I have seen threads here about how grad school was fun/easy etc.
A cow-irker is going to grad school, WHILE WORKING FULL TIME AND SAYS IT IS FUN AND EASY!
My God!!
Grad school for me was an unending, stressful, hellish experience. We started with 32 people and 9 survived. I studied 14-16 hours per day and lived, ate and breathed school. Vacation days? Nope – dorm got awfully lonely but quiet for studying. Breaks, weekends, weekdays all the same.
I felt guilty for playing pool 1 hour a day! Movies?? Are you freaking nuts?
Tests were hellish and difficult as hell. My ego was squashed to nothing.
And this wasn’t for a Ph.D. but a M.S. in Mathematics!
I started Grad school thinking I was hot shit and knew stuff. I ended grad school knowing that I knew nothing. NOTHING!
Now I meet people that can do it WHILE WORKING FULL TIME AND THINK IT’S EASY!
I think my grad degree should have some special status to distinquish it from all these wussy, easy degrees!!!
I say it in fun but it really does make me wonder if I was abused somehow because everyone I meet now says grad school was fun and easy.
I mean what the hell!!!
Is it that non-science degrees are cake? What’s going on??
It was nicknamed Gerit-Hall cause we were all old geezers (Mid-tweenties or older). Most were undergrads though.
What’s so unusual? That I had no life?
I’m not trying to bust your balls, brother. Here in my neck of the woods grad students are on their own as far as housing. And as far as having a life–not many of us have one. I can’t tell from your OP, but are you done? Congrats.
I’m doing a PhD now. It’s not all awful and bad. In fact, sometimes it can be fun. And yes, it’s tough. I’ve shed enough tears to fill an ocean. But I’m sure there are others out there who have had better and worse experiences than I have. It doesn’t mean my degree is going to be any less or more worthy than theirs.
Your rant reminds me of how I feel about undergrad. When people say college was so fun and that they partied all the time, I want to strangle them. My university was so fucking hard that there were many days when I thought about how wonderful it would be if someone bombed it, including the dormitories and the student center. But what do I want? A scooby snack? The torture I went through in college shows itself in my discipline, no nonsense personality, and my accomplishments. That’s all the reward I need, really.
Please don’t hate me, but yeah, I’m working on a PhD in a non-science field and enjoying it. Interesting work, interesting people, I’ve been able to take a couple of summers off and go traveling, and I still get student discouts at 26. Not bad at all.
There are very few actual jobs in my field, mind you, so there’s no earthly reason to get the degree except personal fulfillment. If there were jobs I might be motivated to live, eat, and breathe school, but as it is, may as well sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s always a trade-off – some programs are competitive, others have nothing to compete for.
Oh, yeah, grad school sucked. Worked thirty hours a week (many of them for the evil department head), went to school full-time, and was involved in a long-distance relationship. And needless to say, I was surrounded by other exhausted, overworked, getting-bitter grad students. We were a fun bunch, no doubt. Suuuhucked. I don’t regret going to grad school, but I’m not sure I’d do it again.
I don’t want to belittle non-science degrees. Not my intent. It’s just that the ones that proclaim how easy it is have been non-science so it has me wondering…
Nope, not ‘angry’ after 14 years but, well yea, I get a bit perturbed when all these grad seekers have it so damn easy and after they graduate, they will probably consider themselves my equal educationally as well.
The good thing is that there are few of my degrees out there compared to ‘Communications’ which is what the latest person I’ve met saying how easy it is.
burundi, work 30 hours a week? No way I coul dhave done that and survived. It was a bit humorous. Out of 32 of us, only 9 made it through. Every single one who was married and/or proclaimed that they were going to have a life didn’t make it. Every one.
It did really shape me up and discipline me though. Much.
Fretful, if you don’t mind, what is your area? I ask because many people don’t really know that there are jobs out there for many degrees. They just don’t know it. Someone wise once told me when I was in a similar position. “Andy, there are many good, rewarding types of jobs out there that you would be good at and you don’t even know what they are”.
As someone said to me, “Once you start your master’s degree, you realize undergrad was just a joke”. He was right.
My masters is killing me, each of my four classes treats itself like a full-time job – meaning I feel like I’m doing 40 hours of work for each of them each week.
Hrm. Master’s-chaser here, mechanical engineering division. TA for a lab section (so, 4 hours of lab time per week, plus another 4 organizing the lab stuff, as I’m head TA, plus 4 for prep, plus grading…), plus, of course, my classes. I’m supposed to be doing research when, exactly?
But, still, it’s much better than having a job was.
English, specializing in Renaissance drama. (And by “no jobs” I mean no tenure-track academic jobs – I’m reasonably confident that I’ll get a job teaching something, so I’m not terribly worried.)
DynoSaur, when I graduated and had a job, I couldn’t believe how easy it was. You got to go home and have NOTHING TO DO work related. There were actually WEEKENDS! The sense of wonder lasted over two years before you started getting used to it.
Fretful, you have your heart set on academia. I did that but then left. Remember, if academia doesn’t work out, there are jobs for you in industry. Once people have the academia bug in them and especially if they have Ph.D’s they tend to be scared of /look down as inferior at industry. It takes some time of low salaries that never increase, little job position opportunities and find out the status of professor that you held high as a student is not held high my most.
Once that sinks in, many just hunker down, disillusioned, and endure. Some leave for industry. You have to swallow your pride, take a lower level job and move up but your degree allows for rapid move-up.
Well, I’ve never gone to grad school (and won’t for several years until I figure out what the heck I would want to get an advanced degree in) but mi amigo is a chemistry grad student at Maryland and he’s not having too difficult a time with it. Regularly comes partying with us and is also working part-time (mostly because his lab stuff comes in the middle of the day and it mucks with his availability schedule.)
Of course, it helps that he’s frickin’ brilliant at science, which makes up for his utter cluelessness in just about every other aspect of life (except rugby). Seriously, think of Lowell from Wings but with a brilliant knack for chemical processes. I love that guy.
Nah, I don’t have my heart set on academia. I do have my heart set on teaching, because it’s the only job I’ve ever actually liked, but teaching somewhere other than a four-year university is fine with me. (I’ve just started a long-term substitute teaching job at a private high school, and it’s wonderful.) Frankly, trying to get a professorship sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.
I doubt I’ll ever be looking for a job in industry – sure, the money is better, but there’s no way to take a big chunk o’ time off, and I’d much rather have my summers free.
andymurph, I just got my PhD in physics (condensed matter theory). The first year was tough, and I was somewhat surprised by how much I had to learn. However, the saving grace was the fact that, once I passed the qualifiers, I had time to get my feet under me. If I’d had to write a master’s thesis by the end of my second year and graduate, I’d probably have felt the same way you do about grad school. But I ended up having a great time – sure, I worked some weekends and evenings, but I also hung out with friends, went to parties, dated girls, met my now-wife, took weekend roadtrips, etc. For me, it was less stressful than undergrad, when I worked too much to ever really have a good social life.
Grad school was really hard in places, but also really fun, and really rewarding. Although I actually have every weekend off now and make more than a pittance salary, I still miss it sometimes. Apart from the money, it’s a good life.
I guess it is probably more an indication of the differences in what you call "grad school’ and we called ‘a post grad degree’, but we are strongly advised that is you are full time post grad DO NOT WORK as well. It is considered a recipe for failure. You are expected to put in a minimum of 40hrs a week work on top of 12hrs contact time.
Which doesn’t leave much time for anything like working or a life. I must say the differences in the education systems (US and Australia) are interesting, every second person in the US seems to have at least a masters degree, if not a PhD. PhDs are not nearly as common here, I wonder what the different % of population are, and what the difference in standards might be.
auliya: I’m curious – does that mean postgrads in Australia are not expected to work for their academic department (as a research assistant, undergrad instructor or TA, journal editor, etc.)? How do they support themselves – do they get funding from the university, or do they just take out loans?
To give you an idea how different things can be in America, practically everyone in my department teaches two or three undergrad courses a year – not only is it the usual source of funding, but it’s also considered an essential part of one’s apprenticeship. (Teaching loads vary wildly in different academic disciplines and at different universities, however.)
I found grad school to be really tough because I was driven to get high marks in my courses in the first two years. This was in cognitive psychology, and then I switched to neuroscience.
Then my supervisor forgot to apply for grants. Forgot? He missed the deadline. Thank goodness I had scholarships because we ran out of money for research.
Now there were only two or three groups in all of North America doing our area of research. So my supervisor gets himself kicked out of the ONE group we worked with, which was also the most prominent one in the country. He pissed people off all the time.
THEN he tells me that he HAD AN AFFAIR with the WIFE of the chief scientist – and that I should FORGET about trying to go there to work because they now had a permanent GRUDGE.
THEN he would disappear for months at a time on vacation and the department chairman would call ME up and ask “WHERE IS HE?”
THEN the oldest senior grad student comes up to me and tells me to cover my ass, because my supervisor is a burned out wreck who doesn’t care about anyone or anything.
Though it took a bit longer than I wanted, I made it through on my own initiative. The quality of supervision, and the departmental environment, can make a big difference to your happiness and success. Some departments are ruthless in weeding out anyone but the strongest (or most compliant). Other departments are regimented. Others focus on curiosity and discovery.
Fretful Porpentine
Some do, it depends on what they are doing. Some lecturers are PhD students, and other levels of post grad students might tutor undergrad classes or mark papers, but not most.
However, we have a post graduate loans scheme available here for coursework (non research) post grad degrees, so it takes all that pressure off. The scheme is not as good as the subsidised undergrad one, but better than nothing. Mind you I believe in free education, which we did have at one stage in this country. People are graduating with incredibly crippling student loans, some one my age may never finish paying them back. But them I am not discriminated against either, because of my (advanced) years
