The path to and through graduate school is rarely a straight line, and in a recent episode of the “Victors in Grad School” podcast, Hilary Murmers, LGBTQIA Coordinator at the University of Michigan, Flint, shares her remarkable journey—a testament to resilience, clarity of purpose, and the power of community.

Hosted by Dr. Christopher Lewis, the episode begins by exploring Hilary’s academic background. After graduating from the University of Rochester with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Women’s Studies, Hilary faced early rejection in her first attempt to enter PhD programs in gender studies. Instead of feeling defeated, she embraced diverse work experiences, which led her to a pivotal summer at Girls Leadership, a camp focused on the social-emotional development of girls and gender-diverse youth.

It was there, surrounded by important questions about identity and sexuality and feeling both unprepared and excited, that Hilary found her next calling: becoming a sex educator. “I started doing research in how does someone become a sex educator?... That led me to finding the graduate program I ended up in at Widener University.” Widener’s unique master’s program in human sexuality matched both her interests and her need for a queer-affirming, inclusive environment—a critical consideration she encourages other queer students to weigh when choosing programs.

Hilary’s graduate school experience included enormous challenges. Just as she was finding her stride, she was diagnosed with a rare cancer, forcing her to take medical leave and pause her studies. Even after recovery, she faced additional bumps: shifting program structures, a new student cohort, and the abrupt move to virtual instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. “It felt uncomfortable, it felt bumpy... there were a lot of bumps and transitions that made it uncomfortable, and a lot of decision points of ‘do I keep going?’”

Through it all, Hilary credits her faculty advisor and perseverance for helping her navigate the many pivots. She also highlights the importance of clarity—knowing her “why” helped her persist: “As we face those bumps, we have to have some motivation to keep going... Graduate school can be fun, but it can also be really hard.”

This episode is a must-listen for anyone considering grad school, especially those facing uncertainty or adversity. Hilary’s story reminds us that while the journey may be unpredictable, support, adaptability, and a clear sense of purpose can see you through to your goals.

Tune in to the full episode to hear more about Hilary’s inspiring path—and let it fuel your own journey through graduate school!

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]: Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find.

Hilary Murmers [00:00:08]: Success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]: Welcome back to Victors in Grad School. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate programs at the University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you back again this week, as we always are, talking about your journey, your journey toward graduate school, through graduate school, beyond graduate school. Because it is so important to be able to look at all aspects of ways in which you can be successful. And that's what this show is all about. This show is all about helping you to identify ways in which you can find success sooner. That's why every week, I love being able to bring you different people with different experiences that can help you to understand the journey that they went on, to help you better have some tools for your toolbox to understand what they went through, because what they went through might provide you with some understanding of things that you could go through, but also some things that you can prepare for as you're thinking about the future.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:12]: So I'm really excited to be able to have our guest today. Hilary Murmurs is with us today, and Hilary is the LGBTQIA coordinator at the University of Michigan, Flint. And she has her own journey, and she's had her own journey, and I'm really excited to be able to talk with her about her journey, to have her share that with you. Hillary, thanks so much for being here today.

Hilary Murmers [00:01:35]: Yeah, thanks for having me, Chris. I'm happy to be here.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:37]: Now, I know that you did your undergraduate work at the University of Rochester, where you were working on that Bachelor of Arts in English and Women's Studies, and then you went off, you went off, you had got some experiences, and at some point you decided to continue on, continue on to get that master's degree. Can you take me back in time to that point in your life and what was going through your head as you made that choice that you were going to go to graduate school, and why was it the right time?

Hilary Murmers [00:02:06]: Yeah, that's a great question. I tried to go to graduate school before. I ultimately did when I was graduating with my bachelor's in English and Gender Studies. I had applied to some PhD programs in gender studies and didn't get into a single one, which is interesting now. Like, I do the work I'm doing in higher ed, but it was kind of failed first attempt. And so I took a few years and worked and had a lot of different experiences. And then I had one summer where I worked at a summer camp called Girls Leadership. That's all about social emotional development and girls and gender diverse young people and being openly queer.

Hilary Murmers [00:02:47]: In that space, I was receiving a lot of questions about identities and sexuality, safer sex that I frankly felt totally unprepared to answer. But I was really excited by. I was really like, this is cool and interesting to me. And so I started doing research in how does someone become a sex educator? And what do careers in sex and sexuality education look like? And that led me to finding the graduate program I ended up in at Widener University. It's a really unique master's degree in human sexuality. It's one of the only, like, specifically human sexuality degrees in the country. And at the time, I also had a full time job that had some tuition benefits that I could take to another institution. I was working at my alma mater at University of Rochester.

Hilary Murmers [00:03:40]: And so I was like, let's go. I'm going to apply to graduate school and become a sex educator. So, yeah, I applied in spring of 2016 and started in fall of 2016. So three years after I graduated with my bachelor's.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:54]: Talk to me a little bit about what you were just talking about, because you were talking about that there definitely were some things that you had to consider being queer and thinking about graduate school where you fit and what was the right fit in that regard. I know you ended up at Widener, but talk to me about as someone entering into a graduate space like that and being queer, as you mentioned, what were some of the things that you had to truly consider for yourself in regards to safety, in regards to other aspects that you were looking for in a graduate program that might help others that might be queer as well, that they might need to think about in their own journey.

Hilary Murmers [00:04:33]: I think there's ways in which the institution that I went to was not the biggest question for me. Widener itself, like, is not an institution that I have a lot of attachment to, but for me, it was really dialing down into finding the program that felt like I would be getting the education that I needed and that it was a space where there were lots of queer and trans people, where there were conversations about queer and trans identities, like, baked into the program. It was a place where, like, when I looked at the materials online, frankly, I saw people who looked like me and I felt like it was a place where I could fit in. Part of my application experience was also doing a interview. So I got to go to campus and meet some current students and meet faculty members and just felt a really strong connection of this. Feels Like a place where I can be safe. I think it's also really important to name that I am white, I am cisgender. I have these other privileged identities that make safety less of an issue for me than for others in the queer community.

Hilary Murmers [00:05:47]: But yeah, for me it was really about dialing into like this is exactly the thing I want to study and these are the people I want to study it with.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:56]: You know, every student as they go into graduate school, go through some transitions, academic transitions, psychological transitions, social transitions. And as you transition in, you go through some transitions. But then as you're going through those transitions as well as you learn more and as you connect or disconnect, talk to me about those transitions for you. And what did you have to do as you transitioned into graduate school and also what did you have to do as you went through graduate school to set yourself up for success and maintain that success throughout the graduate school program?

Hilary Murmers [00:06:32]: Yeah, so I had a bumpy ride through graduate school due to life circumstances. So when I started my program in fall of 2016, I had a full time job in Rochester, New York. And the way the program was structured is that you would spend one weekend a month in person. Widener is outside of Philly. So I was working full time during the week and then one weekend a month going down to Philly for a full weekend of classes and then doing homework in the evening or trying to get up at like 5:30 in the morning to figure out, be able to do my classwork. But my first year was maybe the easiest because of the things that came after. So I had a really rare and unexpected cancer diagnosis after completing my first year in graduate school. So in the summer of 2017, I was diagnosed with a rare cancer called osteosarcoma.

Hilary Murmers [00:07:33]: And I had no choice but to put everything on pause. I took a medical leave from my graduate program. I stopped working and only focused on my cancer treatment for a full calendar year. And I'm very happy and lucky to be in good health now so many years later. And then I took also a full year to recover from that experience, physically, emotionally. I bopped around and slept on my friends couches all over the country. I lived with my brother and took care of my baby niece for a few months of that. But yeah, I really kind of had to take back control.

Hilary Murmers [00:08:12]: What I think when someone has a really severe medical experience, you lose a lot of control. So I spent my gap year, I called it, just being in control of my decisions. So finally in fall of 2019, I felt ready to go back to school to restart my program. But as happens, the program had really done some big shifts internally while I was away. So obviously there was a whole new cohort of students that I was working with who became my peers. But also the course requirements were different and some of the courses I had already taken were no longer offered. Just like that adjustment that happens right now. I work in higher ed.

Hilary Murmers [00:08:56]: I see it happening all the time of programs shifting. So I ended up having to work really closely with my faculty advisor to figure out how to apply the courses I had and stay on the new track that they had developed in order to get back on track, basically and try to complete my master's degree. So it took me, in the end, three years of coursework and five years total to complete my master's degree in human sexuality. Also within that time was the COVID lockdowns. So the program shifted from everyone traveling, many people from like all over the Eastern seaboard for a weekend of in person class in Philadelphia, which was really how the program was conceptualized, was that like people spend their weekend in these intensive courses to all of a sudden we're virtual and trying to do a. You know, I think our Saturday schedule was usually 9 to 6, and then Sunday was 10 to 4. Trying to translate that into the virtual format was really challenging, I think, for faculty and students going through it. So, yeah, when I started back in 2019, it felt uncomfortable, it felt bumpy, it felt like, oof.

Hilary Murmers [00:10:12]: Because it didn't feel easy to come back in. I had wanted it to feel like smooth and easy. And I encountered all these just logistical challenges of figuring out my course planning and then going fully remote was not the experience I think anyone wanted at that time. So, yeah, I ended up finishing in spring of 2021, fully remotely. Some of the students who had become my new peer cohort and I did a sisterhood of the traveling cap and gown and we like mailed one cap and gown all over to each other and took graduation photos. So, yeah, it was wild. There were a lot of bumps and like you said, Chris, transitions that made it uncomfortable and that there's a of decision points of like, do I keep going?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:56]: That can definitely be challenging. And I. I've said before, and I'll say it again, not every graduate school experience is going to go smoothly. There may be bumps in the road, there may be pivots that you have to make, just like you heard Hillary say. And what I am hearing Hillary say though, is that don't let those bumps stop you from achieving the goals that you've achieved for yourself, that you might have to pivot, you might have to do things in a little bit different way, but continue to push forward, continue to work toward the goal and work with your advisors, work with the faculty and identify other ways to do it, because there may be other ways that you can do it in the end.

Hilary Murmers [00:11:38]: Yeah, absolutely. My faculty advisor was a fabulous support to get me through those bumpy transitions.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:44]: As I know that initially you said that you had looked at a PhD program, and then you ended up in a master's program. If you had to do it all over again, would you choose the same. The same program or path and why? Why or why not?

Hilary Murmers [00:11:55]: That's a great question. You know, the PhD programs I was initially interested were like PhDs in gender studies, with the goal of becoming a faculty member, which now, knowing what I know about higher education, and also having friends who did go through a PhD and really, frankly struggled to find work at all or find work that sustains them, I feel really grateful that my PhD in the humanities didn't work out. It works for some people. And those tenured faculty positions for humanities PhDs are very, very few in number. So for me, my master's in human sexuality has served me really well. I'm able to do this work that is really meaningful to me. And I'm working in the field of higher education in a very different way than when I was 21 and graduating from college. I.

Hilary Murmers [00:12:52]: I would be. But I love it. And so, yeah, I would do the same thing. I would love to ease over some of those bumps, but we don't get that choice. I would do the same thing. I'm grateful that I didn't get in during my first graduate application attempt and that life took me another way.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:08]: So with all of the ups and downs and the kind of pivots that you had to go through, you definitely had to do a lot of balancing, especially as you were going into the medical diagnosis and starting and then having to take that break. And a lot of students do have to figure out what that balance is, the balance between school, work, family, personal responsibilities, whatever it might be. So talk to me about balance and what you had to do to be able to find that optimal balance as you were going through that graduate program.

Hilary Murmers [00:13:39]: Yeah, you know, I think that during my first year of grad school, when I was working full time and going to graduate school part time, that was really challenging to find the balance of just. There are only so many hours in the day, and I have to Spend a good chunk of those hours asleep. So that was a really hard year to figure out. Like, when in the world do you do all this coursework? And sometimes it was like during my lunch hour at work that would like, you know, quietly bleed over into the hour past my lunch hour if I could swing it. And, you know, I'm not a person. I still don't have kids. I didn't have kids. I didn't have major caregiving responsibilities.

Hilary Murmers [00:14:22]: So, yeah, for me, the balance was always like, internal of, like, how do I manage being a worker and a student? And then when I returned to graduate school, I was also working with some new disabilities from my cancer experience. I had a. I have a mobility disability now. I am hard of hearing now. And so also finding. And just my capacity was a lot lower than it was before I had a cancer experience. So when I returned to graduate school, I wasn't working. I was just in graduate school and I had home responsibilities.

Hilary Murmers [00:15:01]: But the balance at that point became like, how do I manage taking care of myself and doing school?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:08]: I really appreciate you sharing that. And I think every one of us as we go through our graduate school experience, we have to find what that is for ourselves. And I guess with the experience that you had in looking at your own graduate school experience, and it was a. It was different than other students have had, but it could be similar in many ways for some as well. As you think about the experience that you had and how it changed you and who you are today, how do you feel that your graduate school experience changed the way that you think work or approach problems?

Hilary Murmers [00:15:50]: I think that I gained a lot more compassion for bumps in the road for myself and for everyone. I had been a totally traditional college student. I was not a person who really struggled in school. And so, yeah, having this big interruption really helped me see and experience the path winds and we don't know what's coming around the corner. And I think I bring that to every part of my work and life now. Like, I do a lot of, like, one on one work with LGBTQ students at U of M Flint who are navigating all kinds of life challenges. And there's a way in which part of what we have to do is, like, just keep going through it. Even if we can't see what's around that corner.

Hilary Murmers [00:16:39]: We have to keep taking the next step to find out and to be able to navigate as we reach those turns. So, yeah, just a lot more compassion for, like, sometimes hits the fan and then you have to clean it all.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:51]: Up as you think about other individuals that are thinking about graduate school and you think back to your own graduate school experience and what you went through. And talking to those individuals that are thinking about graduate school, what are some pieces of advice that you would offer them that would help them to find success sooner?

Hilary Murmers [00:17:11]: I would encourage folks to get really clear on your goals for graduate school. What are you hoping to achieve? For me going in, I wanted to become a sex educator. The other side of it. I'm working in higher ed in an adjacent way to the field of sex education. But my goal of getting to have conversations with young people about identities and sexuality and gender is present through it all. And as we face those bumps, we have to have some motivation to keep going. Some driving force of this is why this matters. Graduate school can be fun, but it can also be really hard.

Hilary Murmers [00:17:51]: And so having a lot of clarity internally about this is why this goal matters to me. And this is why I'm continuing to persist as much as I can. Yeah, really helps me feel connected to my goals in graduate school. Also, faculty and staff on campuses are here to help you. That is the only reason they receive a salary is to help you. So use those folks. Get to know your faculty members, find supportive staff on campus, find spaces to plug into on campus, because you just never know what will come around the corner. And then that staff or faculty member who you connected to can be a really important resource.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:29]: Well, Hilary, I just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for your willingness to share your own journey today, for sharing the ups, the downs, the in betweens that you went through yourself. I truly want to say thank you for sharing that and I wish you all the best.

Hilary Murmers [00:18:45]: Thanks, Chris.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:46]: The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of master's and doctorate programs if you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you're looking for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [email protected].