Discover Rackham
Note to my first-year grad student self
Dear first-year grad student me, I think of you wistfully every now and then, remembering your boundless enthusiasm for genetics and optimism about the world. You naive young thing, you. I’m so glad you don’t know what lies ahead. Ignorance IS bliss, but don’t tell...
Graduation After Incarceration: a Rackham Student Earns His Ph.D.
People slowly fill up the seats in a green and gold room before Jay Borchert even arrives. It’s the day of his dissertation defense, a day that is perhaps the most important milestone in a doctoral student’s career, a culmination of five or more years of intensive...
Aggression at a Local Bar: What Are the Community Implications of DE&I?
What do diversity, equity, and inclusion mean at the University of Michigan and to the larger Ann Arbor community? When we (Naomi, Princess, and Jallicia) wrote this piece, it was before many of the racially motivated aggressions appeared on campus. We want to publish...
Dealing with Impostor Syndrome
Have you ever thought to yourself, do I belong here? Am I good enough to be a graduate student? What will happen when everyone realizes I'm not as smart as they think I am? Everyone else really seems to know what they're doing; how come I don't?...
Rackham Alums Come Back to School
Niloufar Emami, Ph.D. Candidate in Architecture engaged the alumni audience with discussion regarding her research. A group of graduate alumni recently returned to campus to connect with current graduate students. From mechanical engineering to history to...
Upcoming RSG Election: But What is RSG?
Want to learn more about how to further enhance your graduate experience? Do you want to take a leadership role on campus, impact graduate student funding, and collaborate with administrators and policymakers? Looking for a way to engage in conversations and actions...
Student Spotlight: Babe Kawaii-Bogue
It took Babe three tries to get into Michigan. Along the way, she went to Columbia for her Master’s degree to raise her GPA and obtain further research experience. Babe received other Ph.D. program offers during the years she applied to graduate schools, but says she...
The Road to SACNAS: Finding a Community as an International Student
I made my way to a room in the Taubman Health Sciences Library where the other Society for Advancement of Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) board members had been preparing the welcoming social, a small introduction to SACNAS and an...
Student Spotlight: Geoff Lorenz
While many of us shy away from what can seem the seedy world of political lobbying – especially in a heated presidential election year – Geoff has decided to write a dissertation about it. He studies what makes lobbying effective in the U.S. Congress, approaching from...
Alumni Spotlight: Diana Troik
When Diana Troik finished her doctorate at Michigan in the early ‘70s, the job market had disappeared. “It impacted a lot of people at that time. I taught part-time for a year or two but I had been living in Los Angeles and really enjoyed it there. There were a lot of...