Day in the Life Series: Rikki Laser
February 27, 2026
Cornell is home to over 10,000 graduate and professional students. While they might all share the pursuit of graduate education, every student’s journey is different.
While some students are taking classes, others are conducting independent research. While some are funded by assistantships, others are on fellowships. Graduate education at Cornell is a create-your-own-adventure experience, and we’ll be giving you insight into what that looks like for our students through our Day in the Life Series.
Today, Rikki Laser will share what a day in her life looks like as a sixth-year doctoral candidate in the field of psychological sciences and human development.
Hello! My name is Rikki, and I am broadly interested in how our sensory environment shapes our development and social behavior. This semester, I am writing my dissertation and serving as a teaching assistant. As I head into the final year of my program, I am also building and maintaining collaborations I intend to take with me through the rest of my career. Balancing everything makes every day a new adventure!
7 a.m.
The first thing I do in the morning is pick an outfit! Picking fun earrings and socks is one of the small, important ways I maintain joy and contentment through the ups and downs of graduate school.
7:15 a.m.
Next, I eat breakfast and feed my fish and shrimp. They are super cute.
8 a.m.
I get in my car to drive to work. My husband draws little hearts on my windshield when it snows.
8:40 a.m.
My first meeting is a journal club exploring a subdiscipline of biology called behavioral ecology, which explores how environmental and evolutionary forces shape animal behavior. This time, I led a discussion on theories from behavioral ecology related to my work on parenting behavior. Attending journal clubs and lab meetings are great ways to learn about new or familiar academic disciplines while keeping up with friends and colleagues.
10 a.m.
Next, I attend Maren Vitousek’s lab meeting. There, we discuss research projects and articles about how stressors like temperature or predators affect animal behavior and physiology.
11:40 a.m.
The course I TA starts. Typically, I take notes during the lecture, help manage course resources, and assist in answering student questions. As the course is in a subdiscipline I’m not very familiar with, I like to connect ideas from my dissertation and previous coursework to help put new information into perspective.
1:30 p.m.
After I grabbed a quick lunch, I met with a collaborator and an undergraduate student to develop plans for a new project. While this work won’t go into my dissertation, it helps me develop new skills and new connections towards the next steps in my career. I am working on finding a postdoc position with the goal of ultimately becoming a professor.
3 p.m.
For the rest of my workday, I spend some time writing my dissertation. I was working on writing the methods for the second chapter of my dissertation.
6 p.m.
After I eat dinner, I spend some time crocheting. Then, I end the day by playing video games with my husband and some of our friends from undergrad. Throughout my graduate experience, I have really enjoyed my work, and I have learned so much. Especially after busy days like today, I have found that taking time to rest and spend time with family and friends is super important to both enjoying and learning from graduate school!
