On a busy Tuesday night at Broad Street Market and Tavern, a group of young adults and Hillsdale College politics professor Kevin Slack fill up a table. They’re all students at the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship, pursuing either Masters or doctorates, and they’ve just come from Slack’s “Liberalism and Modern Progressivism” course.
Post-class meals are one way graduate students balance their increased coursework with the rest of their lives. Professors and students both agree that, while some similarities exist between undergraduate and graduate classes, the latter demands more of students.
Politics professor Thomas West said that, although he doesn’t teach the classes much differently from the undergraduate level, he asks more of his graduate students. He assigns, for example, the same number of papers per semester, but asks for 8-10 pages instead of 4-5.
“How far can you go into the material, what depth can you achieve—I’d say that’s the biggest difference,” he said.
Graduate School Dean R.J. Pestritto agreed.
“I try to teach at a higher level. The course requirements involve a lot more writing and longer pieces of writing to prepare students for careers as scholars, and for their Masters theses and Ph.D. dissertations,” he said. “There are fewer requirements, but they count for more, and papers tend to be larger.”
Ph.D. student Connor Lund also attested to the increased difficulty. His classes average 50 pages of reading a week per class, and 25-30 pages of writing a semester with more if he does unassigned readings.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s not an unmanageable thing to do,” he said. “You just have to manage your time well.”
Alyssa Bornhorst, also a Ph.D. student, often finds herself working for much of the day.
“I work from 7 a.m. to dinner, and a little bit after dinner, but it varies,” she said. “I’m always rather busy.”
But that doesn’t prevent the graduate students from having lives and interacting with each other outside of the classroom, particularly when food is involved.
“It’s easy to structure social things around things you need to do anyway, like meals,” Lund said.
In addition to post-class dinners at Broad Street, students try to socialize, exercise, and engage with campus life. Bornhorst tries to run regularly, even when slick surfaces force her onto the “dreadmills” she loathes.
And in prior semesters, the Graduate Student Society has arranged viewings of “Lord of the Flies” and “The Searchers,” with commentary followed by West and politics professor John Grant. Masters student Bruce Wykes once hosted a Christmas party at his Osseo home.
Both Masters students Margarita Ramirez, and Bornhorst, who lives with her, said they and other students strive to ensure that their studies don’t consume their lives. Frequently, socializing and learning go together.
“The tendency is to give yourself over to your studies. But you have to talk about what you learn to learn it,” she said. “I wouldn’t learn anything from Margarita if I just spent all day studying or in the classroom.”
Margarita also stressed the importance of talking.
“Conversation can very easily go from 80s movies to Rousseau,” she said. “Learning doesn’t feel like a chore when you’re doing it with friends.”
Sykes, for his part, deals with a unique set of circumstances compared to other graduate students: he is not only married, but has eight children, and lives with his sister- and mother-in-law. Managing coursework with these familial obligations is possible, but requires some finesse.
“That is probably the biggest challenge. Part of what makes it possible is my amazing wife,” he said. “She has a thing she likes to say: ‘this is what an ADHD child looks like when she grows up. She has incredible energy, but also can be incredibly focused.”
Sykes said his military background—he is a retired Air Force officer—also helps him balance his coursework and domestic life.
“That said, my kids are happy that graduation isn’t very far away,” he said.
Such balance is what all graduate students strive for, by Bornhorst’s reckoning.
“Life is about balance,” she said. “Reading Aristotle, we learn about moderation. We must have moderation in all things, even the good things.”
