Photo of Icon Jamal Milan at house of Omni Ball

Notes from a Banjee Boi in The Ivory Tower

A Humanities and Social Science Graduate Student Survival Guide, tailored to First-Gen, Low-Income, and Students of Color (8/28/2025)

Graduate school in the humanities and social sciences is many things—rigorous, transformative, overwhelming, expensive. What people rarely tell you, though, is how much of it is about learning to survive and for many of us to grow-up along the way. Below are a handful of strategies that helped me stretch my stipend, protect my health, and carve out a sustainable life in grad school.

1. Find a Side Hustle Early

Your stipend (if you have one) won’t cover everything. In your first year, experiment with a side hustle that feels doable alongside coursework. Some options I’ve tried or seen friends succeed with:

Pet sitting through Rover or word-of-mouth on campus. Faculty often need someone to watch their house/place.
Running social media accounts or helping manage an academic journal.
Work-study gigs on campus.
Personal assistant jobs or research assistant positions in libraries, archives, or museums.
Contract work using your research skills.
Participating in paid research studies.
Running an Etsy store or monetizing a hobby.

The goal isn’t to take on another full-time job but to set up a flexible stream of income that leverages skills (or downtime) you already have.

2. Invest in Your Teeth

Dental insurance is a scam—it’s expensive and covers shockingly little. One of the smartest purchases I made was a good toothbrush. If your university has a dental school, check whether they offer discounted student clinics. Preventative care is always cheaper than an emergency.

3. Thrift, Swap, and Salvage

Graduate students don’t need to live in scarcity, but you don’t need to buy everything new either. Some of my go-to places:

Buy Nothing Groups on Facebook (often organized by ZIP code).
Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore for furniture and housewares.
Local liquidator shops, Goodwill, or Amazon return stores.
Facebook Marketplace for nearly anything you can imagine.

My desk, chairs, and even cookware all came secondhand—and saved me hundreds of dollars.

4. Travel Cheap with House Sitting

If you need to travel for fieldwork or conferences, look into Trusted House Sitters. You watch someone’s pets, and in exchange you stay in their home for free. It saved me hundreds during research trips.

I also almost never book the official conference hotel. Smaller hotels, house shares, or even grad students in the city often offer cheaper (and friendlier) options.

5. Housing Hacks

Finding housing on a grad budget can be brutal. Here are some tools worth checking out:

Zumper, Zillow, and Facebook groups for rentals.
If you’re thinking long-term, programs like NACA can make homeownership more realistic.
Always ask around your department—sometimes leaving students pass on good leases.

6. Get an Airline Credit Card

Graduate programs love to reimburse slowly—sometimes months after you’ve fronted costs. One of the best tips I got in Atlanta was to open an airline credit card. Because I live near a Delta hub, my Delta Amex card has been a lifeline.

It’s covered phone insurance, travel insurance, free checked bags, and miles that paid for research trips. If you want to look into it, here’s my referral link.

7. Use a Credit Union for Loans

If you end up financing a car or anything else significant, credit unions almost always offer lower rates and friendlier terms than big banks. Don’t let dealerships or predatory lenders trap you into bad deals.

8. Always Ask About Student Discounts

This one seems obvious, but it adds up fast. From subscription services to museums, theaters, gyms, and even tech, student discounts are everywhere. Always ask.

9. Therapy Is Essential

Graduate school can feel isolating, competitive, and emotionally draining. Building a therapy plan is essential to your holistic well-being. Some places to look:

Student Health Services at your university (sometimes free or sliding scale).
NTQTTCN (National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network).
Therapy for Black Girls directory.
Open Path Collective, which offers low-cost sessions ($40–70).
Call your insurance company and ask for a care coordinator to help you find in-network providers.

Whenever possible, ask about sliding scale options. Even if it feels awkward, it can make therapy sustainable on a grad budget.

10. Build Your Academic (and Non-Academic) Community

Opportunities don’t just live in your department—they’re everywhere. Make sure to:

Read your university email carefully for grant announcements and research funding opportunities.
Check professional organizations like the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), American Anthropological Association (AAA), or American Sociological Association (ASA) for summer or pre-dissertation research fellowships.
Connect with colleagues outside your department or university. Getting perspectives from different disciplines and institutions will teach you more than you expect.
Form or join reading and research groups. During my time in graduate school, I co-founded the Black Feminist Working Group with my friends Margy and Joslyn—it made all the difference in my intellectual and personal life.

These networks will outlast your program and carry you through the toughest parts of grad school.

11. Cheap Food Options

Too Good To Go: App where restaurants, bakeries, and grocery stores sell surplus food at a steep discount, usually at the end of the day.
Lidl & Aldi: Discount grocery chains known for fresh produce and staples at significantly lower prices than larger supermarkets.
Freegan Movement: A radical approach to resisting food waste and consumerism. Freegans practice dumpster-diving, food sharing, and community meals to reduce costs and challenge waste culture. Usually there will be a freegan co-op in most cities. Another resource can be Food Not Bombs chapters in your area.

Final Thought

Remember to explore the city you live in—graduate school is not only about surviving your program but also about learning from the place that houses you. At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that graduate students often play a role in gentrification. It is important to be thoughtful about investing in the communities around you rather than extracting from them.

Graduate school is a paradoxical time: you are upwardly mobile, yet classism and the "hidden curriculum" of academia persists. Whenever possible, seek out sliding scale opportunities, ask for flexibility, and build community beyond your university.

Here are some other guides to graduate school for First-Gen and Low-income Doctoral Students (FGLI):

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse