Why Mentorship Matters in Grad School: Insights from Dr. Jonathan Bartels

Embarking on graduate school is more than just an academic decision—it’s a deeply personal journey marked by self-discovery, challenge, growth, and, ultimately, transformation. In the recent episode of Victors in Grad School, Dr. Christopher Lewis sat down with Dr. Jonathan Bartels, Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Michigan-Flint, to explore the realities of pursuing advanced degrees and the invaluable lessons learned along the way.

Dr. Bartels’ candid reflection on his path—from an undergraduate at East Carolina University to earning his master’s while teaching, and then pursuing a doctorate at UNC Chapel Hill—sheds light on several key themes that resonate with anyone considering or currently navigating graduate education.

1. The Nonlinear Nature of Academic Paths

One of the central takeaways is that the journey to and through graduate school isn’t always mapped out from the start. Dr. Bartels never planned to pursue a master’s or a doctorate—he was fueled by a desire for deeper intellectual engagement and the encouragement of mentors who saw potential in him. His story reassures listeners that it’s okay—and often beneficial—to let curiosity and passion guide your next steps, even if they diverge from your original plan.

2. The Power of Mentorship and Community

Dr. Bartels emphasizes how pivotal faculty relationships were to his development, especially choosing graduate programs based on the research interests and support of specific professors. Connecting with advisors and building a supportive cohort community can ease transitions and provide both professional opportunities and emotional sustenance.

3. Managing Mindset and Embracing Growth

Imposter syndrome and self-doubt are common companions in graduate school. Dr. Bartels opens up about normalizing these feelings and maintaining perspective: your presence in a program is evidence of your worth, and challenging moments are natural signs of growth. Reframing experiences from “jumping hoops” to opportunities for learning and self-betterment is key for long-term success.

4. Balancing Life and Prioritizing Well-Being

Graduate study often means juggling academics, work, family, and personal commitments. Dr. Bartels offers practical advice—set boundaries, proactively communicate with faculty, make time for rest, and remember that self-care is not a luxury but a necessity for sustainable, effective learning.

5. Purpose-Driven Learning

Most crucially, Dr. Bartels reminds us to continually revisit our “why” for pursuing graduate education. Anchoring your studies in your personal and professional aspirations provides resilience, motivation, and a sense of direction to weather the inevitable challenges.

Whether you’re contemplating graduate school or already in the trenches, this podcast episode is packed with honest advice and encouragement. Listen in to gain insight and inspiration for your own academic journey!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:06]:
Experts about what it takes to find.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:00:08]:
Success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]:
Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. As always, every week we are working together on this journey that you're on. And I call it a journey because it truly is. As you go from your undergraduate degree to looking at the possibility of a graduate degree, or maybe you've already applied, you got an accepted, or maybe you're even in a graduate program now. This continuum that you're on is definitely a journey.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:42]:
You're going to learn a ton along this whole pathway. But there are things that you can do right now to prepare yourself better for the future that you want to attain. And that's what this show is all about. This show is all about helping you to. To identify ways in which you can be successful in this graduate journey that you're on. And that's why every week I love being able to bring you different people with different experiences that can help you in many ways to learn things that they may not have known along the way that they had to learn the hard way, and maybe gain some additional insight that can help you as you go through your own journey. This week we got another great guest with us. Dr.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:24]:
Jonathan Bartles is with us. And Dr. Bartles is an assistant professor of education at the University of Michigan, Flint, and he has his own educational journey that he went on to get his doctorate and now be teaching at the University of Michigan, Flint. I'm really excited to be able to have him here today and to have him share some of his own experiences. Jonathan, thanks so much for being here today.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:01:46]:
Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:47]:
It is my pleasure, really excited to have you here today to be able to talk about this journey that you went on. And I, as I said, it is a journey. And I know you did your undergraduate work at East Carolina University. You stayed on for a master's degree there and then went on to get a doctorate. Every person comes to thinking about graduate school in a little bit different way. And I guess for you, I would love to take you back to that point, take you back to those days at East Carolina University where you were getting that Bachelor of Science degree in English Language Arts and Teacher education. And at some point you made a decision. You made a decision that you were going to continue on into a graduate career degree, and you made that Choice.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:32]:
So talk to me about that. What made you choose that graduate education was the next step and that you were going to continue on?

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:02:39]:
Yeah, absolutely. So it actually wasn't part of my plan. I graduated with my undergraduate and I started teaching. And my plan was to. I'm going to go teach and I'm going to enjoy it. And I loved teaching. The first year of teaching is. We often refer to it as kind of treading water.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:02:51]:
It's. You're trying to, you know, just figure everything out in your own classroom. So I was doing that and that was really fulfilling and time consuming. But at the end of that first year, I realized that there's a level of intellectual engagement that happens at a university campus that doesn't happen at like a high school campus. It's not to say I didn't have brilliant colleagues and phenomenal students who were pushing me intellectually, but there was a piece that I felt like that I realized I was missing from being on the university campus. And so I thought about it and kind of looked around and decided to stick with East Carolina University to go back and work on my master's while I was continuing to teach, to get back into some of those academic conversations. And I was coming to get involved with different research projects and things like that. And so it was just a way for me to keep that type of thing going.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:03:35]:
And that was really my drive to. That sent me back to grad school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:39]:
Well, you just mentioned that you stayed on at East Carolina University and getting a Master of Arts in Education in English. And I guess one of the questions that I have is taking you back to when you made that decision that you were going to continue on. There are a lot of different Master of Arts programs that are out there, lots of different English programs that are out there. You chose to go back to your undergraduate institution to be able to get that degree. Talk to me about that decision making process for yourself. Maybe what you were looking for in a degree and what made you ultimately choose to stay at the same university for your master's.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:04:16]:
There are a ton of options. And within North Carolina, there are phenomenal schools and colleges of education that I could have selected from and still been on that wonderful in state tuition that they had there at that time. I decided to stay with East Carolina because of the faculty. There was one particular faculty within English education that I had already kind of been doing a little bit of work with. And it was somebody that we had a lot of similar interests and connections. And so for me, that was my driving force. For staying with ECU was. His name's Dr.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:04:44]:
Todd Finley. Really interesting work that he does with different types of emotional awareness and technology and looking how technology is influencing ed. And I wanted to continue my work with him. And so really it was about really the faculty and the faculty's research interests that kind of made me want to stay there.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:00]:
Now you stayed at East Carolina, got your degree, and at some point during that point in time, you made a big shift in deciding to completely move outside of teaching at the K12 level to going beyond. And you decided to apply for PhD programs. Talk to me about that decision for yourself. And you ultimately decided to go to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Again, lots of PhD programs that are out there. So talk to me about that decision making process as well.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:05:33]:
Absolutely. Just like going to get my Master's, I wasn't planning to get a PhD. I wasn't planning to go in those directions. But as I was working on my master's, as I mentioned, I was becoming more involved in research projects and I was getting more and more into that. And I really loved teaching. I loved the school I was at. I kept saying, like, I don't know why they're paying me for this. I just feel like I'm coming and playing and being a nerd about literature and writing.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:05:54]:
And so for me, teaching was. It was a lot of play. It was just a lot of fun for me. But I remember one morning I got to my classroom early and I was working on one of the research projects I was doing with Dr. Finley. And the bell rang for students to come in. And my thought was, I really wish it was like a work day or something so I can keep working on this research project. And that kind of made me sit back at my desk and go, wait.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:06:18]:
Like, I really like these students. I really love what I'm doing, but I'm wishing my students weren't here today so I could do this. And that kind of made me go, okay, I need to. What is my future? What is my path forward? And so at that point, it became that search of, okay, I think I need to go get a doctorate, Because I'm starting to get really into the research. And I was starting to facilitate professional development opportunities for teachers. And so getting into some of that teacher education piece, I was getting really interested in that. So it's kind of seeing, seeing the writing on the wall for my future. As I started to look at schools, I spent probably a year or two looking at different programs.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:06:53]:
As I was finishing up my master's and just trying to figure out which is going to be the right program for me. It started out with a national search, and I started looking at. I think I was looking at Stanford, Arizona State, and then Chapel Hill came in as one of my selections to figure out which program was best for me. I worked very closely with Dr. Finley and said, hey, help me figure this out, because I need to figure out where. Where's the right spot? And so he had insights about schools, and he also reached out to his network to say, hey, I've got this student. Here's what they're interested in. What do you think? And so it helped me narrow it down.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:07:26]:
And for me, landing at Chapel Hill, it was ultimately, I really liked the work they were doing there. And once again, looking at the faculty that are there, I think, especially for a doctorate program, that is a critical piece of seeing. Are there faculty there who can advance the things that you're curious about? Can they take you to where you want to be? I was interested in technology, but really wanted to look more at the sociological aspects of technology and kind of, what do they mean beyond their immediate usage? And there are some phenomenal faculty at UNC Chapel Hill who are really looking at some of those sociocultural underpinnings of education and approaching technology in that same kind of way that wasn't super technocentric, but much more a sociological approach. And so that's really kind of what led me to Chapel Hill as well as just some guidance advisor. Dr. Finley's wife commented to me one time about my social support network and being connected with groups that I was connected with in North Carolina. And how, from her perspective, she said, this seems like a very important thing for you. Is that something you're willing to just give up and move? And I was like, that's a.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:08:27]:
That's a really good point. And so it was a lot of different things that drove me to Chapel Hill. And going from one in state school to the flagship was. Was a little bit of a pain in my ECU Pirate heart to become a Chapel Hill Tar Heel, but it was absolutely worth it and wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:08:42]:
With all of those different degrees, there are transitions that you go through. There's transitions from your going from undergrad to your master's degree for your master's degree to your doctorate degree. At each level, there are different expectations, different perspectives, different things that faculty are going to expect of you as a student, as a learner, and as you think back to the graduate school, experiences that you had and you think about those transitions for yourself. What did you have to do to set yourself up for success as you transitioned into those different programs, and what did you have to do to maintain that success throughout the entire graduate school journey?

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:09:22]:
I think it becomes a staggered piece through my master's program. It was about just kind of really working closely with my advisor in that he very quickly saw where I was going and was starting to tailor things for me to kind of shape the master's degree in a way that was going to help me get to my eventual goals. So I think working closely with him and just kind of going through the process of that master's program was. Was big and really taking advantage of different opportunities that were there with the opportunities to. To research as well as do my own research for my thesis, and then present that both at conferences as well as at different things on campus, just to kind of help, kind of share my work and get my work out there and practice some of that, I think, was really big. And so I was presenting a whole lot and starting to wr pieces and articles in collaboration with Dr. Finley, as well as writing up my thesis work for publication. And so those things, I think, are really important to take advantage of, because I think those are things that are often on the side, but can be a really important piece because it gets you plugged into those larger professional networks and kind of get your name and work out there, which is really important at the doctorate level.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:10:28]:
If I thought that my relationship with my advisor was important to my master's, like, that was a great, lovely thing to have that phenomenal relationship with Dr. Finley. Having a good relationship with my advisor through my doctorate program was absolutely critical. And while we didn't always have things as aligned, Dr. Cheryl Mason Bullock is an amazing scholar and was such a phenomenal advisor. And working closely with her and following her guidance on things was really, really important. One of the things that I think, which Cheryl didn't always like because she was very optimistic, and she felt like I brought a realism that it made her a little bit uncomfortable at times. But Dr.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:11:06]:
Finley's wife from East Carolina had commented to me about how difficult it was for her to watch Todd go through his doctorate program and just some of the emotional toll that learning at that kind of level can take. And so for me, that was something that constantly played in my mind. And I shared that with Cheryl. And she. I think she's kind of like Mary Poppins, just always positive and practically perfect in every way. And so me saying, like, oh, yeah, like, I'M going to get broken, I'm going to feel down, I'm going to do those things. But that's also nor. And part of this extreme growth that I'm going through in such a short span.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:11:40]:
And so for me, keeping those kinds of things in mind were really important that when working on a graduate degree you are going to be pushed, you are going to be stretched to your intellectual limit. And that. That can be really difficult. Growth is always a difficult, painful process. But being able to recognize that that is what's happening. This is hard, this is difficult. I'm having doubts, but that's because I'm growing so much that I'm having these things and that this is a normal thing that. And so for me, that normalized it.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:12:09]:
Whenever I would have those moments of doubt and go, okay, wait, no, this is just. It's part of the process. It's part of that growth. And I think that was an important thing, at least for me to keep in mind that it otherwise I would just go insular and say I'm just not cut out for this versus this is just part of the process. And so I think that things like that are important. And then also building community with the cohort that I was in my doctorate with, it was a rigorous thing that we were all in together. And so having community within that cohort was really, really important just for social morale and things like that to kind of get through.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:44]:
You know, one of the other things that comes to mind after hearing you say that is that I think every student that goes into a graduate program, not only do they go through these transitions, but they also go through mindset shifts as it comes to the way in which they learn, ways in which they have to process, et cetera. Talk to me about the mindset shifts that you had to make to be able to successful in graduate school.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:13:10]:
I think that for part of it with undergrad, a lot of my. I think we see this with our undergrads as well and that sometimes it's. It's about compliance. Why am I in these classes? Well, because I'm supposed to be. Let me jump the hoop. It started within my master's program. I can still think of times when I definitely was hoop jumping. But then as I was getting to the doctorate program, it very much became about the grade doesn't matter.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:13:31]:
Being somebody who gets that spot, it's really hard to say the grade doesn't matter, but really the grade doesn't matter. What's more important is what is my own growth? How am I seeing my work, am I happy with what I'm producing? And if I'm happy with it and it doesn't make an A or whatever the university is using as an equivalent of an A, does that actually matter? When really it's about my own growth and my own journey. As you were saying earlier, it's about, how is this preparing me, what am I getting from it? And that trying to make the most of every opportunity. I had some classmates who would look in some of our courses and kind of go, this is just a waste of time. It's like, okay, if that's your perspective of it, then yes, this will absolutely be a waste of time. But what can you learn from it? I always tell my interns that you can be in someone's classroom who's an amazing teacher and there's a lot to learn there. You could also be in a classroom with someone who's really not a good teacher, and there's a lot to learn there. And so it's about taking those opportunities and making sure that you are capitalizing on it and you are doing what you need to do to get the most out of it.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:14:27]:
Because at the end of the day, those grades don't matter. But what you've learned and how you've grown is really the biggest piece. So for me, I think that was one of the big things is really getting to the spot of what can I get from this? And I don't really care about the grade. It's really about my own growth. And I think that part of it is also just the recognition of the privilege that it is to be able to attend grad school, whether it's the master's level or at the doctorate level. When you think about global population and Right. How does this put you with an education in the global population, you're among the the elite few who are getting these advanced degrees. And so it's really a privilege and an opportunity that I think needs to be really kind of taken advantage of.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:15:08]:
Right. Don't minimize it and treat it as a hoop, but instead that idea, embracing it and really recognizing the value that is there in all the different opportunities.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:15]:
I appreciate you sharing that. The other thing that I hear from a lot of students is the fact that many students face imposter syndrome as they transition into these type of graduate programs. Talk to me about your own experience and whether you faced imposter syndrome or self doubt during those graduate studies and how did you handle it?

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:15:37]:
Oh, I face that every day. So for me, once again, like it was that piece where that pragmatic approach that my master's advisor's wife gave me of this is normal. I feel like I don't belong. I was studying alongside some brilliant, brilliant colleagues who even now, like, I look at their work and I'm just blown away by what they're doing. But it'd be really easy to get that I don't belong here. Look at who I'm in class with, who's absolutely brilliant, who's already accomplished so much. But the reality is I was accepted there and selected for that program to come there and do that work because the faculty there saw the value in me, me, and they saw what I can bring. And so it's about making sure that I'm bringing that.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:16:14]:
And that idea of, I feel like I don't belong here. I feel like I haven't earned this. Those are very normal feelings that just about everyone has. And so for me, it was that big piece of normalizing it and normalizing the. That internal angst around things that helped me kind of deal with it whenever I would have it, and then whenever I'd get burnt out. My master's program, I was able to do while I worked, taking courses in the evenings, and then in the summers with my doctorate, I was required to do it full time. And so for me, whenever I got to those spaces of being just burnt out and just feeling exhausted and feeling overwhelmed, like I didn't belong, I would just kind of take a moment and sit back and think to myself, okay, like, especially with my doctor program of. My job right now is to read profound things and think deeply about them.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:16:58]:
What an amazing luxury. That would always kind of snap me out of the funk that I was in. It's like, wow, this is what my job is right now, is to do this intellectual kind of work. What a. What a privilege. But also recognizing the, yeah, I'm going to feel bad about things some days, and so is everybody else. We're proud. Probably not going to talk about it, because when you have that imposter syndrome feeling, you think it's just you, and so you internalize it.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:17:20]:
But if everybody is having it now, everyone's just internalizing it, which makes you feel more like, well, nobody else is saying anything. But the reality is every single person in that room, every single person in that class has those feelings of the imposter syndrome and, like, they don't belong and all those. And so I think normalizing that is a really important piece.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:36]:
Rewind and hear what Jonathan just said. Because in making sure that you do normalize it, talk about it and find those champions around you, those peers, those friends, those people that you are connecting with and talk about it, put it out on the table and you're gonna find, just like Jonathan said, they are feeling the same way. They're just not talking about it because they feel that they're the only ones that are feeling that way. And that's normal. So talk about it, put it out into the world. You're going to find that it's going to be reflected back and it's going to help you in the end to talk about that. Now, Jonathan, one of the things that is definitely challenging is many times when you're going to graduate school, you're balancing a lot. Many times you are trying to do work, you're doing research, you're trying to keep up relationships, you're balancing school, work, family, personal responsibilities, a lot of different things.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:30]:
How did you balance all of that while you were going through those graduate programs?

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:18:33]:
Programs? I don't know. When I was working on my doctorate, that was my full time gig. There were some times that there was other pieces like as I was working on my research and trying to maintain hours of my assistantship that was paying my tuition and you know, healthcare, that was super important. It could be a stretch, it could definitely be some late nights. One of the faculty members I worked with made a comment to me, which in some ways I appreciated. In some ways I kind of was like, oh, wouldn't that be nice? But her comment was, pulling an all nighter is not a badge of honor. It says you're not managing your time well. Which in some ways I kind of appreciate, appreciated hearing that.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:19:06]:
But in other ways, sometimes you can't manage your time any better and you have to pull that all nighter to get something done. And so there's that balance which that idea of like, oh, forcing myself to suffer isn't a badge of honor. Like, what do I need to do to maintain my own life, my own sanity and still accomplish What I need to accomplish is a big piece. While I was working on my master's and teaching full time and then taking one or two courses per semester in the evenings. That could be a lot at times, especially as deadlines came up. There was one time that I just was swamped in the semester and had to take a personal day off from my school to just sit down and just grind out work all day to get myself caught back up. But the biggest piece was open communication with the professors that I was working with. And making sure that they knew what was going on.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:19:51]:
And if I was running behind on something, being communicative about it proactively, not waiting until it's due or the day after and sending a note. But hey, I'm really trying to hit this deadline that's coming up, but I've got XYZ happening at my school, so I might be a little bit late, if that's okay. And trying to figure out what could be done there is really, really important. So I think that proactive communication is critical for balancing out some of those difficult times and remembering to just take care of yourself. I think that was one of my biggest things, is just that idea of if I am exhausted both physically and intellectually and emotionally, I'm just burnt out and exhausted. I'm not going to be able to work efficiently and I'm not going to produce good work. So while it may seem counterproductive, me taking a couple of hours to take a nap or, or go for a walk is actually going to make my work more efficient and better when I come back to it because I am rested and I'm recharged. And so I think that that's a really big piece in trying to balance things is making sure that you are taking care of yourself because a healthy you is going to do better than a strung out you.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:20:58]:
And so I think that's a really important piece to it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:00]:
A lot of the learning that happens within your programs happens in the class you have that the knowledge that you're learning in class, but there's also learning that happen happens as you're going through graduate school outside of the classroom for you. As you think about both of the degrees that you received post your bachelor's degree, what was the most valuable thing you learned outside of the classroom during.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:21:22]:
Graduate school, I was able to make connections once again, going back to what I was saying about taking advantage of those opportunities. Being a graduate assistant for a professor that I haven't taken any classes with, but there's an opportunity to work with them on some project that's going to maybe buy me a couple cups of coffee, but getting to work with that professor and take that time, you get to learn much more about what all is going on. And all the different possibilities are. A lot of times we go into degrees and we may have a kind of very narrow view of what is the outcome from this degree. Where is this going to take me? And so getting more exposure to different perspectives, different opportunities is really, really important for me. Getting out into the conferences was Huge. And spending time at national conferences and getting to know other people I think was one of the most important pieces for me. And learning like that kind of conference networking stuff that as an introvert exhausts me to no end.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:22:16]:
But it's also so much value in getting to know that larger professional community outside of your own institution to see what all is there, what all they are doing and learn from them. And also if you're, you know, working on a doctorate, learning the ins and outs of places like higher ed. Higher ed is a complex place. And so being involved in different things on campus is really important because no matter what kind of degree you're working on, you're going into a work environment that's going to be complex. And so the more engagement and the more diverse perspectives you can take on within that arena, the more well rounded you're going to be in your own work in there.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:51]:
I appreciate you sharing that as well. As you think back to this experience that you went through, what's something that you wish someone had told you before you started in graduate school as you think back now?

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:23:04]:
That's a, that's a really good question that I feel like can sometimes be hard to answer because there's some things that I was pre warned about. The emotional toll. I think that was a very important piece for me. Thinking about some of the, the different opportunities and being more prepared to engage in the opportunities I think is something that, that I needed and to think about what does that work look like within the profession. I know when I started presenting at conferences, my first presentation, I was sweating BU and just a mess until we got about halfway through it and my co presenter threw out a joke and I was kind of like, oh wait, this isn't, this can be fun and like I can play and I can joke around while doing this and not just be up here in a suit and really stiff. And so I think that getting to see some of that and getting to see where is the fun within the profession, where is the fun within the work and trying to make sure that you can see that all the time is a really important piece that even when there's that super tedious assignment, I feel like the research methods course courses that I teach now, students just dread because a research methodology textbook is essentially a glorified dictionary that we're working through. But helping students to see where's the fun in it? Where can you enjoy this? Where can you also take pieces and apply it within your work right now? So I think that finding ways to do that earlier in my graduate career would have been better. And some of those courses in my masters that I mentioned, like, I still kind of approached as a hoop jump, I could have and should have gotten more out of those.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:24:33]:
I should have engaged with that a little bit more to see where is the benefit. And for me, one of my things is always, where's the fun? Like, how can I engage this? How can I entertain myself with this? How can I bring this into my own professional practice? I think that'd be an important thing to take on from the very beginning, if you can.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:48]:
So finally, and this may be kind of a little bit of an add on to what you were just talking about. As you look back and think back to the. Your graduate education, and you think about students that are thinking about graduate education for themselves, whether it be in education or some other area, what are some tips that you might offer them as they consider graduate education that would help them find success sooner?

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:25:09]:
The first question I always ask my students when they ask me about, you know, if they should pursue a master's or if they should pursue a doctorate, is, why, why do you want to do this? What is it that you're wanting to accomplish that this is going to lead you to? Sometimes it's, well, I want the pay bump that comes with it. Okay, well, let's try to think a little bit more broadly about that. Well, that pay bump is a very important thing. I don't want to minimize that. What can we get out of it? How can we make sure that it's beneficial for you beyond that financial piece? And so I think that that really is the biggest thing, because once you identify am I doing this? That then gives you something to anchor things to. And so for those courses that you look at and you go, well, this is just a hoop jump. Okay, but why are you doing it? Why are you doing this overall program? Why are you taking that course? How does that course contribute to this overall program? And therefore, how does it contribute to your goal and what you're trying to accomplish? And I think that, like, once you have that. That reason, once you have that clear answer to why am I doing this? That gives you that anchorage that is going to pull all the pieces together and give you that kind of motivation, that kind of drive to accomplish whatever it is you need to accomplish for your own learning in that space, because you have a reason.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:26:20]:
It's not, well, I'm doing this because it's an assignment. It's, well, I'm doing this because this is leading to X for me. This is helping me get to where I want to be. And I think having that clear intrinsic motivation clearly narrated out is really important to provide that kind of work.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:35]:
Well, Jonathan, I just want to say thank you you thank you for sharing your journey today. I know it's a journey that we all continue on as we continue to learn and to grow ourselves and we continue to work with others and pass that learning on. And I always appreciate being able to have faculty and others on to be able to share that. So I thank you for doing that today, for sharing with others, and I wish you all the best.

Dr. Jonathan Bartels [00:26:59]:
Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:00]:
The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of master's 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].