Academic Support Programs

Graduate Students

Support for graduate students 

At the Writing and Communication Center (WaCC) we understand the challenges that graduate students face throughout their programs of study. We offer the following support to help graduate students overcome these challenges and achieve academic success:

Extended appointments with our peer consultants

The additional rigor of graduate courses requires additional time. We offer extended conferences up to 2 hours for face-to-face and Zoom appointments. 

Using our email conference service

Submitting your work via email can save time and trips to campus. As a graduate student, we’ll still spend extra time with your work in an extended appointment. Please be aware of the following to get the most out of your feedback:

  • Longer papers take longer – even with extended conferences it’s impossible to read, prepare, and send feedback for lengthier papers in 120 minutes. Please keep this in mind when you submit your work; we may not be able to respond to your paper before your due date so plan ahead.
    • Consider asking us to focus on a specific section or pages. We can offer more detailed feedback for shorter passages than the entire capstone in one sitting. Remember, we encourage you to submit your paper as many times as you need to.​
  • We’re not content experts – in fact, we may know very little about graduate-level electrical engineering or computer science. We DO know writing, organization, word-choice, syntax, and grammar. Though we won’t fact-check your paper, we may ask questions about your topic.
  • We are peers – We’re students, just like you. We have some graduate students, but our staff is mostly undergraduate tutors. 
  • We won’t do it for you – we want to partner with you to become a stronger, more confident and independent writer. We’ll identify patterns, provide resources, and ask focused questions to support you and your work.
  • Let us know how we can help you – tell us where to focus our efforts to best help you. Tell us where you struggled, what questions you have about the work, and even where you feel most confident. 
  • Give us the guidelines – we know that graduate student capstone papers have no formal writing prompt. Rather, there are formal guidelines often published by your school and preparatory work with your professor, committee, or chair that defines the project, the scope, and the topic you’ll cover.

Work with the same consultant throughout your application

Save time by working with someone who knows your process, what you’re working on, and where you’re going. 

Meet our graduate student peer consultants

  • Elfie Nelson, MFA Creative Writing and Poetics
  • Layla Youssef, MA of Museology

Other helpful resources:

Make a face-to-face, phone, or Zoom (video) appointment with a Peer Consultant.

Submit your assignments using our online conferencing system.