 For your first week and first month of graduate school, students should definitely think about orienting themselves into where they are and into the community. Number one, unpack. Like I'm in my fifth year and I have friends who still have boxes when they're living room floor that they have not unpacked because once you get in, you jump in, you go running full speed and you kind of forget these boxes there. I think the first week of graduate school is really important in getting a lay of the land and getting a lay of the city of Ann Arbor where you're going to be spending a significant amount of time, especially because the first week things are not going to get that crazy yet. So I would encourage new students to check out the public transportation system, check out what kinds of resources are available to you as a graduate student. I mean doing little things like taking a tour of the library, perhaps even meeting with one of the librarians to learn a little bit more about the resources available at the library. I think those are some important little things that you could get done in the first week that will really help orient you for the rest of the program or at least the rest of the semester. As a new student, I think it's easy to get lost in the anxiety of being in a new situation, of trying to make an impression with your peers and your advisors and I think one of the most important things is to really try and relax, try and enjoy yourself. Things will definitely start up and you will get busy. There's no ifs ands or buts about that but to really use that time to get to know the place, including Ann Arbor which is a great town and just trust that things will fall into place eventually and not to not be too worried or anxious. Also meet professors who you don't have class with. It's great to say I'm a grad student, I'm just getting here, it's a perfect excuse if you're a little bit shy. I'm just getting here, this is what I think I'm interested in, can we talk, can we talk, can we chat. Because number one, you have a good excuse both in and number two, you may not have that opportunity again because you're going to be so busy. So really spend that first week and that first month getting to know your area, getting to know your professors, getting to know your cohort, the people you come in with, they're going to be very vital to you the entire way through. Seek someone out in your department who's older than you and who you can really find a mentorship in and so a lot of programs have mentoring programs and matchups so you can really, that's already set up for you but another thing to do is just find people who you have similar hobbies with or similar interest in and just start to get their opinions on what they think about the program, about classes and those sorts of things. I really enjoy the fact that I have a diverse set of friends that are outside of my major because I get a chance to discuss different things that's not always my research and what I'm doing, they have different interests, they have different things and a broad assortment is really key and I really enjoy hearing about other stuff that I would never get a chance to encounter if I didn't know them, I didn't talk to them, ask them what they're doing. I was very fortunate in that some of my support system of course came from my family that I keep in touch with very regularly because being in touch with them reminds me about why I'm in graduate school and so it's important to stay in touch with them. I knew coming into graduate school that my church family would be an important place for me to find support. I was far away from home with no friends that I already had so I had to make new friends and I knew that I would need a support system so I immediately started visiting churches. That was a place where I knew that I would find the support I needed to make it through graduate school all in one piece. I actually also really benefited from a support group that was run from CAPS, CAPS is Counseling and Psychological Services, they have a support group for graduate student women. So for those of us who feel like, wow, we could really have a structured environment and benefit from one where we can connect with each other weekly and talk about different stressors and how to tackle them and that was great. I did that my entire first year here and really benefited from it. You need to know how to manage your advisor. That is, they're really busy people and it's important to email them when you have meetings. It's important to stay on top of that, on that relationship. It's important to know how to extract advice from your advisor given that they have limited time. Now before that, it's important to have a good advisor, someone who would give you advice like that. It's important to have an advisor that meshes well with you in a personal way, that has a work style and a management style that fits with your skills and your weaknesses. Good things to look for in an advisor is one, the research interest. You want to make sure that what they're studying matches what you're interested in and that you can learn from them. Another thing and almost as equally important as research is mentorship style. You want to make sure that your advisor will support you being the best academic, the best scholar that you can be. Academic advisor can give you really good resource to either give you advice to which course that you really need to meet your goal because there is usually a lot of course that you can take really, really subjective which one you want to do. But there's only a couple courses that really can help you to meet your goals. And second is that academic advisor can give you advice for your career path and really important connection for your future career as well. Developing a good relationship with your advisor is crucial. I think if there's one piece of advice that I could give, it's to make sure that you stay engaged with your advisor. Ask your advisor questions. Try to meet with your advisor as regularly as possible. You need to be very open with your advisor and you need to talk with them about everything you do. You need to set the expectations at the beginning. If there's something that's bothering you, bring it up. Talk about it. I'm sure they've experienced it before. There's a way to deal with it, but the key is just communicate. When looking for a good mentor, it's important that the person can align with your goals. When you come to graduate school, you'll have goals academically and professionally things that you want to accomplish. And it's important that you can find a mentor who can support you in that. If you know that you want to go on to be a professor, then you want to find an advisor or a mentor who can support you and develop your skills as a professor. If you know you want to go work in community-based work, then it's important to find an advisor who can go and support you in that community-based work, whether they themselves do it or not. The great thing here is that there are so many faculty and there's always somebody that is a specialist on what you're looking for. So it's really important if you have a question, you have something that you want to learn more about, you can always just email a faculty member, email, talk to them, go in and talk to them, and they can explain things or point you at least in the right direction. Once you have identified a possible mentor, I suggest that you email them. And sometimes people are busy, so don't be discouraged if they don't get back to you immediately. And don't be afraid to follow up with a second email. And just a short email asking them, can I have 30 minutes of your time? Just to talk to you about my research or my career interests or just anything. And then once you talk to them, figure out if they can be a good mentor for you and just follow up and continue to communicate with them, continue to build that mentoring relationship.