Top 6 Graduate School Survival Books

1. Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide

An oldie but a goodie. Published in 1997, this guide remains essential reading for graduate students in the humanities and social sciences. While it offers assistance in applying to graduate school, the advice for surviving and succeeding in graduate school is this book's strongest feature. I used the older, first, edition of this book and found it invaluable throughout my years in graduate school.

2. The Ph.D. Process : A Student's Guide to Graduate School

Intended for science students, particularly biology students, this guide accurately depicts the grad school experience for science students. While all graduate students share some experiences, such as reading, papers, theses, competition, stress, and insecurity (all of which are covered in this book), science students have discipline-specific issues, such as working in and managing a lab, lab notebooks, and scientific writing. It's a decent-sized book, but a quick read that's well-organized, making it easy to find that you need.

3. Playing the Game: The Streetsmart Guide to Graduate School

This book offers very practical advice on how to succeed in grad school, paying particular attention to the political aspects of graduate student, which most volumes ignore. However, the excellent advice is embedded in writing that is intended to be humorous, but may be offensive to some because it include much profanity and "politically incorrect" statements.

4. Succeeding in Graduate School: The Career Guide for Psych Students

A very helpful guide for graduate students in psychology that covers the entire graduate school experience: from choosing a program to becoming licensed. Chapters are concise and cover a range of topics including the all-important political aspect of graduate student life. It is unique because it is edited, so each chapter is written by psychologists who are well-suited to discuss and offer advice on its content.

5. A Ph.D. Is Not Enough: A Guide to Survival in Science

Also for science students, this book is aimed for new PhDs but graduate students can apply this info early in their graduate studies to set themselves up for success. The book is a guide to life as a scientist - offering a revealing look at the skills needed for success. It's a very short book and some would say outdated as it was published in 1993; however, the advice stands the test of time.

6. Surviving Graduate School in Psychology: A Pocket Mentor

Disclaimer: This is my own book. That said, it is intended for graduate students in psychology. It holds much in common with the other books on this list except it addresses some of the unique issues that graduate study in psychology entails, such as practica and applied experiences and applying for internship.