This book shows the everyday trial and victories of Black graduate students, living in today's academia.

This book is the perfect book for any Women of Color to read before entering graduate schools. The essays provide practical real-world advice as well as anecdotes and words of support and encouragement from women who have successfully navigated the process. As graduation season approaches this is the perfect gift for any young woman of color headed to graduate school this fall. For those currently enrolled this book offers advice and hope for continuing to push through the trials and tribulations that accompany navigating the microaggressions that are hidden throughout academia.

As a black woman with a doctoral degree, and currently pursuing an M.S. degree in a tangential area, this book was a must read for me.

The academic experience from the perspective of women of color is an area of study that many would-be, as well as current, graduate students do not read.

The well-curated and multifaceted collection of essays is a must-read for all soon-to-be grad students of color.

Highly recommended for school libraries - high school, community college, tradition 4-year universities, and graduate schools.

I really enjoyed reading these essays, written by women of color who are in graduate school, that explores the barriers that WOC has in being able to not only access but thrive, in post-grad environments. As education in the US is so closely tied to race and class, it makes post-grad education very difficult to attain without having some degree of economic privilege or access. These stories are very enlightening to the structural problems this system has and the need for increased social support for students from all walks of life to be able to thrive.

This is a book worth writing, and is certainly one worth reading. It contains frank and honest accounts of the struggles women of colour encountered as they strived to earn themselves an education. Everyone must work hard to achieve degrees, masters and doctorates but these students encountered so many more battles along the way, many many more than I could ever envision in my middle class white upbringing. They encountered classism, racism, sexism through their journeys but rather than develop defeatist attitudes and bail at the first hurdle, these obstacles made them stronger. They gravitated towards likeminded individuals and developed a resilience that pushed them through, and up higher on the ladder to success. I applaud these women and am in awe of their paths. May they be forever successful in all that they encounter. This is a book that will inspire all.

I picked up this book because I'm an AFAB first-generation American entering grad school this coming fall, so I was thinking that my experiences would align with the authors. My parents are East Asian and Arab and I was worried those narratives wouldn't be included. However, they were! And the editors addressed this very specifically - they note that Asian women are often excluded from the category of WOC in statistics, highlighting the erasures of Asian and Asian American women as a result of the model minority stereotype. The editors are Asian American and Chicana so they're not working off a black/white race binary, which I thought was going to be the case when I saw the book cover.
The book itself is a collection of personal narratives/essays from authors of varying backgrounds seeking to validate the experiences of WOC in graduate school and to advise those in similar circumstances.
I personally didn't relate to most of the experiences, but I'm still glad I read them. The editors noted that they were unsuccessful in getting contributions from WOC in STEM. This is understandable but I think I would've gotten a lot more out of the collection if there were essays from that perspective. I ultimately didn't find any pieces all that useful or revolutionary, but I did appreciate learning about a variety of perspectives. I hope it marks the beginning of publishing more stories from people from even more varied backgrounds and fields. I thought the writing styles of the essays were okay, and found the introduction and epilogue to be very repetitive. And a personal gripe: endnotes instead of footnotes :((
I'd recommend this for anyone looking to hear multiple experiences from historically marginalized people in higher education.

Interesting and informative. I would have no hesitation in recommending this well written book.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

This is a wonderfully informative book! I highly recommend it as a great resource for degreed women who may find the wealth of information provided useful and beneficial.

An outstanding title that should find its way into anyone involved with grad school education and, specifically, the indigenous women and women of color that must navigate the system. Read my full review here: https://thechrisgonzalez.com/degrees-of-difference-reflections-of-women-of-color-on-graduate-school-book-review/