 Good afternoon. I'm calling it. It's officially summer here in Seattle today a short video unapologetically shot in portrait mode I won't be there, but graduation at UW is this weekend Congratulations to my friends and my colleagues who are moving on to new things who are getting degrees Congratulations, it's a huge accomplishment and you all deserve them even though an astronomy. We often don't celebrate the master's degree I got a standalone master's degree and it was a huge deal for me So even if you're getting a master's degree as part of your PhD really congratulations. It's a big deal So the question I'm sure you're getting asked a lot is what are you doing this summer? I have a longer video in the works Discussing what you can do and what academics often do during the summer Here's my one piece of unsolicited advice if you were getting ready to go into grad school or become a postdoc if you can Take the summer off. I didn't take the summer off between my master's program my PhD program In fact, I moved up here early so I can get started on projects with the idea that maybe I'd take a little bit of time at September off and and of course it never happened I just worked straight through the summer and it's straight into the year and the summer after my PhD The IAU meeting was in Hawaii. So I was there for two weeks, which was fantastic But I only was able to take a couple days off in the middle and I didn't really take a break I've taken a few vacations over the last ten years at most a week-long trip But especially if you were heading into grad school and you have the opportunity to just take a month or two off This may be one of the last times in your life You're able to do this and really the best preparation you can do for your PhD program has arrived with a clear head That's it today. Congratulations to all those people earning degrees moving on Even if it just seems like an intermediate step in the long chain