Just remember - keep snacks with you and prepare to eat most of your meals in your car or while walking to or from class or work. I had a full-time job and two part-times when I got my masters, and I have got to tell you - it was damn tough. But worth it!
Well, I also had a new wife, puppy and twin newborns for two quarters. Now that was really mentally destructive.
The first time I tried grad school it did ruin my self esteem. However, I’m not sure that that is a typical experience. I probably shouldn’t have been there to begin with. My scores on tests were bad, the homework was really tough and I suffered from some “Big fish in small pond is now small fish in big pond” syndrome. Plus I had a personality conflict with my research advisor and ended up leaving without a degree.
I did know a fair number of others that took at least one semester before they really felt certain that they belonged in grad school. And it is easy to find people about to take PhD qualifying exams or defend their thesis or dissertation who are severely nervous/insecure.
I also know a fair number who left grad school earlier than they intended and/or decided to pursue other types of careers afterwards. I’m not sure that success or failure had as much to do with it (for some of them) as did the difficulty of figuring out at age 18 or 21 what one will be happy doing for the rest of one’s life.
This time around grad school is mostly improving my self-esteem, even if I’m battling some feelings of “What kind of idiot am I that I didn’t figure out that this is where I belong before now”. Also some feelings of “but at age 30 I was going to have my life together and be married- not still be working on a degree and single”
I’m a second year physics grad student. Posts like this one make my all twitchy.
As far as my confidence, it’s not shot yet. Although it was a bit of a shock to my system to suddenly be surrounded by people who are as smart or smarter than me. In undergrad, I could totally bomb a test and still count on the fact that most of the class had bombed it worse.
Yes.
This is what made the first semester of grad school a bit of an eye opener for me. Undergrad was pretty easy for me, and I had no trouble staying near the top of my class. Then I got to grad school–where everyone was smart and motivated–and found myself struggling somewhere in the middle. It’s easy to start thinking of yourself as mediocre because you lose sight of the fact that the less smart or less motivated people just aren’t there. However, you adjust. After you get out in the real world, you realize just how good your competition was and that you’re no slouch if you could keep up with them–even if you were no longer at the top.
At the beginning of my journey, I had “ok” self-esteem*. I had impressive test scores. I had graduated with honors from an impressive university. I have a dry sense of humor that convinces people I’m smart. My written communication skills were praised throughout the whole department. I felt pretty good about myself during those first two years (although I’d have these periods of depression and I-just-wanna-run-away blues).
And then I had my comprehensive exam. I passed but just barely. The process took what little self-esteem I had and crushed it, leaving behind only watery juices.
And then I started teaching. Students were looking up to me like I knew what the hell was going on, but I knew I didn’t have a clue. I felt like an imposter. It seemed like no matter how hard I prepared for a class, I never felt like I fully grasped what I was talking about. I would stand up in front of all these eyes and say something, only to have doubts about it five minutes later. All because I had no self-confidence.
And then I had my defense. By then I had nothing left of my self-worth, but yet it was still possible to lose more. Up until graduate day, I kept waiting for someone to say, “Hey, wait a minute! monstro is a loser!” I have my diploma hanging up on the wall, but it means absolutely nothing to me.
All those rejection letters for my manuscripts haven’t helped AT ALL. In fact, they’re worse than the teaching and the defense all rolled up into one.
I’m in the process of building my self up again.**
*To be honest, I’ve never felt good about myself. I went to a tough university to prove to myself that I was “good enough”. When that didn’t work, I thought going to grad school and getting a Ph.D would do it. It hasn’t. I don’t know what will.
**I loved grad school, despite my depressing post. It was hell sometimes, but there was also a lot of good stuff about it too.
I found it less competitive in terms of grades, but a lot more in other ways - like getting the right professor, being an RA, not a TA, being recognized as smart by the senior grad students and the faculty. And I never had the smartest kid in the class problem, having gone to a big and really high quality high school. (I did have the highest SAT scores, but not the hightest GPA, by a lot.) Then I went to a college without class ranks or various comparisons (we were nutty enough) and lived in a part of a dorm that didn’t have exactly the highest cum in the Tute.
And for current grad students - Fred Hoyle, in his novel Ossian’s Way had the best trick for getting ahead. His hero, in grad school, actually read up on the seminars being presented, sat in the front row, and asked incisive questions. Since the professors assumed that no one prepared, he got the reputation as being really smart. I know this works. By chance I had read the book that a prospective, but not very smart, professor used in his talk during the interview. I tore the guy apart, and the faculty suddenly thought I was quite the genius. 
My advisor was really happy with me.
Depends on the school. For me it was awful, psychologically. For my students, it’s great.
kidchameleon wins! :eek:
You two are making me feel more optimistic about next semester: I’ll just be working and taking the 2 classes. No significant other (I think), no pets, no children, no second or third job. No sweat! 
Pretty much matched my initial reaction when I walked into my first class in grad school at Berkeley. OHMYGOD! I’m surrounded by the smartest people I ever met! What the hell am I doing here?! Everyone was apparently the #1 or #2 person in their undergrad schools. But, as already mentiond, you adjust. And you will also realize that perseverance counts as much as innate intelligence. Good undergraduate preparation is also a big help. The course work is the least of your worries – the grading is a lot more lenient than undergrad. The main hurdles (for the PhD) are the qualifying exams and the dissertation. And as you can read from the other posts, having the right research advisor is critical to success, and sometimes that takes some luck. At the end, I’d estimate that more than half my entering class dropped out for one reason or another, and someone who’s average like me finished.
I should qualify my remarks by saying that my field is in the science area, so I don’t know if my grad school experience is typical of non-scientific fields. But since I know you’re (Wesley’s) into chemistry, take what I say FWIW.
Many years ago, I decided to quit my job and go back to grad school, in a PhD program, as a full-time student. I wound up going to a school that is generally regarded as having one of the top five ME programs in the country (three guesses based on my location).
My first semester I took three classes, plus started research, plus began studying for qualifying exams.
My first grad class – fluid dynamics – had forty or so students in it. The first exam I took in in that class, I didn’t feel I did all that well. I got it back, and sure enough – a 23. The professor was thoughtful enough to write the exam statistics on the board – average was 65 or so, high score 89, low score… 23.
Yep, I had just quit my job and gone back to school in order to completely crash and burn on the first exam. First exam in class number two – pretty much the same result, except I was only in the lower quartile rather than dead last. So… a bit of an improvement, but still.
Luckily, I’m the type of guy who gets irritated rather than depressed about things like that. I really buckled down, started haunting office hours, studied all evening every evening. Wound up pulling a B+ in fluid dynamics, winning an atta-boy from the professor, who complimented me on “pulling it together at the end.”
Passed my quals (yay me!), and the next semester I took a class taught by a professor who is the smartest guy I’ve ever met. Not only was his research incredibly complicated, but he had a way of explaining it, and any other difficult concept, that made the whole package blindingly obvious. I learned just a ton in that class, and a lot of it was information I could apply in my own research.
I wound up acing that course, and a few days after the semester ended, my advisor made an off-hand comment: “Oh, I was talking to Professor X in the hall, and he said you were one of the best students he’s seen.”
So I thought, man, if I can impress the Smartest Guy I Know, I must be doing OK.
And that is a counter-argument to the OP.
Well, let me give you some free advice. If you are not in a field where there are industrial applications, take this opportunity to learn some extra stuff to make yourself more attractive to industry. Eg. learn C++, Java, take an engineering course on finite element methods, … . That way even if you are gunning for some faculty research position, you’ll have some back-up skills if it doesn’t work out.
Matt Groening thinks so! Have a look.