Harvard course teaches the ins and outs of grad school
What does an academic CV look like? Is it important to join a scholarly association? How do travel grants work? The skills and information graduate students need to succeed extend far beyond what they learn in their classes. In a new course designed and taught by Robin Bernstein and offered by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), newbies learn the “hidden curriculum” of graduate school and how to navigate the singular world of academia. “There’s no reason that anybody should be expected to know anything that they haven’t been taught,” said Bernstein, the Dillon Professor of American History and professor of African and African American Studies and of studies of women, gender, and sexuality. “Whenever a person is expected to pick up something magically, that’s a sure sign that power is working in insidious ways and a sure sign that elitism is afoot, in the case of academia. The goal...