Graduate school is a unique journey that demands both resilience and strategic planning. In a recent episode of the Victors in Grad School” podcast, Michelle Gordon-Releford shared her personal experiences and insights on how to navigate the complexities of graduate education successfully. As a double master’s degree holder from the University of Michigan Flint, Michelle’s journey offers invaluable lessons for prospective and current graduate students alike.
The Decision to Pursue Graduate Education
Michelle’s decision to pursue graduate education was influenced by a promise to a sorority sister who emphasized the importance of advanced degrees for career prospects. Initially uncertain about pursuing further education, Michelle finally decided that obtaining a graduate degree was the next logical step. This decision demonstrates the importance of mentorship and peer advice in shaping academic and career paths.
Choosing the Right Program and Institution
For Michelle, choosing the University of Michigan Flint was driven by practical considerations and the availability of strong support systems. She highlighted the importance of familial and community support while pursuing higher education. When selecting a graduate program, Michelle emphasized the need to research various programs and consider how they align with your career goals. Her pivot from psychology to health science education was motivated by her passion for community involvement and making tangible impacts.
Transitioning to Graduate School
Transitioning from undergraduate to graduate school poses unique challenges. Michelle stressed the importance of finding a “graduate school family” to help navigate these hurdles. Building a support system among your peers can provide both emotional and academic support. She recounted her own experiences of juggling graduate studies while managing her husband’s cancer treatment, emphasizing the invaluable role her classmates and professors played in her success.
Building Relationships
One of the critical pieces of advice Michelle offered was to cultivate strong relationships with faculty members and peers. These relationships not only provide immediate support but can also turn into professional networks that benefit you long after graduation. Faculty members can become mentors and advisors, offering guidance and opportunities that you might not otherwise encounter.
Applying Graduate Education in the Professional World
Michelle’s diverse career experiences—as a community outreach manager and in other roles—showcase how a graduate degree can be applied in various professional contexts. Courses and experiences in her graduate program heightened her awareness about community disparities and prepared her to address these issues effectively. Her degree gave her the skills to conduct meaningful community engagement and to be an advocate for equity.
Tips for Prospective Graduate Students
Michelle concluded with actionable tips for prospective graduate students. She emphasized the importance of utilizing campus resources, particularly building a relationship with the library staff. Michelle also stressed the significance of maintaining open communication with family, friends, and professors. Their support can help alleviate some of the pressures of graduate school.
Michelle Gordon-Releford’s journey underscores the multifaceted nature of graduate education. It involves not just academic efforts but also emotional resilience and strong support systems. Her insights provide a roadmap for anyone contemplating or currently on the path to obtaining a graduate degree. By focusing on relationships, leveraging resources, and staying committed to your goals, you, too, can successfully navigate the challenges of graduate school.
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the victors in grad school, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]:
Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I’m your host, doctor Christopher Lewis, director of graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week. And as always, this show is here to help you on this journey that you’re on. I call it a journey because it is a journey. You could be at the very beginning where you’re just starting to think about, maybe I want to do this grad school thing. Or you might be a little bit further along where you’ve applied and you’re waiting for that answer. Or you applied and you found out that you were accepted.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:44]:
Congratulations. No matter where you are, whether you’re currently in a program, you’re preparing for a program, or you’re just starting to think about it, the show is here to give you some some tips, some hints, some tools for your toolbox to help you to find success in that journey. And there are things that you can do right away to be able to start thinking about that. It’s just to start to prepare for that and to put things in place that will help you along the way to find and maintain that success as you go along. And that’s why this show is here. Every week I love being able to bring you different people, different guests with different experiences that come from different walks of life that have gone through this process themselves, and they can share with you some of the things that they’ve learned along the way that have helped them to find success. Today, we got another great guest. Michelle Gordon Relleford is with us today.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:46]:
And Michelle did her undergraduate work at Wright State University, but then decided to go and get a master’s degree from the University of Michigan Flint, a master of health education, and also ended up getting a master’s degree in health services, allied health, health sciences, and ended up getting both of these along the way. So we’re gonna talk about that experience, the journey that she went on and what she learned along the way. So I’m really excited to have her here. Michelle, thanks so much for being here today.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:02:15]:
Oh, no problem. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this opportunity.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:19]:
Well, you know, it’s my pleasure having you here today. I’m really excited to be able to talk with you about this experience that you went through. So I want to go back in time. I want to turn the clock back. I know I mentioned to you that you I mentioned that you did your undergraduate work at Wright State University. You got a bachelor’s degree in psychology. And then at some point, probably during that undergraduate time, you decided to your for yourself that you wanted to continue your education, and you wanted to go on to get that master’s degree that I was mentioning. Talk to me about bring me back to that point in time and talk to me about what was going through your head that made you decide that getting a graduate degree was the next right step.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:03:03]:
Okay. Well, it’s actually a funny story, probably not even believable. At Wright State, I had a sorority sister who was in the psychology program, and she’s like, are you gonna go get your PsyD? And I was like, no. I think I’m done. And she said, you’re not gonna be able to get a job without this graduate degree. Promise me that you will get a graduate degree. And I would I didn’t say anything. She said promise.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:03:25]:
And I said, okay. I promise. So people who know me is they know that I never break a promise to someone else. I will break them to myself, but I will never break them to someone else. So she broke me in, and she was right. I she knew me better at the time than I knew myself. And so I ended up coming back to Flint to get that degree.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:46]:
So talk to me about that decision process because you did end up deciding to come to the University of Michigan Flint to get that degree and to be able to and there’s lots of different places out there. I know you’re originally from here in Flint, so maybe that was one of the big factors. But but talk to me about what was going through your head as you were looking at different graduate programs that made you decide that the University of Michigan Flint was the ultimate right place for you for this degree itself?
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:04:16]:
Okay. So Flint, my mother was still there. So my support was right there and the opportunity to come back and be around her more often. My future husband was there, so it was conversations with him and his mother is there. So I had the strong support system outside of the University of Michigan Flint that was saying you could come back and we’ll help you a lot. And so that that was major for me. Not to mention that Flint was my home. I already knew what I’d be getting back into.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:04:47]:
Knew a couple of people there who were gonna be at the U of M Flint, getting their degrees alongside me. So that was big for me.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:54]:
And you did your undergraduate work in psychology and then decided to apply for a master’s in health science education. So talk to me about that because you like you said, your sorority sister asked you about a PsyD. A PsyD is very different than going from a bachelor’s in psychology to health science education. So talk to me about what made you decide that that was the right program for you.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:05:20]:
Okay. Well, researched lots of programs and what those degrees would mean for me. And it all boiled down to I like community involvement. I like to feel like I’m giving back, and I also like to see what happens when I give back. So to get a degree in health science that that was it if I could do I could do the grant work. I can write the programs. I could talk to people in communities and find out what they needed or they wanted or how they felt about things. And then have those letters to validate that I can do it was amazing.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:58]:
So anytime that you go into a graduate program, there is a transition. You went from transitioning from being at a small institution in Ohio into moving back to Michigan. You transitioned into from undergraduate to a graduate degree in an area that was different than your undergraduate degree. So every like I said, every person goes through transitions and a transition to be able to be able to be successful. So talk to me about what did you have to do for yourself to be able to set yourself up for success as you transitioned into graduate school, and what did you have to do to maintain your success throughout the entire graduate school experience?
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:06:40]:
For both of those, I would say I had to find my graduate school family. You know? In undergrad, you find those friends that you’re gonna have forever, and I did. But I also had to find them in grad school. Those are the people that are when you are up at 1 in the morning and you’re studying, they’re gonna say you got this. Or go to bed if that’s the case. They’re gonna say, okay. Well, I’ll take the notes. You get some rest because you did blah blah blah, or I’ll help out with family.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:07:07]:
I found my family in grad school to help support me. And there’s a lot I don’t know how much time we have, but there’s a lot that goes into what I’m saying about that. Because during grad school, we found out my husband had cancer. And so even my professors became a lot of family, and they would say, well, attendance is not your priority, but you make sure you have all the work done. So even before COVID, sometimes I was working remotely and checking in with my professor because I had to get my husband to chemo or had to get him to his radiation. And my professor would be, yep. That’s more important because I still got an a out of the class, and it’s not because they gave me a grade. I worked for it, but they were supportive.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:07:54]:
And they said, okay. If there’s something you don’t understand, I’ll make some extra hours for you to talk about it. Or doctor Parker would always say, and how does that make you feel? So I had support system in my family right there in grad school. And without them, I honestly could say that I never would have been able to achieve what I achieved. And not to mention my husband was saying, oh, no. You’re gonna finish because I’m not gonna be the reason you missed out on this great opportunity.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:08:22]:
You know, it’s so important to be able to find that family. And that’s one thing that’s kind of unique about graduate school is the fact that every person that’s in that program with you is interested in the same thing. They’re there for different reasons, potentially, But they all have a passion for that. Or they should have a passion for that if they’re going to be spending the time, money, and effort to be able to go into that program itself. So being able to connect and to meet with and to be able to allow for yourself the ability to connect with others is going to help you as a student. And when I say connect with others, I am really referring to the fact that you wanna be able to connect with students, but also with faculty and build those strong relationships just like you hopefully were able to build strong relationships in your undergraduate experience as well. Because these people are people that you will draw from, work with, be able to connect back with, and that you can network with, and they will open up their doors down in the future.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:09:26]:
Oh, yeah. It was wonderful. And sometimes I was so exhausted. It’d be the start of a new class. And, basically, we were moving in cohorts. And I’d look around, and they say, Michelle, you’re in the masters of health science education program and blah blah blah. And the the professor would look at, oh, I’ve never seen it. I was like, yep.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:09:43]:
This is my support group. They help me. It’s the little things might slip by me because I’m my mind is on autopilot or something because I have a lot going on. But those are the things they would do, and it did mean a lot.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:56]:
Now you’ve been out of your graduate degree for a number of years now and been working. And I know right now you’re working for a think tank as a community outreach manager, but you’ve also done other things in your career too. So talk to me about how do you find that what you learned in your graduate degree prepared you for the work that you have done and the work that you are doing on a day to day basis?
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:10:19]:
You’re right. I’ve done a lot of things, but I’d say 90% of it was talking to community youth in the community or teaching them something. How did my degree help me prepare for that? The first thing that comes to mind is we did a Flint tour of grocery stores in different communities, and it was to highlight the differences of what’s happening in one community that doesn’t have as much money as another community. And I grew up in Flint, and we didn’t grow up with the most money. But it brought things to light that, wow, if I go down the street and around the corner, the grocery store is better. Why is it that their grocery store gets to be different from my grocery store? And these were things that my degree highlighted, and it also said that, okay. So now what are you gonna do to make a difference? How are you gonna work with communities and populations to even the playing field? Well, just can’t even them, but give them what they need at the time that they need it. So the degree I got from U of M Flint taught me a lot about equity, and I use it often.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:11:21]:
It taught me a lot about how different people do different things and how, sometimes the person at the the president at the top of the university might not understand what’s happening right at the level of the people in the community. And sometimes you have to be a voice. So my degree, it did a lot because it was a hands on experience. It was working with other students coming from different backgrounds. It still helps me to this day because even now I go out into communities and I talk to political leaders. I talk to nonprofit organizations, non governmental organizations, and that degree helped me with a lot of that. Because to be honest, I’m an introvert. So doing that without those tools would stress me out even more than, going in with what I have.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:12:08]:
I know I can do the things that I do, and I know that I’m good at it. And it’s because I walked through getting that degree, and it it arms me with what I need to know.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:18]:
Now as you think about other individuals, people that are thinking about graduate school, whether it be in an area of public health to an area like physical therapy or business or whatever it might be. And you think back to the experiences that you had as a graduate student. What are some tips that you might offer others considering graduate education that would help them find success sooner?
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:12:40]:
I would say, get to know the librarian. First name faces. I almost wanna say live there. Develop a relationship with your professors that you will often well, I found because it took me a long time to get out of that fear that they’re different sitting on Mount Olympus, and I’m sitting down here in Athens or something. So get to know them and you realize it’s common ground. There’s still people and you might have differences of opinion, but they are human. And that will help you get the support you need. Talk to your family.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:13:13]:
Oh my goodness. Yes. Talk to your family. You would find you probably have more support than what you think you did. Parents of teenagers, talk to those teenagers that this is something you wanna do. You’d be surprised at how many more times they’ll do the dishes. So talk to your spouse because then you get those great oh, you don’t have to cook darling or I’ll cook darling nights and or pieces magically showing up at the door because you have a paper coming up. So communicate with your support system, with your team because they have your back.
Michelle Gordon-Releford [00:13:44]:
And I couldn’t have did it without my tribe or my team or whatever you wanna call them.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:48]:
Well, Michelle, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for sharing your own journey today. Thank you for being willing to offer these resources in some of the things that you learned along the way, and I truly wish you all the best. Thank you. The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of masters and doctorate programs if you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you’re looking for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:31]:
I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [email protected].
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