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Writer's pictureSarah Davis

How to Use Goals Strategically in Grad School (Goals, Part 4)

Today's post will be the last in the series about goals (for now) and will focus on how to use goals strategically in grad school.


Last week, I talked about CAST goals. CAST goals are great to use when you are having trouble getting started with something, aren't sure what you're supposed to be doing, and have a small amount of time (e.g., 90 minutes to 2 hours).


The other type of goals that can be helpful for grad students are MAST goals, goals I adapted to fit with the types of work that grad students are doing in grad school.


A MAST goal is a goal that is a bigger amount of time than a CAST goal, but not as big as a semester goal. Examples of areas where you might set MAST goals might be for a larger paper or project that you are working on.


Here is what comprises a MAST goal:

M - Milestone: What multi-part, larger task/project are you focusing on?


A - Actions: What actions are you going to take to get something done?


S - Standards & Support: How can you measure progress and who can help you?


T - Time parameters: When will you do the task?


An example of a goal for a larger task/project that would likely not get done would be: I am going to send my Paper 2 of my dissertation to a grad student peer for them to read.


An example of a MAST goal for a larger task/project: I'm going to give paper 2 to 2 peer readers to review 3 key points each by December 1.


To set MAST goals, think of one of your semester goals and create three milestones for that project. For example, if you want to send out a conference proposal as a semester goal, three milestones may be: review the preliminary statistical findings, write the conference proposal draft, and prepare an outline of the presentation.


Now that you've broken down the larger task into three smaller tasks, setting MAST goals and CAST goals for that task can help you take control of what you have to get done.

One of the things we really like about MAST goals is the social support. Often as grad students, we're working in isolation and so highlighting the role of peers, colleagues, and community in MAST goals can be really important and help you get things done.


Well, that brings us to the end of the blogs on goals. I hope you found these helpful and if you have any other ideas for topics for the blog on goals or anything else, reach out and send us a message!

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