I spend five years in engineering, four in med school and two in family medicine. I pay tuition still, so you could say I’ve been in university eleven years and be forgiven if you think only nine of them count.
As I grow older, I am working longer hours and partying less. In medicine, I get less sleep and have more stress than in engineering. I am more tired now than I was then.
I know many exhausted grad students. They work fairly hard most of the time, have relatively active social lives, etc. But why are they always more tired than other people with more responsibilities and less freedom?
Many grad students choose their path because they did not want to leave academe for the workaday world or were ambiguous about what they wanted. If grad students are indecisive, are they more liekly to be tired, too?
I spend five years in engineering, four in med school and two in family medicine. I pay tuition still, so you could say I’ve been in university eleven years and be forgiven if you think only nine of them count.
As I grow older, I am working longer hours and partying less. In medicine, I get less sleep and have more stress than in engineering. I am more tired now than I was then.
I know many exhausted grad students. They work fairly hard most of the time, have relatively active social lives, etc. But why are they always more tired than other people with more responsibilities and less freedom?
Many grad students choose their path because they did not want to leave academe for the workaday world or were ambiguous about what they wanted. If grad students are indecisive, are they more likely to be tired, too?
Without thinking about it too much, here’s what I might suggest. The first short assignment should be a research proposal, detailing what they are going to look for, why it’s interesting, and why they should be funded. (This is always an important part of life as a scientist…) Once they do that, they can go on in the subsequent short paper to do a lab report (this is by far the largest part of scientific writing that students have to do); I’m not sure what experiment you could do in an English class, but surely the combined brains of more creative Dopers than I could think of something. Then, now that they’ve made their proposal and done the description of their experiment, the longer paper could be sort of a final report to the fictitious funding agency, explaining what they looked at in more detail, what they expected to see, what they actually saw, why this is interesting, and so forth, not neglecting to explain why further investigation and hence further funding will be needed.
I’m not sure students would have to do a lab report to get some of the skills they’d need to write well on scientific topics. Honestly, I learned most–if not all–of my science writing skills from my philosophy classes. (I got a bachelor’s in philosophy before switching to entomology.) It seems to me that the foundations for writing well in sciences are:
Know how to make and support a clear argument about a proposition no-one else really knows about but you. When writing in the sciences, assume that your audience is intelligent but has no clue what you’re talking about. Spell everything out, even those facts or logical inferences you take for granted.
(Corollary to #1 above) If your argument depends on the conclusions of many other chains of reasoning, delineate each of the sub-arguments one by one. Then use your conclusions from each sub-argument to construct your main argument. However, make sure you state your thesis in the introductory portion of the paper, so that people know what it is your arguments lead up to.
Describe your procedure and the equipment you used clearly. Don’t make the assumption that anyone else has used the same equipement in the same way you have. Assume that you have to specify everything, right down to the size of the wingnut you use to keep your contraption together. You want to write descriptions of your equipment and procedures so clearly that anyone reading your article could duplicate your work and get the same results you do without having to contact you for clarification.
Know the basic rules of any good writing. Be organized, use proper grammar, unambiguous terms, etc.
I think many of these skills could be reinforced simply by getting them to read about a fundamental notion in the sciences (the concept of an ecosystem, the notion of a force, or evolution by natural selection, for example) and have them present it to you in a clear way. (This assignment would be deceptively simple. None of these concepts is easy to explain thoroughly. These three ideas seem intuitively easy to grasp on a first reading, but they’re actually pretty hard to clarify.) If you think this might be too abstruse, you can have them pick a machine or biological process and have them describe to you–clearly, step by step–how it works. (They could pretend they’re sending the information to aliens, or something. Whatever gets them to strip away their preconceived notions of what comprises common knowledge or of things that go without saying would do just fine.)
You could also make them pretend that they’re writing a set of directions for some everyday thing they do all the time and take for granted. (sitting in a chair while wearing a skirt, or pouring a bowl of cereal with milk, for example.) The catch is that they’re writing this mini instruction manual for someone from another, totally foreign culture–someplace where no-one has skirts, chairs, ceramic bowls, cardboard boxes, metal spoons, refrigerators, plastic jugs for storing milk, or other items we accept as rather basic parts of our lives. You have to write your instructions in such a way that the person from this other culture could perform the task you’ve outlined, even though the follower of these instructions has never encountered the objects or their use before. Allow your students–in fact, encourage them–to draw clear diagrams as an aid in describing the equipment needed and how it ought to be used.
The first exercise should develop their ability to explain a concept or mechanism clearly. The second should develop their technical writing skills. Those skills could be applied to describing unique experimental equipment and procedures.
The students should find this challenging, and the smart, intellectually curious ones should enjoy it. As a side benefit, you don’t really have to know much science when you assign homework like this to students. In fact, it might be advantageous if you don’t know a lot about whatever topic students write about, because you’d be more able to pick out inconsistencies and confusing parts of their writing than if you already had an idea of what they were trying to say.
Something went wrong, here. I had edited this post before I hit the “post reply” button. For some reason, an incomplete version of my post was sent off to SDMB. Oh, well…here’s what I wanted to post:
I'm not sure students would have to do a lab report or a mock grant proposal to get some of the skills they'd need in order to write well on scientific topics. Honestly, I learned most--if not all--of my science writing skills from my philosophy classes. (I got a bachelor's in philosophy before switching to entomology.) It seems to me that the foundations for writing well in sciences are:
1. Know how to make and support a clear argument about a proposition no-one else really knows about but you. When writing in the sciences, assume that your audience is intelligent but has no clue what you're talking about*. Spell everything out, even those facts or logical inferences you take for granted.
2. (Corollary to #1 above) If your argument depends on the conclusions of many other chains of reasoning, carefully establish each of the sub-arguments one by one. Then use your conclusions from each sub-argument to construct your main argument. However, make sure you state your thesis in the introductory portion of the paper, so that people know what it is your arguments lead up to.
3. Describe your procedure and the equipment you used clearly. Don't make the assumption that anyone else has used the same equipement in the same way you have. Assume that you have to specify everything, right down to the size of the wingnut you use to keep your contraption together^. You want to write descriptions of your equipment and procedures so clearly that anyone reading your article could duplicate your work and get the same results you do without having to contact you for clarification.
3. Know the basic rules of any good writing. Be organized, use proper grammar, unambiguous terms, etc.
I think many of these skills could be reinforced simply by getting them to read about a fundamental notion in the sciences (the concept of an ecosystem, the notion of a force, or evolution by natural selection, for example) and have them present it to you in a clear way. (This assignment would be deceptively simple. None of these concepts is easy to explain thoroughly. These three ideas seem intuitively easy to grasp on a first reading, but they're actually pretty hard to clarify.) If you think this might be too abstruse, you can have them pick a machine or biological process and have them describe to you--clearly, step by step--how it works. (They could pretend they're sending the information to aliens, or something. Whatever gets them to strip away their preconceived notions of what comprises common knowledge or of things that go without saying would do just fine.)
You could also make them pretend that they're writing a set of directions for some everyday thing they do all the time and take for granted. (sitting in a chair while wearing a skirt, or pouring a bowl of cereal with milk, for example.) The catch is that they're writing this mini instruction manual for someone from another, totally foreign culture--someplace where no-one has skirts, chairs, ceramic bowls, cardboard boxes, metal spoons, refrigerators, plastic jugs for storing milk, or other items we accept as rather basic parts of our lives. You have to write your instructions in such a way that the person from this other culture could perform the task you've outlined, even though the follower of these instructions has never encountered the objects or their use before. Allow your students--in fact, encourage them--to draw clear diagrams as an aid in describing the equipment needed and how it ought to be used.
The first exercise should develop their ability to explain a concept or mechanism clearly. The second should develop their technical writing skills. Those skills could be applied to describing unique experimental equipment and procedures.
The students should find this challenging, and the smart, intellectually curious ones should enjoy it.(At least, I know *I* would have found it a neat project. But, then again, I'm weird. And I really have no idea what most undergrads in your class would find interesting. i know that my students can be completely uninterested in topics I find fascinating.) As a side benefit, you don't really have to know much science when you assign homework like this to students. In fact, it might be advantageous if you don't know a lot about whatever topic students write about, because you'd be more able to pick out inconsistencies and confusing parts of their writing than if you already had an idea of what they were trying to say.
--Scribble.
*Authors of scientific papers actually do assume a certain level of common knowledge, but it's always better to underestimate your audience's background than it is to overestimate it. It makes sense to teach students to write as though the person reading their work has absolutely no idea what the student is talking about, since we science class TAs need to see that the students understand and can apply very basic concepts.
^People _do_ get pretty specific in their papers. They'll tell you what brand and grade of filter paper to use when separating solid particles from a liquid. They'll describe the exact chemical composition of soil used to raise plants. To some people outside the sciences, parts of scientific papers seem to read like pathologically anal-retentive Julia Child recipes, but with a greater proportion of multisyllabic words and (usually) inedible results.
Yikes. I’m just glad that I don’t have to worry about students eating glass in my sections. I mean, some of them are pretty hopeless when it comes to algebra, but at least it doesn’t cause flesh wounds.
Musicology, a.k.a. music history. With an emphasis on 20th-century American music. My dissertation will be on an American opera.
I spent 3 years working in the “real world” and ran back to academia as fast as I could. For one thing, I need the mental stimulation that comes with the environment. Research can be fun. But I also love to teach students at the college level, which is what I hope to do eventually.
Ha. I do the laundry. And even if I had a boyfriend/husband to help out I probably would still be doing the laundry – just more. I do try to eat balanced meals. My brain doesn’t work on junk and I need all the brain power I can get these days.
They’re the ones who will make money when they graduate. Smarter than me, I’d say.
Some days. I did my undergrad degree in biology and miss the sciences a lot. But then I think about spending hours in a lab and I remember why I’m in this field. Other days I wish I could quit the whole thing and go off to earn a living singing opera. But that’s even less realistic than getting a job teaching music history! So here I stay.
NO! Oh, no, no, no.
Urp.
Sorry.
My qualifying exams are now 14 days away and counting. Believe me, my nightmares are all about taking them right now.
But even under better circumstances I still like giving them more. I have fun putting exams together, thinking up questions, and even get a kind of warped pleasure in grading them. Go figure.
It depresses me some days. I certainly would like to become a “grown up” and get a “real job” before I start getting hot flashes. But I’m already doing most of what I would in a job anyway. Researching and teaching. The only difference will be that as a professor I will be paid a slightly larger pittance than now.
That doesn’t bother me. If I could stand the boredom of working a backhoe, I would be out there working right along side him. It’s a trade off, but I don’t really need much money or stuff to be happy so I’d rather do something I love.
A very personal view, with some pop psychology mixed in: Having worked for a few years before going to grad school, I’ve discovered that my life before this was much more structured. I went to work for 40 hours a week, but when I came home I could leave the work there. My activities in the evening were distinctly separated from my work day. Compartmentalized, would be the fancy word for it.
As a grad student, however, the work never seems to end. There is always something more to research or study. My evenings are not my own. I usually spend them reading or writing something having to do with my research or teaching, and if I take time to do things for fun the guilt of ignoring all those articles I’m supposed to read, or pieces to analyze, or papers to grade, haunts me so that I don’t really enjoy my fun or feel relaxed. That’s why I’m tired all the time.
I’ve juggled more responsibilities, but they were broken up into manageable packages of time and usually done according to some schedule that was set by others (a boss, a director, a coach, whatever). I had many little moments of closure. What I do now is mostly according to my schedule and that nasty perfectionistic part of me won’t let me have a break. At least not for a few more years until my dissertation is done. So I’m exhausted and still feel like I’m not doing enough. Does that make sense?
I was so busy talking about myself I forgot to ask a question.
Do you have to take qualifying exams (comprehensive exams)? A general exam or one based on your area of specialization, or all of the above? Have you taken them? If so, did you pass?
Mine is a general exam, i.e. know ALL of music history. Arg. I hope I will pass. If my brain doesn’t explode first from all the musical trivia I’m stuffing in there…
Well, I’ll tell you why I’m an exhausted grad student (I’m guessing the other grad students all have similar tales of woe):
My current project requires that I be in the lab or at the farm from 6am to 2am, four days a week. I work 8 hours the other three days. On top of that, I also take classes for which I’m studying and trying to pass exams. Then there’s the fact that in order to be effective, I have to stay on top of all the relevent literature. Oh, and I have to get my last experiment written up so it can be published. Then there’s my lit review, which is a whole other topic. Oh yeah, and I TA a lab. As a research assistant, I’m responsible for getting out shipments of oocytes every week. I’m trying to get ready for prelims, which is an exam over…everything I’m supposed to have learned in the last several years. Have I mentioned yet that I work about 18 hours four days a week?
You have less freedom than me? Sweet christ, you need to re-evaluate * your* life path.
If I took that way too seriously, forgive me–I’m sleep deprived and I have a stat exam coming up that’s going to be wretched.
The rest of you–nice to meet you. Grad students need to stick together
BTW, for whoever asked: I really enjoy most of the people I TA. There are a few that make me wish I carried a taser, but they’re the exception.
Oh boy, did I ever. One four hour exam a day for a week straight, covering all of physics (up through those things a first year grad student should know). Four questions, too; the fact that they give you an hour per question should be enough to demonstrate that the problems are really a royal pain in the butt. I basically took the summer before I had to take these beasts off, so I could work problems. I remember working every single problem in one of my text books and half of them in two more. By the grace of the examining committee, I passed, but it was pretty close on one of them.
Later on you take the qual, which is basically a presentation to your PhD committee, and in this one you’re expected to show evidence of a deep understanding of some aspect of your particular sub-discipline, but really, these are pretty easy.
On the other hand, some of the chemistry students I share an office with don’t have to take any comps; it’s assumed that getting sufficiently high grades in the first three courses in their division, they’ve shown evidence of understanding physical chemistry, and that comprehensives would hence be a waste of time. I still think this is truly unfair, but eh, that’s life.
