{"id":44044,"date":"2025-11-12T18:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/44044\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T18:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:27:09","slug":"the-highs-and-lows-of-usfsp-graduate-student-life-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/44044\/","title":{"rendered":"The highs and lows of USFSP graduate student life\u00a0 \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

By Julia Birdsall <\/p>\n

Donna Knudsen, the St. Petersburg campus assistant dean for graduate studies and former University of South Florida St. Petersburg graduate student, compared the St. Petersburg graduate student experience to the isolation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is in comparison to the Tampa campus, which she said has \u201cmore graduate students living and working on campus.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have much more of that engagement just strictly from the standpoint that it\u2019s their residence as well,\u201d Knudsen said. \u201cSo, everything is wrapped up within the [Tampa] campus. Whereas here [in St. Petersburg], it\u2019s a commuter campus.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

USF St. Petersburg is known for its smaller class sizes. This is part of the reason that some undergraduate and graduate students choose to pursue a degree at the campus. However, graduate students say that life at the St. Petersburg campus is a negotiation between quality education and limited resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Liana Howe, a first-year graduate student in the Florida studies program whose main focus is history, told The Crow\u2019s Nest that her program\u2019s faculty inspired her to pursue it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey not only are so helpful as far as making sure I\u2019m pursuing things that I\u2019m interested in, but also mentoring me,\u201d Howe said. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve learned so much about academia and about what my future looks like through them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But she has had trouble connecting with other graduate students and believes that commuting to Tampa for future classes will allow her to form those connections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only drawback to commuting is the time it\u2019ll take, which Howe is dreading.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething about grad school\u2026 it\u2019s so busy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just the idea of losing that couple of hours of commute time is already stressful, let alone being able to afford the gas and everything is just a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Holly Shuff, a second-year graduate student in the Florida studies program with a concentration in environmental anthropology, commutes to the Tampa campus for a class and said she often misses the St. Petersburg campus environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m getting a lot more out of that for myself and experience, work-wise, and more opportunities than I would have had anywhere else,\u201d Shuff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her class in Tampa does not utilize field trips like her St. Petersburg classes do, which is the biggest difference in her experiences at each campus.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThose helped foster a sense of community with the other students in the program and professors, as well as to see real-world firsthand experiences of practical applications of our fields of study,\u201d she told The Crow\u2019s Nest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, she says that moving back home and away from the city St. Petersburg to reduce housing costs has had a negative impact on her academics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does suck is because I do commute, I\u2019m not on campus as frequently. It\u2019s harder to get focused on your work and you\u2019re not surrounded [by] that environment, versus when I\u2019m here and around my peers it\u2019s a lot more convenient and beneficial,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most graduate students are commuters, but whether this is by choice or due to the limited<\/a> number of designated space for graduate students in USF St. Petersburg\u2019s residence halls is unknown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This has forced many students to choose between living close to campus and paying the city\u2019s rising prices<\/a> for \u201creally small places,\u201d like Howe, or moving back home and committing to a long commute to the St. Petersburg campus, like Shuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Walker Adam Taylor, a second-year psychological sciences graduate student with a data analysis certificate, told The Crow\u2019s Nest that living off campus in St. Petersburg becomes especially problematic during hurricane season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His house was destroyed in Hurricane Milton. In the aftermath, he didn\u2019t have the support he needed and had to search for an affordable place to stay on Facebook.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s always going to be a struggle, honestly, and I think it\u2019s just going to continue to get worse,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s just part of downtown [St. Petersburg] living.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite this, he chooses to remain at St. Petersburg because he loves the location and the smaller campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re such a small campus that if you do have questions, there\u2019s not a line to wait,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Knudsen referred to the personalized education and close professor and student relationships as \u201cthe concierge approach.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said that a huge part of her job is helping to facilitate the relationships between students and faculty who can assist and mentor them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a graduate student in St. Petersburg, all of the professors in your program, in your major, know who you are and you know who they are,\u201d she said. \u201cThey all, then, become advisors. And so, you really do get that concierge.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also facilitates peer relationships between graduate students through the recently implemented Relate-A-Bull<\/a> program, which Knudsen helped create.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through this program, graduate and doctoral students can volunteer to take training courses and become peer mentors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So far, 120 students have been trained, Knudsen said, and they will be able to assist their peers by answering questions and giving pointers as someone who is or was in the same position.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s that availability for the connectivity of like having and forming a relationship with a mentor, or your academic boss, or the students, or your peers around you,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI think this campus kind of encapsulates that, because, again, it\u2019s only 4,500 people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 35 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\"More<\/a>
Written by: Julia Birdsall<\/a> on November 12, 2025.
Last revised by: Alisha Durosier<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow\u2019s Nest By Julia Birdsall Donna Knudsen, the St. Petersburg campus assistant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-44044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}