Studies in project management at Tennessee Tech University, found that reaching out to her professors was easy. She credits them with playing a significant role in her educational journey. 

“I am very satisfied with my experience in the master’s program and would not change anything about it. The professors were excellent and understanding of the fact that many of us have busy lives, and they always encouraged us to ask questions when we needed clarification,” MacAllister said. “I appreciated their support and guidance throughout the program, and I feel that their efforts contributed greatly to my success in the program.”

MacAllister also credits her co-workers as being part of her success. She credited Sydney Beaver, Amanda Powell and the iCube office at Tech with supporting her through this process, encouraging her to not give up, and “being proud of her accomplishments.”

A professor may also assign group work, which can be a great opportunity to connect. Group work allows students to work on a team and can showcase strengths and minimize weaknesses. It can also become a support group, as everyone gets to know each other better through a shared goal. 

Emily Kuper, who is obtaining her Master of Accountancy degree at Tech, realized this, to her surprise. 

“I think my best experience in the graduate program has been, shockingly enough, group work. The MAcc splits you up into little mini-cohorts, and we stay in contact even when we don’t have an assignment actively due,” Kuper said “They have been a lifeline when working through a mostly online program.”

Many online classes require students to share an introduction post, another opportunity to make lots of connections in one place.  Reading those posts has lots of benefits, one being an automatic feeling of connection to someone as you read about them. Classmates are no longer strangers.

Through these posts you will find things that you have in common, be it career, the stage in your educational journey (i.e., what semester someone is in, or when they plan to graduate), background, children, hobbies, or pets.

Everyone should have access to the names and emails of their classmates when in graduate school through their online learning environment, or iLearn. Those can also be used as a resource! Students can email classmates with questions about assignments, suggestions, or just to ‘touch base.” If one person has a question about an assignment, the odds are that others do also.

The connections are there, one only needs to take advantage of them. One important thing to remember when thinking about obtaining a graduate degree, with many or most classes being online, is that you will not be alone. Other people will be navigating the same path, with the same questions, insecurities, and struggles. Reaching out and making use of connections that are available and can help ease the journey.    

What connections do you think would be invaluable when obtaining a graduate degree?

Balancing graduate school, home life, and work life can be hard. Webster tells us that balance as a transitive verb means “to bring into harmony or proportion.” What this means to individual graduate students depends on where they are in their lives.  

One type of graduate student is those who graduate with their undergraduate degree and immediately start graduate school. Another type is the graduate student who has been out of school for a while, like years, in some cases many years. This type may seem to “have more on their plate,” so to speak. They may have established careers, families, mortgages and maybe even a dog. One isn’t “better” than the other, they just may look at things differently.

The first type of graduate students may have jobs at the university, as graduate assistants, research assistants, or in some other capacity at the university. One would think that for those types of graduate students balancing life and work may look different. Afterall, they may not have “left” school, but are “continuing” their education. They may be in their early to mid 20’s and still single or newly married, and perhaps have a fur baby or two. 

Alexis MacAllister is this type of graduate student. She first graduated from Tech in 2017 with a degree in communication. Now, she is pursuing her Master of Professional Studies degree with a concentration in project management and will graduate in the summer of 2023. She currently works in the iCube, a grant-funded office on Tech’s campus.

MacAllister said her classes allow her to incorporate real job experience into homework assignments and projects, which she said makes the coursework even more engaging and applicable to her future career goals. It has increased her confidence in her abilities. She has obtained real-world experience as she worked on her master’s degree. 

The online format has been convenient, according to MacAllister, and she is grateful for the opportunity to pursue a degree while still maintaining her professional career.

“I appreciate the flexibility of being able to take my master’s classes online while still working in my current career,” MacAllister said. “This allows me to balance both aspects of my life effectively and chip away at assignments during nights and weekends.” 

At times the process has been challenging, according to MacAllister, but the sense of accomplishment she feels now has made it all worthwhile. 

Mollie Mahan is an example of the other type of graduate student. She is a registered dietitian who first graduated from Tech in 2005. She currently works for the State of Tennessee’s Women, Infants, Children program, but she recently started back to school to get her master’s degree in community health and nutrition. She works full time, has two daughters who have lots of activities, a husband, a home, a ‘normal’ life.  

Why is she getting her master’s degree? Mahan said she hopes to expand her knowledge of programs and evidenced based research of community health risk and programs. This will help her to strengthen her ability to assist with WIC participants. She also hopes to show her daughters that “you can do whatever you set out to do.”  

How does she do it? With the help and support of that husband and her daughters. Her daughters recently helped her film a video in a local grocery store about choosing healthy foods for one of her courses. The girls thought it was “the funnest thing EVER!” Mahan thought it was an opportunity to include her daughters in her life as a graduate student. On that day at least, she had the best of both worlds.  

What’s her secret?  She took to heart a piece of advice given to her by one of her instructors in her program.  

“One of the best pieces of advice came from Dr. Hutson. She told me to utilize all pockets of time that I can. I have found that reading journal articles and completing other small tasks when I have small pockets of time makes assignment completion smoother,” Mahan said.  “While my daughter is at her 30-minute piano lesson, I usually read assigned material and make quick notes on my phone.” 

She also tries to stay ahead of assignment deadlines, that way if someone is sick or something keeps her from assignments, she does not miss deadlines. The online program allows the students to work ahead on most things. 

Tyler Gentry, a graduate student who is pursuing his Master of Science in Nursing Education degree is perhaps a combination of the two. He first graduated in December 2020 from Tech with a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing and is currently in his first semester of graduate school.

Gentry is working two jobs, has a wife and an almost one-year old son.  He currently works full-time at Cookeville Regional Medical Center as a Registered Nurse, and his second job is part-time as the lab specialist at Tech’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing. 

He puts in 65 hours a week, employment wise, and then with school he has his schoolwork, which he spends “anywhere from three to five hours a day.” The work is involved, and it does take a lot of time according to Gentry. 

Time management is always an issue. He said you always want to do the best and just continue doing as much as possible. One must pick and choose what are the most important aspects of life. He said family is important, as well as work and education, and “we provide for our families through education.”

“Working two jobs and going to grad school is a challenge. Everything for the graduate degree is online. So that really lends to my ability to just, on my own time, be able to do things. I’m not really time constrained, which is fantastic,” Gentry said. “I also have a new baby at home, and I do get to spend time with him while doing this, which is really a main drive in choosing Tech’s program, because it is all online. With nursing, clinical hours that are required come later so it gives you time to prepare, so to speak. But it’s been very doable, and I have no regrets.”

The ability to reach out to the instructors and get quick responses is a component of the success of the programs at Tech according to Gentry.

“Tech’s program is fantastic, and the master’s education is very well laid out.” Gentry said. “They make it easy, it’s convenient and affordable, honestly. And everything is on your time, it bodes well for working professionals.”

These are three real examples of graduate students who are making it work for them. They have figured out that harmony and proportion are not always possible, at least not on the same day. Is that okay? Yes. Will the world end if everything is not exactly balanced? No. 

One day, the most important thing that needs to be done may be a paper that is due, and you zone in on that; however, it may mean the laundry or dinner dishes must wait. The next day it may be getting your child to the baseball game on time for the district championship game, and all thoughts of school assignments are banished to the furthest recesses of your mind. Which may lead to getting up early the next morning to complete an assignment. 

Real life can sometimes be hectic and messy and overwhelming. But there is a light at the end of that tunnel – graduate school is not forever.  But the prize you get out of that Cracker Jack box at the end will change your life, and the lives of your family, be it man or beast, forever. 

There are all kinds of tips and advice from academia experts on how to balance graduate school, work and life out there. Find the ones that fit your life and utilize those, let the others fall by the wayside. 

The balancing act does not look the same for everyone and as long as it works for you, that is all that matters. 

What does that balance look like for you? Do you have any advice for keeping this balance?

Who Created the First Valentine’s Day Box of Chocolates?

By the 1840s, the notion of Valentine’s Day as a holiday to celebrate romantic love had taken over most of the English-speaking world. It was Cupid’s golden age: The prudish Victorians adored the notion of courtly love and showered each other with elaborate cards and gifts. Into this love-crazed fray came Richard Cadbury, scion of a British chocolate manufacturing family and responsible for sales at a crucial point in his company’s history. Cadbury had recently improved its chocolate-making technique so as to extract pure cocoa butter from whole beans, producing more palatable drinking chocolate than most Britons had ever tasted. This process resulted in an excess amount of cocoa butter, which Cadbury used to produce many more varieties of what was then called “eating chocolate.” Richard recognized a great marketing opportunity for the new chocolates and started selling them in beautifully decorated boxes that he himself designed.

From that point, it was a quick jump to taking the familiar images of Cupids and roses and putting them on heart-shaped boxes. While Richard Cadbury didn’t actually patent the heart-shaped box, it’s widely believed that he was the first to produce one. Cadbury marketed the boxes as having a dual purpose: When the chocolates had all been eaten, the box itself was so pretty that it could be used again and again to store mementos, from locks of hair to love letters. The boxes grew increasingly elaborate until the outbreak of World War II, when sugar was rationed and Valentine’s Day celebrations were scaled down. But Victorian-era Cadbury boxes still exist, and many are treasured family heirlooms or valuable items prized by collectors.

What if you could get good, tasty, healthy, AND cheap food for your dorm room? This personal trainer and nutrition specialist explains how.

As a college student, you probably have barely enough money to buy ramen, much less fancy salads, salmon, and other healthy foods.

However, even though healthy food has a reputation for being expensive, it doesn’t have to be that way—even for college students. If you want to stock up on good-for-you foods to keep in your dorm room, use these tips. You’ll get what you need and save cash at the same time.

Learn the sales cycle at your local grocery store

All stores have a cycle for their sale and clearance items, and if they’re near your campus, they might be especially sensitive to cost-conscious college students.

Maybe you’ve seen their weekly sales flyers, which promote the deals for that week. If you can’t get these flyers in person, the grocery store might even share them on social media. At any rate, the key here is knowing when those promo cycles end, because that’s usually when surplus items go on sale.

Some grocery stores even offer double discounts on the day the old sales end and new ones begin. This may not sound like the cheapest technique, but AOL’s finance blog says this can save you as much as 50% off your grocery bill. All you have to do is plan your grocery trip ahead of time.

Buy simple foods and prepare them yourself if you can

Prepping your own meals is an easy way to cut costs and eat healthier in college. You might be surprised by how much healthy food you can keep in your dorm and even how much meal prep you can do if you have mini-fridge and/or microwave. And if you live in an off-campus apartment or an on-campus suite with a full kitchen? Well, the world is your oyster! (Except not really because oysters are crazy expensive.)

For example, pre-bagged salads are convenient, but you pay more for that convenience. To save on cash, grab a head of lettuce ($1–$2), along with carrots (less than $2 for a whole bunch), a cucumber ($1), and maybe a few more veggies of your choice (spend up to $5). Chop everything up at home and store in an airtight container in your fridge for an easy-to-grab base for lunch and dinner salads.

You can likely get at least five small salads out of that, which ends up costing less than $2 per salad. You can even bring some to the cafeteria and eat it as a side with an entree they’re serving.

But salad math is just the beginning. Other great cheap but healthy food choices for college students include:

• Apples
• Bananas
• Beans and/or lentils
• Eggs (microwave mug omelets, anyone?)
• Garlic
• Hummus
• Onions
• Peanut butter
• Popcorn (look for low-salt, low-calorie options, not the butter-drenched kind)
• Rice, preferably brown (grab the microwaveable bag if you don’t have a stove top)
• Rotisserie chicken (if you can’t cook a chicken yourself)
• Salsa
• Spinach
• Sweet potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Tortillas
• Tuna fish (look for low sodium/forgiving roommates)
• Whole grain bread
• Whole wheat pasta
• Yogurt, preferably plain, low sugar, and/or Greek

With all the recipes online, you’ll have no trouble finding easy, healthy dishes you can make in a dorm. (Editor’s note: if you have a full kitchen, we highly recommend this “epically frugal” rice and beans recipe!) And don’t forget, cooking is a super-handy life skill, so the more practice you get, the better.

Related: 5 Easy Recipes to Cook Up in Your Dorm Room

Shop bulk items

The bulk section is where you’ll save on the cost of packaging. You can get the same amount of most granola, nuts, and grains for significantly less, especially if they’re running a sale. If your grocery store has bulk bins—and you aren’t picky—go for the items that are on sale to get a lot of food at a steep discount. Supplement these dry goods with other perishable items mentioned above to make healthy meals and snacks right in your dorm room.

Then there are bulk stores. And just like you might’ve teamed up with your roommate to share big-ticket dorm items like your mini fridge or TV, you might be able to go in on a bulk store membership together. If not, why not ask for one as a holiday or birthday gift? (Just be prepared for a look of amazement from your parents.)

Shop around first

Sometimes the stores we assume are the cheapest are actually more expensive than we realize. While Trader Joe’s is known for their low prices, a recent grocery store analysis found that stores like Aldi, Publix, and Kroger came in above Trader Joe’s for offering the most weekly savings.

If you have access to more than one grocery store, shop around before settling on your go-to. To test the difference in pricing, do the same exact grocery trip two weeks in a row (buying all the same exact items) at two different stores. Compare the total to see where you can save the most.

Take advantage of coupons and pricing apps

Coupons are one of the best ways to save on healthy food. The local papers are packed with manufacturer coupons, and many brands are now promoting newer, less-processed foods, allowing you to save big on the stuff you want most.

You can also use grocery pricing apps that direct you toward the best deals and might even give you cash back for shopping.

Use your student discount

Most retailers and grocery stores in college towns offer discounts for students, so long as they show an ID. Use this to save on healthy groceries whenever you can. Not only is it the easiest way to save but the discount is also usually high, around 20% off in many cases.

Saving money on healthy food in college is totally doable. Whether you use an app, do your research, or rely on the bulk bins each week, you can get what you need without going over budget.