During a lab meeting, we came up with a few time management tricks to help make grad school easier. Here they are:

1. If you can, try to work steadily rather than in fits and starts. It’s way more efficient. But also take some vacation time when you’re totally away from work. Vacations are crucial, for many reasons.
2. Sleep, exercise, having a hobby and social time are also really important. If you can follow point 1 above, hopefully you won’t run into situations where you have to make any real sacrifices in these.
3. Try to work with your body’s rhythms. Schedule your day so when you’re at your most awake and aware, you’re writing or doing stats. And save the mundane tasks for when you’re in a low ebb.
4. Block off a certain amount of time each day to do the hardest thing you have going at the time –  the thing you find most annoying. That’ll help prevent procrastinating.
5. Somewhere prominent in your office space, put up a sheet of the main questions and goals from each of your chapters. These will evolve for sure, but having them written down in one spot can help you make you’re not spending tonnes of time on one small aspect.
6. Similar to above, keep a spreadsheet of all your projects (including side projects), and who your collaborators are for each. Keep track of the hours you’re working on each project, even if only in a vague way. This will help prevent you from sinking masses of time into a project that might not be working out for you.
7. Check in with your supervisor fairly regularly, to make sure they’re on the same page as you re how your work is going. Sometimes you can get so close to your work you don’t realize you may be spinning your wheels on an unimportant detail.
8. Take small breaks to avoid burnout. If you have a short attention span (like Joe does…), then use the bits of time when your mind wanders to do something somewhat productive – like searching for papers, answering some routine emails, or updating your academic social media…
9. …but don’t get sucked into constantly updating your academic social media…
10. …or ruminating over replies to routine emails. If it’s routine, then just worry about the content rather than the prose, and send it.

There are some very real barriers to international students, especially those from outside USA, Europe, Australia, China and Japan. International grad studies tuition at CU is high (currently around $25,000 per year), which is often out of reach for most supervisors to afford. For non-English-speaking countries, there can also be difficulties in comparing academic records. I wish things were easier and more transparent. On the other hand, there is also hope for very good students who can demonstrate scholarship, leadership and scientific achievement. We’re fortunate that at CU we have some scholarships available to top students who can bring something special to our school.

Hopefully this post will help those seeking to work in my lab (and in other groups in Canada) to decide what path is best and to navigate the system. I’ll divide the advice into two parts: 1) general advice, and 2) scholarships.

General advice:

• It’s probably not worth your while to write potential supervisors whose work is far removed from your previous work, unless you can very clearly demonstrate interest based on background or a clearly-stated research idea. Many of the inquiries I get are from people who are obviously casting a wide net (e.g. medical genetics, etc. etc.), and are writing a general letter where the professor’s name is pasted in. I must confess I don’t read these ones carefully, and I know most professors simply delete them.
• It’s a good idea to carefully read a potential supervisor’s research profile. Do your interests fit? Can you bring something new?
• It’s also a good idea to highlight key skills and accomplishments in the email itself. Do you have any publications in a recognized peer-reviewed journal? Do you have any awards? It’s good to mention these.
• Is there at all a possibility of doing field work in your home country to support a PhD in Canada? This might not work out due to costs etc., but if you have contacts who might lead to collaborations, it might be good to mention these.
• Essentially, applications come down to an evaluation of marks, publications and experience, as well as fit with the proposed supervisor and English ability. If your record is a bit lacking in one of these, perhaps you can concentrate on improving this, if circumstances allow?
• Peer-reviewed publications can often make a big difference. If you did a grad degree elsewhere and haven’t published your work yet, I think it’s a very good idea to try to publish it if at all possible.
• Obtaining a scholarship to at least partly fund your studies is an excellent idea. Some countries have generous scholarship programs. It’s a good idea to check out opportunities. If you have already obtained a scholarship or other support to study in Canada, it is a good idea to clearly highlight this in your email.

Scholarships:

• In my opinion, there are not enough scholarships in Canada for international students. That being noted, here is a link to a few potential scholarships: