CWU Graduate Student Association presents panel at graduate school conference

The Graduate Student Association (GSA) at Central Washington University provides a point of connection between our 500 graduate students, 250 of whom attend classes on our Ellensburg campus.

This spring, five GSA officers traveled to Denver for the annual Western Association of Grad Schools (WAGS) conference to present a panel on the experiences of grad students at schools that primarily serve undergraduates.

CWU Research Compliance Administrator and GSA advisor Mason Low said she was honored to accompany the students to the March 16-19 conference.

“We had so much on our plates last year that we couldn’t make it happen, but this year, Rodrigo Renteria-Valencia suggested we submit a proposal for the WAGS conference,” the 2024 experimental psychology MS alum said. “Our students drafted and submitted that proposal themselves, which was accepted.”

GSA Officer and Literature Studies and Teaching graduate student Lydia Smaciarz found that the conference experience lived up to the hype.

“We really wanted to go to a conference of some sort to get experience with presenting and networking in that environment,” she said. “It was a little intimidating at first, but by the end of it, I felt like I had a better understanding of what conferences are all about and how to make connections, and that all these intimidating people are just people, the same as us.”

Low said the conference attendees were mostly teachers and administrators looking for ways to better serve their graduate students. She and the panel were excited about the opportunity to guide the discussion.

“We had the opportunity to advise a room full of leadership on how best to support graduate students at their schools,” Low said. “Things like starting a GSA and ways to implement best practices came up, which we were happy to speak to.”

Smaciarz noted the same interest in launching GSA chapters among panel attendees.

“A lot of the audience was curious about how to start a GSA at their university,” she said. “They all seemed really interested in fostering community among their grad students, which we were more than happy to help out with.”

Low has found the GSA to be a deeply useful resource, both as a student and as a staff member.

“Since grad school is pretty challenging, we all kind of need a place to meet other graduate students for both professional and personal connection and support,” she said. “The GSA was created to be a hub for that, as well as to provide opportunities for interdisciplinary work.”

Outside of the panel, the WAGS conference was an opportunity for the attending students to sharpen their networking skills and explore the kind of professional setting they might very well end up in over the course of their careers. Smaciarz found herself relating to a presentation on imposter syndrome and walked away empowered by the knowledge that others experience its effects, too.

“I sometimes feel like I’m unprepared or not good enough to be in the position I’m in, and apparently, they’ve all felt that, too,” she said. “When I look at them, they’re like the epitome of the scholars that I grew up wanting to become, so that really made me feel better about my future.”

Over the course of the three-day event, Low saw the student group absorb the experience and process it into tangible insights for their futures in academia and beyond.

“Nobody tells you how to attend a conference; there’s no guidebook on how to efficiently network and make the most of the opportunity,” she said. “I think the students got to see how grad school works on the administrative side and walked away with more resources to apply in their education as well as their teaching. It turned out to be more applicable to them than they initially thought.”