Grad School Femtoring: Inclusive Grad School Stories, Personal Development, and Productivity Tips for First-Gen BIPOCs

In this episode of the Grad School Femtoring podcast, I unpack seven common graduate school myths that can leave students questioning their abilities, belonging, support systems, timelines, and career prospects. These myths can be especially harmful for historically excluded students—including those who are first-generation, BIPOC, disabled, neurodivergent, chronically ill, parenting, caregiving, and nontraditional students—who are navigating uneven access to resources and insider knowledge. I explain why graduate school success depends on learned skills, supportive relationships, and sustainable practices rather than intelligence, independence, constant productivity, or a perfectly linear path. You will also learn how to treat struggle as information, build a broader support team, ask for help before challenges become a crisis, account for your changing capacity, and begin exploring career possibilities before the final year of your program.

In this episode of the Grad School Femtoring podcast, I share three truths I wish I understood before starting graduate school. For first-generation, BIPOC, neurodivergent, and other students navigating unfamiliar academic spaces, graduate school can feel like entering a cultural system with its own language, expectations, hierarchies, and unwritten rules. I reflect on my experience of feeling behind and explain why struggling to understand the hidden curriculum does not mean you do not belong. I also explore how productivity culture can tie your sense of worth to your output and why mentorship, femtorship, and community care are essential parts of a sustainable graduate school experience. Through three reflection prompts, I invite you to name the expectations affecting your sense of belonging, identify where you may be overworking to prove yourself, and consider who you can reach out to for support.

In this episode of the Grad School Femtoring podcast, I introduce a different way to think about weekly planning by changing your focus from simply managing your time to understanding your energy and capacity. This episode is for students and professionals who feel like they're constantly falling behind despite having a planner, calendar, or productivity system. Drawing from patterns I see in coaching and my own lived experience, I explain why traditional planning often overlooks the realities of balancing work, caregiving, disability, chronic illness, neurodivergence, and other responsibilities that impact just how much capacity we have in any given week. I explore the differences between time, energy, and capacity and explain why recognizing these distinctions can help you create a more sustainable planning process. I also share a practical framework for planning your week around your current capacity, discuss the planning fallacy and why buffer time matters, and encourage you to reflect on the expectations you've inherited about productivity. My goal is to help you build a planning system that reflects your values, supports your wellbeing, and allows you to make meaningful progress on your goals without constantly measuring yourself against an idealized version of what you think you should be able to accomplish.