What Most Grad Students Overlook: Essential Support Services and Strategies

Victors in Grad School

Navigating graduate school is a journey filled with both promise and challenge. While many students focus on selecting the right program or acing their classes, there’s a world of support—often overlooked—that can make all the difference. In the latest episode of Victor’s in Grad School, Dr. Christopher Lewis brings together enrollment professionals, faculty, and industry experts from universities across the country to answer a vital question: What’s an underrated support service or strategy that can make a big difference for student success?

A powerful theme that emerges is the value of community and connection. From networking with recruiters and professionals, to seeking out mentors and joining student organizations, building intentional relationships is a recurring piece of advice. Stacy Goldstein of UC San Diego urges students to “network, network, network”—not just for job opportunities, but to foster professional connections that can open unexpected doors.

Tapping into campus resources is another underappreciated strategy. Whether it’s visiting the writing center as recommended by Irene Aiken of UNC Pembroke, or taking advantage of the library’s knowledgeable staff and resources, graduate students are reminded that these supports go far beyond undergraduate basics. Several guests, like Matt Bohlen, highlight that services often assumed to be for undergrads—such as tutoring and consulting—are invaluable at the graduate level.

Career and professional development also take center stage. According to Tony Fraga, a proactive approach to career services—like participating in mock interviews—can directly impact post-graduate outcomes. Meanwhile, Paul Brandano from UCLA underscores the importance of identifying and addressing skill gaps before and during your program, whether by brushing up on technical skills or improving communication through creative outlets.

Finally, there’s a strong message about attending to mental health and personal well-being. Multiple voices stress the significance of using counseling services and seeking support from faculty, mentors, and peers. “Don’t suffer in silence,” advises Emily Dayton, reminding students they’re not alone on this journey.

The episode is rich with practical advice, personal stories, and a refreshing honesty about the realities of graduate education. If you’re considering graduate school or already on your journey, this conversation is an essential listen to ensure you’re not missing out on the resources that can propel you to success.

Tune in, take notes, and empower your grad school experience!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]: Welcome to Victor's in grad school, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]: Welcome back to Victor's in grad school. This week, we have a great opportunity to be able to learn from other enrollment management professionals. I recently attended the National Association of Graduate Admission Professionals or NAGAP. And at that conference, I spoke to a number of enrollment management professionals and individuals working within industry that are working with higher education about a number of questions to help you in the journey that you are on toward graduate school. This week's question is what's a underrated support service or strategy that can make a big difference for student success. I hope that you enjoy the answers to this question and that it will help you on the journey that you are on.

Stacy Goldstein [00:01:04]: Hi. This is Stacy Goldstein with UC San Diego at Rady School of Management with the master professional accountancy program. I work in our graduate department in admissions. And my big thing is being your cheerleader for my students. Network. Network. Network. Network.

Stacy Goldstein [00:01:18]: Write down every recruiter's name. So a lot of support strategy or what can you do to be successful. Make the connections you have count. So write down, even if it's an online virtual event, who you spoke with is that recruiter. So next time when you meet them, especially in person, you can make that connection and let them know that you were present. That helps.

Donna Wang Su [00:01:40]: My name is Donna Wang Su. I am the associate director for graduate admissions and financial aid at Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism Media Integrated Marketing Communications. I'm definitely biased, but I do think that an underrated service is gonna be your financial aid office. And I say that because I do a lot of one on one financial advising with my students, which quickly turns into strategic planning slash career services. Because we'll start talking about budgeting and we'll start talking about, well, I wanna be able to save up to do this. I wanna go explore this. And next you know, it leads down a different path. And I love connecting with students years later who tell me that they still remember tips or use strategies that we've used from our coaching sessions.

Santavaya Jordan [00:02:24]: My name is Santavaya Jordan. I am the engineering graduate recruiter at Vanderbilt University, and I recruit only for our graduate programs in engineering. Definitely, back again, tack into the mental health. Making sure your mental health is intact as much as possible. Not everyone understands and believes how much they need resources to talk to someone whether it's a counselor or even a mentor that you could relate to. Someone that's been in your position before or someone that can just have be an outlet or a resource that doesn't have anything to say or give their own opinion on what you're going through, but a listening ear to ear to help you get through difficult situations, whether it is personally that can affect you academically or something that's academically that can affect you personally.

Paul Brandano [00:03:05]: I'm Paul Brandano. I'm the executive director of the master of Science in Business Analytics at UCLA Anderson. But with a quantitative master's, I think the the probably more underrated support services are the things that are initially gaps on the technical side. So I I think, for example, about a person who was fantastic in our first cohort, she was, by training, an economist. She was an undergraduate economist and she came into our program and said, I just don't have the Python. I have never programmed in R. I don't really know my SQL. And she said, but I promise you by the time I get into the program, I will have taken a few courses and I plan on spending my Friday nights in the library.

Paul Brandano [00:03:39]: And everybody can say that, but she absolutely did it. And I think that the difference it made for her was that she didn't just get hired by the the consulting firm. She got hired by BCG Gamma. You know, she could really walk the walk and talk the talk. So I think I think a lot of folks might underestimate the real leap they can make by just adding a little bit more pre prep before the master's degree. And I see that quite a lot. The other one is, you know, we do a lot with on the other end of the spectrum, if it's non quant, it's communications. And so if you if you come in knowing where your biggest gap is and then look for creative ways of filling them, not all programs are gonna do all of it.

Paul Brandano [00:04:11]: And so we add improv as an example. But that improv is available in most major cities. Right? And I always recommend it. It's a great way to to sort of launch your way forward quickly in a short window of time while you're still getting your master's degree. The best time of your life when you're probably your most charismatic. And so I would recommend those kinds of approaches too. Like, look for the creative things that make you shine uniquely, you know, that give you that x factor, that ability to talk about something a little different than the average candidate might hear.

Emily Dayton [00:04:41]: Hi. This is Emily Dayton. I am the senior director of the specialized master's admissions and recruitment at the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego. This is something that our faculty say a lot, but we really encourage our students to do not suffer in silence. Most staff and faculty are there to help, and they want students to be successful. So one thing that we do at the Rady School is that our faculty will proactively share the support system that is in place at the start of each quarter, at the start of each class so that our students are aware of the resources that are there before they run into an issue.

Tony Fraga [00:05:21]: Hey. It's Tony Fraga, CEO at Direct Development. We're a long time enrollment marketing company. For sure, career services. And here is an underrated thing. And I'll just say, I know there are many career services departments that aren't great. They're just kinda meh, and you don't learn a lot. It's maybe captain obvious.

Tony Fraga [00:05:40]: Like, make sure you have a LinkedIn profile, and here's three resume templates you can use. Like, you can get that off of ChatGPT and Internet. You don't need a career services department for that, to be honest. A great career services department is will meet with you and help you do things like a mock actual interview before you have an actual interview with an employer. I'd be looking at that. I think that's so underrated. If you cannot just train how to get a degree and learn something, if you can learn how to then interview with a real employer, it can make or break whether or not you get that job. And let me tell you, the next generation coming out, people in their twenties and thirties, they're struggling to find right fit jobs because you're not interviewing well.

Tony Fraga [00:06:16]: Tap into your university's career service department. They know how to do it. They see lots of you go through not well, so they have a vested interest in you doing it better.

Adrian Peralta [00:06:29]: Hi, everybody. My name is Adrian Peralta. I'm part of the graduate admissions team at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. I, myself, am a graduate international and special populations admissions counselor. Definitely understand student accounting and financial aid. Those are your two biggest portions that will help you onboard to the university you want to in the right way and help you understand what opportunities are out there to fund your degree and finance it, you know, also. But also look at graduate assistantships. That also is a really big thing that we see these days.

Jeremiah Nelson [00:07:06]: Jeremiah Nelson. I'm a faculty member at the Kettner School of Business at Catawba College and the MBA director. The most underrated support service is probably taking advantage of networking and career and professional development while you're a graduate student. A lot of people think about their academics while they're in school and think that that comes next, But it doesn't matter how smart you are or how much you know if nobody knows who you are. So take the time to once a week, twice a week, reach out to people, make some connections, and try and build some bridges along the way.

Dr. Noranda Wright [00:07:43]: Hello. I'm Noranda Wright. I serve as the associate dean of graduate student services at Georgia Southern University and also serve as the Nagat president. I think probably one of the most underrated one is advisement because that's where you're gonna get your information from. So knowing who to talk to if you need help with registering for classes, if you need to change your major, or if you need to just real realize what you need to do in order to advance yourself academically, to be retained as a student, and eventually graduate. So know who your advisors are, know who your program directors are so they can offer that support for you is, I think, is probably one of the most underrated things on our campuses.

Irene Aiken [00:08:22]: I'm Irene Aiken. I'm the dean of the grad school at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. The underrated support service on campus is often the writing center, but the career center, there are just so many offerings at every campus. I don't think students take advantage of enough.

Irene Aiken [00:08:42]: Retention actually makes a big difference. Regular check ins with students sometimes seem like something it's out of reach for a school. I would say with AI, it makes it even easier where you could have an AI agent calling all of your students two or three times a semester just to check on them, see how things are doing, maybe, you know, get them resources, get them help.

Marcus Hanscon [00:09:05]: Hi. My name is Marcus Hanscon. I'm the director of enrollment marketing at Direct Development and also spent about seventeen years working in college admissions in the graduate schools. Unfortunately, admissions officers are seen as salespeople, and I think that's an unfortunate thing for students cause they assume that whenever they're talking to an admissions person, they're only gonna get one side of the story. And I think the vast majority of the people that I've worked with over seventeen years in graduate enrollment is that they're genuinely out to help the student find the right thing for them. And even if that means telling them to go to another school. So talk to your admissions reps, Call them on the phone. Text with them.

Marcus Hanscon [00:09:36]: Email with them. Go and visit them in their offices. Have a candid conversation, and don't be afraid to ask good questions, candid questions, things that you might be worried. Can I ask that or not? Ask the questions. There's no bad question other than the ones that you don't ask.

Sabrina Brown [00:09:53]: I'm Sabrina Brown. I work at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and I am the director of graduate recruitment. Finding ways to make connection and build community to the level that feels like support for you, but oftentimes students think about the efficient way to go through a program. How many credits can I take? Is it online? Is it gonna fit with my commuter schedule? And those are all important things, but going to a new level educationally can feel lonely or it can stretch you in ways that can be surprising and finding those that are kind of alongside side it or have done it before can really be a game changer. But when you're sort of in a space of learning, it can feel vulnerable and scary and sometimes people kind of turn into themselves to feel like they need to be their own support. But I have found that the students that truly are able to raise their hand and say, either I need help or I just need to feel seen in this process, they go farther and feel better about the experience that they have.

Addie Caudle [00:10:58]: My name is Addie Caudle. I'm the communications manager from Tarleton State University. It's really the advising and the mentoring. Different institutions kind of address these in different ways. I know our students that we'll see, you know, they we don't have any professional advisors, but we are working on that. That's something I'm actually hiring for right now. And we've got faculty mentors that really work with the departments. But a lot of times, they're not able to get a hold of them due to nine month contracts and really we run into that issue during the summer.

Addie Caudle [00:11:26]: Faculty are also so involved in teaching and research of their own projects that sometimes the advising and taking the time to help direct and guide our students where they need for help can become difficult.

Melissa Yeung [00:11:42]: I'm Dr. Melissa Young, director of student support and belonging at the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy at Bowling Green State University. The use of the counseling center and with all the stresses that we all face on a daily basis, whether it's balancing your obligations or just finding an outlet that or someone you can talk to, the counseling center can make a lot of difference. It's also the place where if you you were struggling with something else, they could easily point you to other resources on campus. And being in a good mental space generally is great. It's a good start for academic success.

James Monahan [00:12:27]: I'm James Monahan. I'm the director of graduate and international admissions at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. I don't know if it's underrated, but I would say that the library is incredibly useful to students and I don't know that they realize it and they don't perhaps recognize that the people that work in the libraries are really there to help them whether it be with research or solving a problem and I think that, you really should go out and check out what they've got available to you.

Jamie Crampton [00:12:59]: Hello. I am Jamie Crampton. I work for Gecko Engage, a software company in higher education headquartered out of Edinburgh. I also live in Edinburgh, Scotland. So I'm gonna answer these questions from the lens of The UK education sector, but hopefully, it's also applicable to The US as well. At least from The UK side and why I joined Gecko, we're a student engagement platform that helps kind of provide students with the right tools to understand an institution, whether that be prospective or current students, is utilizing admissions staff and also admissions student workers. For me, when I joined university, I became a student worker because my experience prior to enrolling was I was scared. I didn't know who to talk to.

Jamie Crampton [00:13:41]: I didn't know if a question was a stupid question. Felt more comfortable speaking with a student worker or an admissions representative because they were so much more friendly and a little bit more approachable. So for anybody listening to this, if you're a prospective or current student, I would say don't be afraid to reach out to the people whose job it is to answer your questions because from a pre enrollment perspective, that really enhanced my journey in which university I decided to go with. But then also when I began my studies, I actually felt like dropping out of university in the first year because I didn't enjoy some of the courses I was enrolled in as part of my degree. I had to do four individual subjects each semester and some of them I was like, I'm doing a marketing degree. Why am I doing finance? Why am I doing accounting? And I was told that after speaking with my representative, my mentor, that this was just the first year and it gets a lot more segmented in terms of my career path and what I wanted to do later on. And so she encouraged me to stick at it, keep going with it, and it will get better. And I'm really glad I listened to her because I almost dropped out.

Jamie Crampton [00:14:46]: And instead of dropping out, I end up graduating in the top possible degree class I could have graduated with. So, it was all thanks to her because I was going to drop out if not. So long winded response, but utilize the staff that are there to help you both preenrollment and postenrollment.

Ben Webb [00:15:05]: Hello. My name is Ben Webb. I'm the executive director of The Americas for QS, which is a service that does international domestic recruiting, rankings, international performance, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Used to be on the mission side at multiple schools across the country. For me, one of my biggest things that I recommend to people when they're coming into a graduate school, they're gonna go into professional world is mentoring services and and joining things that kinda get you out of comfort zone. So things like Toastmasters, joining your young professional society, figuring out how to speak and communicate effectively, be able to interact with new people, learn new things, like those soft skills and be able to really execute upon those is a priceless because we can teach you to talk the finance and the numbers and those sort of things, but being able to articulate, present yourself in a room, dress for success, those are things that really need to shine to be able to elevate yourself.

Matt Bohlen [00:15:54]: Hey, everybody. My name is Matt Bohlen, and I'm senior director of client success with Carnegie. I've been here about four years now. Before that, I worked about twenty years in higher ed, couple different institutions in the state of Michigan. Loved working in higher ed, but also love helping higher ed as a consultant now too. You know, I think at the graduate level too, we don't often think that there is tutoring available, there's consulting available, there's all types of different services that are typically thought of to be undergraduate services that are available for graduate students too. The writing center, I mean, those are some pretty big resources.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:24]: The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of masters and doctorate programs if you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you're looking for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [email protected].