ABSTRACT
This chapter is an attempt to convey a message about educational policies and procedures and to acknowledge that professors and students are all in this together. I begin with stories about my own training and early career and then move on to the experiences of my students in applied settings. In the course of these personal experiences, three aspects of graduate education became apparent. First, I discuss the staple educational contents that we all agree ought to be required; second, I raise the issues on which we academics disagree among ourselves and, finally, I draw attention to those aspects of research style in which academics differ from their colleagues in nonacademic fields, which will be referred to as the “real world.” There are many routes through graduate school to the doctoral degree. My message is that the students and their mentors should consider at least these three sets of issues in plotting each student’s course.
