Daniel Maxwell

I will be a three-time graduate of UNC Charlotte. I completed both my undergraduate and Master’s programs here before beginning my doctorate. My parents were both Charlotte alumni, so I first became interested in UNC Charlotte by coming to basketball games here as a kid. Once I arrived on campus as an undergraduate, I knew Charlotte was ‘home’ for me, and at that point, the choice of where to complete my graduate studies was an easy one!

I think the greatest challenge I faced during my transition into graduate school was that I was also a beginning teacher when I first began my Master’s program. From my time as an undergraduate, my professors and advisors were intentional in helping me to develop strong time management skills that were essential to ultimately balancing work as a graduate student and a teacher. I felt as though the foundation was there, but it was also the fact that faculty and staff at UNC Charlotte were always readily available and willing to assist along my journey that helped to make it a success. Faculty and staff were always intentional in their efforts to establish a community of support among my peers and myself, and that community was so helpful.

Being proactive in building a community around yourself. This community does not need to be restricted to only your peers, but also recognize that faculty are willing to collaborate or assist throughout your tenure as a graduate student. Having this community of support is helpful to navigating the various processes and challenges unique to graduate studies, and just knowing that there are a handful of individuals who you can rely on is essential to finding success. Establishing this sense of community can sometimes be difficult for distance education students, but it is still possible if students are intentional in pursuing their goal to foster this community.

This is one of the most common questions that I receive as someone who works at a university while also being a student, and it’s an excellent question. I find the most important principle here is to know yourself and build habits and systems that allow you to leverage your unique strengths. For example, a common piece of advice that doctoral students receive is to set aside time every day to write, even if that means just writing for one hour each morning. However, I am definitely not a morning person, and I find it very difficult to write in fits and spurts. I need sustained, uninterrupted blocks of time to produce graduate-level work, and I can ‘lock-in’ on work for a long period of time without getting too tired or distracted. Knowing this strength allowed me to direct my time to building a schedule that gave me at least one large chunk of time each week for student work outside of my job and family time. Some weeks are more intense than others, and so the focus has to remain on proactively seeking the balance overall, but awareness of strengths and building systems that leverage those strengths remains important throughout.