The new graduate student must select a graduate committee, plan course work, find an original research topic, and design a research plan that ultimately leads to a defensible thesis or series of publishable research articles. Whether a graduate student plans a research career or not, he or she typically must complete an original, independent, analytical study, even though few beginning students know how or where to begin. A little help would be good, right? This process-oriented manual holds the fundamentals students in the sciences need to trek the graduate school path—it is their “backpack.” Open it and see what it can do for you.

Ronald Taskey is a soil scientist at Cal State Polytechincal College.