writing — nicole slattery

Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me: Collected Notes on ACADEMIA & SCHOLARLY Research

I am a first generation university student who was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism late in life (while completing my third graduate degree in my late 20s). Research has always felt exciting to me, it is creative, relational and inspiring! Learning and inquiry itself was rarely the problem, i could spend hours following a question, getting lost in ideas or analysis, and connecting seemingly unrelated concepts.

What I struggled with (and still do at times) was everything that exists around learning and research.

This included understanding unspoken expectations, navigating institutional systems, knowing when and how to ask for help, interpreting academic language, and navigating systems that everyone else seemed to understand intuitively. For years, I assumed that the confusion, exhaustion, and constant feeling that everyone else had received a handbook I somehow missed were simply part of being a student.

Looking back, I often felt as though I had somehow missed an orientation session where the rules of academia had been explained. I assumed these things were obvious to everyone except me.

As a student, researcher and an academic librarian, I have learned that I am far from alone in this experience. They are encounters with what is often called the hidden curriculum: the collection of unwritten expectations, assumptions, norms, and forms of knowledge that shape academic life but are rarely taught explicitly.

This guide grew out of those experiences. It is not a comprehensive handbook, and it will never be finished. Instead, it is an ever-changing collection of things I wish someone had told me sooner: observations, explanations, practical advice, and reflections on the hidden curriculum of academic libraries and higher education.

My hope is not to provide all the answers, but to make some of the invisible things a little more visible.

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