Dear New Grad Student,

I noticed my first gray hairs at 23 years old. Not coincidentally, the same year I started my Master’s degree.

Grad school is touted as a monumental time of self-discovery, pushing your limits, meeting new people, and enriching your mind (for the record, I’ve found all of this to be true). Something people are a little less enthusiastic about celebrating is how much it’s just…crying a lot.

I’m certainly much smarter now, but I feel old in ways I never imagined I would at 24: I realize more than ever that my parents were never lying when they said “you’ll always have to deal with difficult people,” and I finally had the acute experience of impostor syndrome for the first time last week. (Oh boy. That one’s a doozy; I hope you don’t get there.)

So, this is a bummer of a letter, isn’t it? Well…