Strategies for Graduate School Success from Dr. Dick Sadler

Graduate school is a daunting yet rewarding journey that requires strategic planning, relentless perseverance, and a bit of serendipity. This episode of the Victor's in Grad School podcast brought forth an enlightening conversation with Dr. Dick Sadler, a professor at Michigan State University, who shared his compelling academic journey, strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome, and advice for prospective graduate students. Here are the key takeaways from the conversation that can serve as a guiding light on your graduate school path.

The Decision to Pursue Graduate Education

Dr. Dick Sadler’s journey to academia began somewhat serendipitously during his undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan - Flint. He was encouraged by his mentor, Dr. Ed Chow, to consider graduate school. Dr. Sadler’s initial motivation was partly driven by logistical factors, such as securing health insurance and guaranteed funding, which were available through a program at the University of Western Ontario. This decision highlights the importance of considering all aspects — financial, personal, and academic — when deciding to pursue graduate education.

From Environmental Science to Urban Geography

Dr. Sadler’s transition from studying environmental science to urban geography represents a fascinating pivot driven by his long-standing curiosity about urban landscapes. He reminisced about his childhood questions regarding the urban structure of his neighborhood, which laid the groundwork for his interest in urban geography. The skills he acquired through GIS and computer mapping during his undergrad allowed him to delve into urban processes, demonstrating the value of transferable skills and interdisciplinary approaches in academia.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is a common challenge faced by many graduate students, including Dr. Sadler. He shared that while imposter syndrome was prevalent at various stages of his academic career, it didn’t hinder his progress. His strategy was to remain focused, validate his progress through positive feedback and achievements, and immerse himself in the academic environment. Time and consistent effort became his allies in overcoming these doubts.

The Value of Graduate Degrees in Professional Development

Dr. Sadler discussed the significant role that his PhD played in shaping his career. He emphasized that his PhD provided him with the rigor needed for academic research, while his subsequent Master’s in Public Health from Johns Hopkins helped him understand the intricacies of public health. The combination of these degrees equipped him with a diverse set of skills, making him highly adaptable and capable in various research settings. His journey underscores the importance of continuous learning and skill acquisition.

Advice for Prospective Graduate Students

Dr. Sadler’s foremost advice for prospective graduate students is to secure a program that offers ample funding. Financial stability allows students to focus fully on their studies and research. He also stressed the importance of choosing a field of study that genuinely interests you. Graduate school requires a high level of engagement and creativity, which is easier to maintain when driven by passion. Finally, understanding that graduate school shifts from knowledge consumption to knowledge production can help students align their expectations and efforts accordingly.

Conclusion

Dr. Dick Sadler’s insights provide valuable guidance for those considering or already navigating the path of graduate education. Whether it’s overcoming imposter syndrome, leveraging your skills in new fields, or ensuring financial stability, his experiences offer a blueprint for success. As you embark on your graduate school journey, remember that perseverance, adaptability, and a genuine passion for your field are your greatest tools.

For more details and to listen to the full conversation, tune into the latest episode of the Victor's in Grad School podcast.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the 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. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of graduate programs at the University of Michigan Flint. I'm really excited to have you back again this week. This week, as always, we're talking about this journey that you've decided to go on. Now you might be at the very beginning where you haven't even applied anywhere yet, but you're just starting to think about it for yourself. You might have already applied. Maybe you got accepted already. Or maybe you're already in graduate school, and you're just trying to figure things out along the way.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:42]:
Or maybe you're even seeing that light at the end of the tunnel and trying to figure out what's next. No matter where you are, this podcast is here to help you to find success in that journey that you're on. That's why every week, I love being able to bring you different people, different guests that have had different experiences that can share those experiences with you and help you to learn from the things that went well, the things that maybe didn't go well, and also allow for you to be able to grab some tools for your own toolbox to help you along the way. Today, we got another great guest with us today. Doctor Dick Sandler is with us, and Dick is a professor at Michigan State University. And he's been there for quite a few years, but I'm really excited to be able to kind of turn the clock back in time, learn a little bit more about his own experience that led him to being a professor at Michigan State, and to introduce him to you. Dick, thanks so much for being here today.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:01:40]:
Yeah. For sure. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:42]:
Well, my pleasure. I love being able to chat with you today and be able to learn a little bit more. And as I said, I wanna start by turning the clock back in time. And I know you did your undergraduate work at the University of Michigan Flint, where you received a degree in environmental science and planning in GIS. And at some point during that period of time, you made a decision. You made a decision that you were gonna continue your education and go on, and you made a choice to go on to get a PhD in urban geography. Talk to me about this journey for yourself and what made you decide that you wanted to go to graduate school?

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:02:24]:
Yeah. I had kind of thought about it, but not super seriously. And honestly, it wasn't until, like, end of my junior year, start of my senior year, I was doing some independent study with who had become my de facto mentor in the ge functionally the geography department. His name was Ed Chow. He's now at Texas State, but he had been a professor there just for a couple of years. And I took all of my GIS or computer mapping classes from him. So I'd basically, my whole minor, I had taken classes with with doctor Chow. And I guess just, like, seeing the caliber of my work and the fact that we were working together, he suggested that I present some of my work at a regional research conference, like, for our professional society.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:03:04]:
I think that one was just down in East Lansing, actually. So it's funny. My first professional talk was at Michigan State. And then after that, he was just saying, you know, you should just throw in a couple applications to grad school. It's not gonna hurt, look around a little bit. And one thing I kind of wanted to do for a few years before was live in Canada. So I had this vague idea, oh, maybe I'll live in Canada someday. And then an also vague idea, maybe I'll go to grad school.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:03:30]:
Over Thanksgiving, actually, because my family wasn't doing much that year, I drove out to a few campuses in Southwestern Ontario, basically headed toward Toronto, and had a really good chat with one supervisor that the person who had eventually become my grad supervisor. And so I looked him up before and gotten a bit of an idea of the work he did, went there, met with him and his students, had lunch, and just got a really good sense from that campus that it was a good fit. So it's kind of dumb luck because I the other visits, actually, the rest of that trip was kind of a train wreck. Had car problems and then it snowed and then just I was uninspired to keep going. But yeah. So I applied to grad school because my undergrad supervisor had suggested it. Just happened to get in and get a scholarship because the program at the University of Western Ontario where I went to grad school was guaranteed funding for any of the grad students that were accepted. And so for me, that was the main reason for doing that.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:04:26]:
This was 2007 or 2008. And so this was before the ACA. And so, as a 22-year-old, like, becoming 22 that year, I was going to be off of my parents' health insurance and kind of off on my own. And I had some anxieties about that and moving into that next phase of adulthood. And going to Canada meant guaranteed health insurance and dental insurance because the grad students were in union. And I had a guaranteed teaching assistantship and a scholarship for my tuition. So it was honestly stepping into a job, if not a full time job. And, you know, if a more academic one, it was still something I always took really seriously and was able to take seriously because I was able to get an offer that was really it allowed me to not have to worry about those other kinds of financial questions, especially as a a young person, like, right out of undergrad, no kids, no pets, very mobile, that kind of thing.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:19]:
So talk to me a little bit about you went into a PhD program in urban geography, and your undergraduate work was in geography as well. But talk to me about couple things. One, why a PhD? You could have probably done a master's as well and and done that before a PhD if you had wanted to. And then 2, why urban geography?

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:05:40]:
Yeah. So and it's funny because the initial offering I had was to do a master's degree, and the program I started in was just starting to fuss with this idea of fast tracking master's students right into their PhD. And in some disciplines, you do do that or you have the option to. So after my 1st year of my masters, instead of progressing to writing a thesis, I wrote a small proposal and proposed being let into the PhD program, which guaranteed 4 more years of funding instead of just the one more year. So it was kind of a way to, like, kick the can down the road. Instead of 2 years of funding, I had 5 years total. And then instead of having to write a master's thesis in my 2nd year, I didn't have to write my dissertation until later in the PhD. So I was pushing some of that down the line.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:06:25]:
But again, I wound up in the same position where my grad supervisor and I was co supervised actually. So my grad supervisors agreed that doing well and I had a good topic and seemed like I had an aptitude to progressing into that. And it was something that by that point, I had started taking more seriously the idea of staying in academia and doing research. And it was of interest. I was never a student who super liked writing papers, for example. I liked the math and science parts of my work more. But as I got into a topic that was really of interest to me, I. E.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:06:58]:
Urban geography, I found I didn't mind reading and writing so much. You know, and again, my supervisors were saying, like, yeah, you're a good writer. And I had started I think by then I'd published a paper from my undergrad. So I kind of entered that world of academic publishing. And the urban geography part was, I think, honestly coming home a bit more. So my undergrad was like environmental science. And so it's like resource conservation and forest management and like natural geography stuff. But as a little kid, I was always curious about, you know, so I went to Atherton High School, which is in Burton, just outside of Flint here.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:07:32]:
And my mom had gone to Flint Northern. My dad had gone to Atherton. And as a little kid, I was wondering, asking questions like, why are there no sidewalks? Why isn't there a 711 in our neighborhood? Why don't we have a video store? Like, just these little kind of urban ideas that you'd see on a cartoon or a TV show that were not the way that Burton functioned, you know, being a suburb of a city like Flint. And then also learning about how Flint used to look in the sixties when my mom was growing up and wanting to experience more of that and and really liking the what the functional city looks like and functions like and being able to walk and bike and all of these interrelated processes. And so when I got to grad school and and specifically I found supervisors who did that kind of research that allowed me to take the skills I had learned in particular with the GIS, the mapping stuff, and shift the topic from that natural side back over to the urban side. So the research I do is really broad and and especially having come back to Flint for my faculty position nearly 10 years ago, I've been able to dig into all kinds of different processes in Flint's urban system from vacant land greening to the water system to flight and demolitions and crime and really anything you could imagine that varies over space or that's a part of an urban system in Flint I've I've studied.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:08:57]:
So after you got that PhD, PhD, you finished up your PhD, you, about 5 years later, made a decision to go back to school. And this time, you got a master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins. So every person has a different path and different choices. So talk to me about that choice and why you decided that you wanted to go back to school after getting that terminal degree to be able to study something very different in regard to that next phase of your education?

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:09:27]:
That was a funny one. So I got my PhD in 2013. I got my faculty job in 2015 after a short postdoc. And after about a year here, we hired another faculty member named Deborah Furr Holden. She had come from Johns Hopkins. And after her being here for a couple of years, she told me that they were starting a program. She had colleagues back there and they were starting a program through the Bloomberg School of Public Health that would guarantee funding for master's students in particular from community based settings. So more of the applicants were from places like health departments or or, substance use program, treatment programs, things like that.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:10:09]:
But she said, Oh, just throw your hat in. It's a new program. And if you get in, then you got to go into your Miles per hour. And I did. So then it's like, okay, I guess I'm doing another degree. And, and yeah, I didn't have a master's degree. And I had been working in a division of public health for 3 years at that point. And at times felt a little bit, it'd be like moving to France or something.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:10:32]:
And like, you're kind of learning French, but people can still tell that you're American. And I thought, okay, this is like an immersion program that'll help me really understand the culture and the language of public health. And, yeah, so the program was partly in person. I got to go to Baltimore for a couple of weeks at a time and take intensive courses. And then a lot of it was online and I actually finished it the 1st couple of months of COVID were like my last term. And so the program was already online anyways and and wrap that up and kinda just like checking another box. But again, it was feeling more comfortable in the public health world and also making connections. I have some colleagues at Johns Hopkins now.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:11:09]:
One of whom in particular, we do a lot of work together. So it was a nice way to kind of expand my research reach and feel like I have a little bit more skills in my tool belt.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:18]:
So you've had these different experiences. And in each of those experiences, going to get your PhD, your master's degree, there are different transitions that you have to go through. So you went through you went through a transition between going from undergrad into your PhD and then from your PhD to the workforce, from workforce back into an a master's program. As you think about the transitions that you have had in your own educational experiences, what did you have to do to set yourself up for success in each of those? And what did you do to maintain that success throughout the entire graduate school journey?

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:11:56]:
So I think the transition from undergrad to PhD was the like, I don't wanna discount the anxieties of my former self. Like, I wanna say that that might have been the easiest. But honestly, I mean, on the flip side, I think adding the master's program to my existing work plate in retrospect, maybe that's the easiest because I was already an academic. I already had a PhD. I was going back for a master's in a related discipline to, you know, the kind of work I was doing. But yeah. So starting my PhD, I I never stopped going to school. Right? So it's like high school, undergrad, master's program slash into my PhD.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:12:34]:
And so I still had the same study habits. And in some ways, I was well, in most ways, I was way more scared. I was, like, terrified that I was gonna bomb out of grad school. It was a path that my immediate family hadn't taken. And so there wasn't this example or people that I was close to that I could follow in the footsteps of. And so I spent a lot of I took a lot of effort and care to be a really good student through my PhD program because I wanted to set myself up for success. So in some ways, and I don't begrudge it at all, but I wasn't quite as loose and and free in my earlier twenties. And in on the flip side, it was like just the last few years of my life, I've been I feel like I've been able to loosen up and relax and enjoy vacation and stuff like that.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:13:20]:
But also because I punched through and I took extra special care, I was able to get to where I am now. And so I feel like the transition from my PhD into the workforce wasn't too bad. I mean, again, it was another one of those big hurdles where I was like, okay, for sure, they're gonna figure me out now. I had imposter syndrome at each stage of my, honestly, like start of high school, start of college, start of grad school, start of faculty career. I've always had that kind of perspective where I'm not doing good enough. And it's funny because I've always ultimately excelled in each of those phases of my life. But I think it's good to go into something a little bit scared because then you make sure that you're giving it sufficient effort. And and I should add, it's not like I wasn't having fun in my early twenties.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:14:04]:
I I've played in bands my most of my adult life and certainly have had friends and so forth. It's just I was balancing that much more precariously with this anxiety. It's like at a show or on vacation and I'm just thinking about my grad school work. And it's just dragging me down. Whereas now I can compartmentalize it a little bit better. I'm used to it. I write papers and I read papers and I teach guest classes and stuff like that. And, and it's much more routine, and I'm not so hyper fixated on this prospect that I'm going to fail all the time.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:37]:
When you think about imposter syndrome, and many graduate students face that at the beginning or throughout their experiences, What did you have to do to push through that? And were there any strategies that you put into place that have helped you in with that as you've gone through not only your graduate degrees but into your career?

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:14:59]:
I think in each case, it was time that helped the most. It was being able to look back and see either my report cards or my publishing history or whatever again at each stage of my career and see evidence that I'm doing okay and not just doing okay but doing well. And also not just doing well in my first evaluation, but all of the subsequent ones because you can be a freshman and have a good year and then you kinda just slough off and you don't keep trying. And so and that's why for me, I usually would take a couple of years. It was like junior year of high school, junior year of undergrad, 3rd year of grad school. And I don't know why it's like that for me. It's just, again, this, like, big fear that I'm not going to achieve enough. So in terms of the strategies that may have helped though, I really don't know that I have had active strategies.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:15:51]:
I think it's literally just being able to have evidence of people saying, no. You're doing a good job. And me being able to look back and see that I haven't flunked out yet.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:02]:
You've completed your degrees. You have a number of degrees under your belt. As you look back at the different degrees that you have received, your undergrad, your PhD, your masters, and you think about what you're doing today. How do you feel that the graduate degree has prepared you for the work that you're doing on a daily basis?

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:16:22]:
Yeah. My PhD in particular, this set me up really well. I mean, well, yeah. I mean, I think each of them had some roles, of course. I mean, but, I'll just start with my undergrad degree too, because being able to get research experience and I did wanna make sure to share this being at U of M Flint and being at a smaller campus and having the opportunity to do research with one of my professors is something I don't think I would have necessarily had the chance to do at a huge university, like at U of M Ann Arbor or at MSU's campus. And that really allowed me to get my feet wet and understand like, okay, this is what research looks like functionally, you know, more than just writing a class paper and and seeing something through not just through the end of the semester, but until it got published. And and so once I got to grad school and was in my PhD program, the expectations there of publishing a couple of papers before defense and not everybody did that, but the the the hope at least that you were already actively publishing before you defend it. And the just the culture in my department, it was it was a very collegial, very fun department.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:17:33]:
We had a softball team and a soccer team and we went to the bars and so forth. But it was serious and people came into the office and it felt like a job. And I had a lot of people that I could look up to in different fields even. But, you know, people who are Canada research chairs in their own sub disciplines, who were my professors and had worked with big names in the field at University of Toronto and McGill and at other American universities. And so really seeing that and what it actually took to be productive at that level. I think once I got back here to Flint and started working for MSU, I at least knew what the game was. It was still harder for me at the time. I was doing it more slowly and I had to be more intentional about like, okay, if I wanna write a paper, I've gotta get the data and then I've gotta spend a lot of time on the literature review.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:18:25]:
And and I had to kinda take it step by step. And now stuff just flies at me so fast that it's like, I've got like 25 papers with 17 different research teams and and I don't have the amount of time to dedicate to any one step. But the fact that I have I had really good practice at that in grad school, in particular, my PhD, and then have been able to rehearse that over and over and over as I published with all these different teams and in different roles, too, I think has has made me much more comfortable with the kind of work that I do.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:58]:
Now, as you look back at your own graduate education and maybe even you're thinking about some of the graduate students that you work with now, as you think about other students that are coming in the future, people that are thinking about graduate school and thinking about attending a graduate school, a graduate program sometime in the future. What are some tips that you might offer others considering graduate education that would help them find success sooner?

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:19:24]:
One of the things that for me lessened my mental load and my life load was finding a program that had funding. And so I know it's gonna vary a lot for different people. Some people may have more of a, like, a work expectation. They already have a job. And it's like, hey, if you get your master's degree, you can increase your salary. And and so that's a very different kind of grad school route than the one I took because I was treating grad school like my first job out of college. And so I feel like I can speak to that a little bit more because those kind of paths to me feel different. And so I guess in particular for people that were going into a research path or maybe an academic path, whether you're working for a university or or you wanna work for something like a research center or a consulting firm that does evaluation or whatever.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:20:12]:
I think that had I not had my full attention on grad school, it would have been really hard to dig into the processes of research design, and academic writing as much as I did, because I really needed exclusive focus on it. It was not just a side piece for me. I had teaching assistantships and then I was teaching courses later in grad school, but it was very much secondary to the process of becoming a researcher. And so, yeah, so that would would definitely contrast a lot with if you somebody who's doing an MBA or an Miles per hour or some kind of professional degree where the goal is maybe still like a little bit more coursework and skill building. And certainly like with my Miles per hour, it was a lot of coursework and expanding the fields that I was familiar with. Again, I think that it's the general lesson if I want if I was gonna try to generalize would be that well, and this is something that a lot of my professors would say over and over all throughout grad school is that undergrad is about consuming knowledge and your grad program is about producing knowledge. So whatever field it is you're in, it's about trying to become more active in that process. And you're not just sitting in the classroom and being fed information, but you're thinking more critically.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:21:29]:
Maybe you're using new theoretical constructs or you're thinking methodologically about how do we do something better with the tools that we have. And so it requires a little bit of creativity, which again requires time to like sit and chew on these ideas. And it's not just like I'm gonna do this exercise real quick and submit it and then I'm done. You really want to enjoy what you're studying because if you don't, then you're just gonna be bored out of your mind spending the amount of time it takes to really become more of an expert in that field.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:04]:
Well, Dick, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your journey today. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on research, on the pathways that may exist in in so much more. And I truly wish you all the best.

Dr. Dick Sadler [00:22:16]:
Thank you very much, and good luck to everybody out there listening.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:19]:
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].