{"id":110,"date":"2025-02-03T21:07:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T02:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/?p=110"},"modified":"2025-02-07T15:46:40","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T20:46:40","slug":"life-in-grad-school-at-clemson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/2025\/02\/03\/life-in-grad-school-at-clemson\/","title":{"rendered":"Life in Grad School at Clemson"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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What to Expect<\/strong><\/h4>

Graduate student life can certainly be taxing, as a PhD requires a lot of work. Because we graduate students are on the payroll for 40 hour work weeks, most find it beneficial to try roughly a 9:00am-5:00pm schedule to balance the workload and have productive days, and adjust if necessary. With teaching agendas working into schedules as well, students should expect to have some long days, and we encourage you to take rest on weekends and prioritize your health. Luckily, the graduate student body, the Graduate Student Organization (GSO), and the front office staff in the Physics and Astronomy (PandA) department are a terrific resource for helping you adjust to the graduate student lifestyle, sharing advice on how to succeed, and offering a listening ear.<\/p>

The Office Space<\/strong><\/h4>

At Clemson University, most first year PandA graduate students share a large office on the third floor of Kinard Hall (room 310), and each person has their own workspace. This setup offers a unique opportunity for students to collaborate on classwork and build community, and get through their days of work together. Many find it helpful to have a schedule in which they show up to the office each day in an environment where they have the option to work independently, but also interact with and ask questions to fellow students at any time. This environment also encourages students to socialize, have meals together, and build community. The shared office space is remembered fondly by many students as a part of their first year making friends and reaching milestones together, and is a good tool for accountability and work regularity. After students complete their first year, they all transfer to new offices which are dependent on their research area of interest and advisor\/potential advisor. The degree of how much sharing of space students have to do in their new office spaces is fully dependent on how many students and how much space their advisor has.<\/p>

Of course everyone is different, and some may enjoy less time in a shared space than others. The Cooper Library, which is located diagonally across from Kinard Hall (very close) is an excellent place to find a quiet workspace, and even a private room if needed, which can be reserved here<\/a>. There are also some rooms in Kinard which can be used for private meetings or quiet spaces if they are free (which they usually are), such as the small conference room located in the back of the front office (118), or the tutoring room on the second floor (224). If you want to know if these spaces are free for a certain amount of time, you can pop into the front office and ask any of the amazing staff to check for you.<\/p>

People in Kinard<\/strong><\/h4>

The most important resource we have in Kinard is the people! You will meet your professors and potential advisors in time, but as your life as a graduate student is set in motion, you will become well acquainted with the heart of our department: our front office staff, the Department Chair Chad Sosolik<\/a>, and the Laboratory Manager Dr. Thompson<\/a>. Everyone here is an invaluable part of the department\u2019s community, and a continued asset to you. They are all very kind and helpful!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Meet Amanda Ellenburg, our graduate student services coordinator. Her job is to help support our graduate students in all aspects of our program. She also serves as the point of contact for grad students who have policy questions or just need help with pretty much anything else. She strives to provide a safe space for students to be heard and direct them to other resources if they need a little extra help.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Meet Kim Webb, our office manager. As an office manager she supports faculty, staff, and students with a wide variety of needs and concerns. She also handles payroll and the onboarding of new hires.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Meet Sam Panzica! They are the program coordinator for the physics and astronomy department. This position is brand new to our department and its focus is to recruit more physics students to our program. They are also in charge of outreach and our social media pages.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Meet Celeste Hackett, our undergraduate student service coordinator. She provides support to the undergraduate students in our department. With her degree in Psychology and work experience in counseling, she considers herself as the \u2018social services component\u2019 of the department.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Dr. Sosolik is a faculty member and an academic administrator. His position is to teach AND provide leadership management to the department. He oversees the functions of the department, offers support to all students and faculty, and acts as a representative of the department.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Dr. Thompson is the Laboratory Manager, and is in charge of all lab equipment, organization, and scheduling. He is who will be assigning you your teaching position, and can also help you obtain equipment for your success as a teaching assistant, such as a borrowed grading tablet.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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More Resources in Kinard<\/strong><\/h4>

The first year office offers a full sized refrigerator, microwave, nice coffee machine, hotplate, and various utensils. On the first floor of the building is the PandA Cafe, a shared kitchen space for the whole department, which offers a full sized refrigerator, microwave, toaster oven, coffee makers, various utensils and dishes, soap and a sink, and more.<\/p>

Located directly next to the first year office is a stockroom\/electronics closet (room 309) with computer monitors, computer mice, keyboards, wiring, and even desktop computer systems. The keys to the first year office also open this door. Students are welcome to use the equipment in this room, just make sure to tell Dr. Daniel Thompson what you are using from this room via email, or stop by his office (K307). Also, if you need additional equipment such as wiring to help you connect to this equipment from your laptop for example, Dr. Thompson can order these for you at no cost to you. To do so, find what you need on a site such as Amazon, and email the product link to Dr. Thompson and ask for his assistance. Dr. Thompson can also lend you a grading tablet to aid students with a teaching or grading position.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What to Expect Graduate student life can certainly be taxing, as a PhD requires a lot of work. Because we graduate students are on the payroll for 40 hour work weeks, most find it beneficial to try roughly a 9:00am-5:00pm schedule to balance the workload and have productive days, and adjust if necessary. With teaching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-prospective-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceweb.clemson.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}