Skills, support networks, and socialization: Needs of dissertating graduate students

Abstract

Graduate students are often thought of as mature researchers capable of figuring things out on their own, but they face special challenges in developing as novice scholars. This study adopts the lens of socialization and uses semi-structured interviews with dissertating graduate students in the humanities and social sciences at a large public research university to investigate how they understand their own practices of skills development, information seeking, networking, and forging a professional identity. It finds that students face considerable ambiguity in terms of expectations for the dissertation and whom they can go to for help, and that many needs are not being met by their home departments. The existence of these unmet needs and variability in where students get help imply that there is a space for librarians to become a part of the developmental support networks of even advanced graduate students.