Required Reading: A Compendium of Links for Graduate Students

Required Reading is a collection of indispensable posts on the process of surviving graduate school. It's a one-time carnival, a blog anthology, if you will. The heart of the collection is divided into five parts:

• Making the decision to pursue a graduate degree
• Becoming a graduate student and an academic
• Clearing the crucial hurdles of the graduate education
• Professionalizing as a researcher, teacher, and academic citizen
• Approaching the job market, and opting out

A few notes about the collection here. It is currently (and likely permanently) skewed toward the humanities almost exclusively, and largely toward English. Contributors are graduate students and faculty alike. The collection here, though is not itself set in stone. I will add, and in some limited cases, perhaps even get rid of links as new discussions pop up, online identities shift, and the conversation continues. Please do tell me if I've forgotten posts: I can already think of some I've missed.

I should also note that much of this conversation continues in a more textured, frontline, and ongoing fashion at the invaluable Carnival of GRADual Progress, a resource that readers here should know and use.

The easiest way to link the whole collection is to link to the label, Grad Compendium, which should put the whole thing into order. Feel free to add links in the comments section, and comment at will. If you find broken links or what have you, do gmail me those so I can correct them.

In the meantime, what follows is a huge trove of information, advice, and experience to help the aspiring academic.