what the fuck am i getting myself into with this grad school stuff

then you suck at it. learn from it and move on. not everyone is successful at everything.

it's only a year. it will be done in a flash, and at the end you'll have a degree. don't worry too much.

i plan on not freaking out about this until the night before my first class, as per usual

^ otm. i am not letting myself freak out or worry about it until the first day of class =/. or at least until i first meet with my adviser. which should be within a couple of weeks...

art hums, huh

i am having heart palpitations because it is all math classes and my undergrad was so fruity

also too busy crying about amount of loans i'm taking out to cover GS costs to worry about my actually level of preparation for course work

=)

i sure do hum! (xpost).

bell_labs, are you going to grad school for math? or what are you studying that requires all math classes?

being out of school for a while causes you to lose your confidence when you start grad school. after you get through your first few assignmnets you'll realize you can do this. or if it's really not working out, you'll figure that out pretty soon and then you can cut your losses and move on.

i'm getting an MS in finance, which is all math. not very difficult math, but still, math.

i was gonna say 'don't worry, you are smart, it'll be fine!' but i was just looking into the requirements for this masters in nursing program here and for someone who did an undergrad in writing and a masters in communications/media, it caused me total O_O - but i'm still thinking abt it, or something medical/health-care related, for some reason... so i guess, yknow, it WILL be okay, but it also will be a lot of work! all you can do is do the work! and then the work will be done!

i mean, you won't have to do organic chemistry, that's gotta count for something

oh i have a friend with a BA who has just been trying to complete the prerequisites for nursing for about a year and a half, and still has about a year left before she can even APPLY to nursing school. that's way more dedication than i have.

but yeah. when i talked to the admissions counselor he just kept saying that it wasn't rocket science, it wasn't brain surgery, as long as i'm not afraid of numbers i will be fine. i am just worried that taking 4 classes at once of it will make my brain implode.

lol rrrobyn i think about nursing every time i hang out with my nurse friend who has way more $$$$ than me.

I sometimes think about people who have to work in offices.

i'm enough of a masochist that i'm enrolling in a certificate program this fall (a green building thing @ cal state fullerton).

oh yeah helping ppl would be nice, too...

i gotta get outta this office workin racket
xpost
whoa
xpost

yeah i'd have to do 2 semesters of 3 courses each semester of science pre-reqs + what they call a 'qualifying year' which is 5 classes a semester plus a class in 2-month summer session + 2 years of the actual masters program! i'd have to update my cpr before the program

but i don't know, it looks pretty cool

HEY YOU CAN TOTALLY DO IT!!!!!!!!!!

AND YOU WILL PROBABLY BE GREAT AT IT!!!

max bringing what the thread needing

please tell me things i should know about being in grad school.

for example, have they invented a pill that makes studying fun?

also THANK YOU MAX

xanax (xpost)

xpost yes, it is called beer

where fun = no anxiety attacks

Based on friends' experiences and watching my prof parents and their students: find advisers/mentors that like to hang out and drink beer.

also, it's only a year and think how awesome it will be when yr done

profs cut you more slack because you are an a-dult

yeah i was going to stop drinking for awhile but you guys are making it sound like drinking will be U&K so i may have to reevaluate

i am really terrified. what if i suck at it?

-- bell_labs, Tuesday, July 29, 2008 7:45 PM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

huh going through this same shit right now. had a little minibreakdown a couple of weeks ago. program shouldn't be too hard hopefully (library science) but i'm going to be taking three classes and working full-time, all from home, plus i have to skip the summer intro class because there isn't enough room so i'm worried i'm already going to be behind once i start classes

basically it's just the feeling that i don't really know how hard it's going to be - if it's going to be ok or if i'm biting off way more than i can chew

i'm going to be taking four classes and 1-2 modules and working full time!

they usually don't let you in unless they think you can hack it

profs cut you more slack because you are an a-dult

in my experience they cut you LESS slack!

at least you get to work from home too! that would save me like 2 hours a day.

they usually don't let you in unless they think you can hack it

^^^ was just about to post this

don't they sometimes just let you in to take your money?

all you can do is do the work! and then the work will be done!
all you can do is do the work! and then the work will be done!
all you can do is do the work! and then the work will be done!
all you can do is do the work! and then the work will be done!

^^ this is the most otm thing about <s>grad school</s> life that has ever been said

endless group projects, some programs even have you keep the same group through the whole load. either way you will get to know your fellow inmates so try not to make any enemies or they will shank you in the shower (aka peer evaluation forms).

xpost lol modbot f'd up the code

i drank way more beer and was way more social in grad school than in undergrad, or even in non-school life (but it took me way too long to finish gradschool).

bell, that is a lot - you can do it, but as you know, you will not be very social and prob not even be able to drink very much beer b/c of hangovers being no good for tight schedules

all you can do is do the work! and then the work will be done!
is the mantra that got me to finish

make sure your boyfriend knows that you are really scared and stressed out about this and that over the next year even if you are in a bad mood and snappy you really do like him and appreciate his support and when its all over you guys will go somewhere nice for a weekend

is this your 5th grad school thread?

lol u counting

Dude, n/a, Library School is easy. So easy.
I have already taken ten hours towards my MLS while working full time at a University Library. I applied for the Master's program but my fucking GRE Math score kept me out. Really sucks. I took College Algebra a few times before I finally passed. I looked at the study materials for the GRE math and just shrugged, "yeah, I don't know this stuff." Bad idea.
Now I need to get into a program or get a tutor, I have to relearn Algebra. For fucking Libraries. Don't undertand.

not to be an ass, but i did see this title and think, 'another one?!'
xpost

^ what pom said

Congratulations, Doc.

Great job, Doctor Casino! I hope you worked an REM reference in somewhere.

I'm disappointed the dissertation isn't an elaboration of New Jersey theory, but congratulations anyway!

thanks!!

haha Euler sadly my (brilliant) advisor was pretty rigorous about rooting out idiom and odd turns of phrase - "you want your work to translate well, to be widely read" type thoughts. i never had any intentional REM references but in the last week i did root out the last surviving use of the phrase "dead letter." :( also, in terms of lyrical language, i dropped "rationalized regional plans were rarely realized."

:(

I didn’t sneak any pop culture references in mine either

omg but I love "rationalized regional plans were rarely realized" so much!

congrats doctor c! sounds super interesting

it's really hard to get sustained critical engagement out of my supervisors. they're supportive and generally available to meet for 15-20 mins a week on zoom for a chat, but they don't read anything i send them and i constantly have to re-explain basic things about my project to them, which makes it hard to get their help on the nth step i'm currently struggling on

that sucks. i'm sorry. do you have good peers/pals in your program or field? i didn't do a TON of workshopping stuff with my cohort, but every time i did it was super helpful and i always left feeling like "we should really do this more often."

oh yeah btw I did defend my diss the friday before this past one! was a super overwhelming experience, not from anything anybody said or did, just trying to process all the feedback seriously without falling into an abyss of thinking "wow if there's all these things I could potentially fix/explore then i must REALLY be a fraud, huh?" doing it over zoom def didn't help, in lots of ways. but it is starting to genuinely sink in that i finished, and i did a good job and i can move on from that phase of my life. that it, once i deposit the damn thing at the end of this month. sigh!

Mazel tov Doctor Doctor!

Great job, Doctor Casino! I hope you worked an REM reference in somewhere.

― All cars are bad (Euler), Saturday, January 9, 2021 10:01 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

we're looking at it through sewage treatment plants,

Green Go The Flushes the obvious choice here I'd think

telephone exchanges

I know you called, I know you hung up

what new stories do we learn abt how the city was shaped, and who it was "for,"

Don't Go Back To Rockville: city planning, the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority, and the retreat into suburban sprawl, 1978-1989

like dr doctor c (congratulations!) i think more or less informal stuff with your peers can be really useful, although also that this is something everybody knows and nobody ever quite pursues as much as they could. i've come to recognise only belatedly post-phd how receptive people - especially other 'early career researchers', to use the uk parlance, but also more senior people from yr academic history - are to requests to read yr stuff. sometimes they say they'll have a look and never do (and fair enough, i think i have a couple of things people have sent me constantly being shuffled down my to-read list), or they'll read it and say hey that was good, or you'll get really useful comments. it's not always (or ever) an adequate substitute from getting your supervisor's specialist reading, but it's a lot better than writing into the void.

lollllll eephus, well done

and thanks, y'all!

have long intended to go to a "Doctor Doctor Casino" display name but it'll wait til the diploma

the best time we had reading each other's stuff was when me and two close pals made a specific plan of sharing each other one thing that we were working on, and then meeting up at one person's apartment for an evening hang, so there was catching up and dinner and also talking about the work... it felt really substantive.

last year of phd really cranks up the anxiety hey

i have over a year left but in my field first interviews for jobs are in january and deadlines to apply are in august, so effectively i've got 8 months left. and my project's still a total mess lol

What field again, flopson?

economics

How's the job market for Econ profs? Is that what you're trying to do? I have no idea, only really know about English, which is obviously insane.

the anxiety is no joke. the home stretch was really hard for me. and, fair warning, the postmortem burnout/am-i-doing-the-right-thing-with-my-life period is not easy either, but it is better. at least for me. gradually opened up a lot of mental space for guilt-free enjoyment of hobbies and reading for pleasure and stuff. (i also ended up just punting on all job questions for this job cycle, which may not be an option for you, idk.) anyway though: i feel you, the part you're in right now suuuuuuucks.

thx, doc :)

xp- waaay better than english lit. in the past few years the majority of students graduating from my dept have got tenure track assistant prof jobs (and a few get post-docs or lecturer positions) but it’s still pretty perilous. i’ll benefit from canadian protectionism in applying to canadian departments

The people I know who've gotten English lit PhDs in the past five years are all either doing post-docs, adjuncting, or on year-long assignments in places far from their homes. Which, no thanks.

yeah it’s brutal

Have a friend, a fellow poet, who is under 30, with their undergrad from Harv4rd and a PhD from Pr1nceton, publishing track record of both papers and books of poetry, plus they're an ethnic minority...and they couldn't get a job in the US, so had to decamp to a different country for a year-long appointment. It's that wild out there for an English PhD.

US universities have been happily oversupplying the demand for PhD's, JD's, and LitD's for decades now.

.

So I've been kicking around the idea of getting an MA in English Lit. I know there is no more useless degree in the universe for me, as I already have a BA from Cal and have been working in tech for the past 25 years and don't use these aspects of my education in the slightest; nevertheless, for my own personal betterment, and to deal with some regrets I acquired over my interminably long college career (I started in '90, but didn't actually graduate until 2013), I think this could potentially make me somewhat happy (in short: I started a paper as an undergrad in 1994 that never got beyond the prospectus, and it turns out I didn't need to write it to graduate, but it still bothers me that I didn't finish it and now I want to. It is about narratology, and modernist representations of character, primarily in Ulysses). My question: would getting an online MA in Lit be worthwhile? leave aside the question of 'worth it' because no, it is not; it would cost me almost 30k to get from Arizona State University, but at least it would be a valid MA; and doing this online is the only way I can go back to school and work at the same time.

This is a long response to a question that is inevitably personal and complicated, and not all of it may seem totally relevant to your situation, but I've decided to let it stand rather than trim it.

Tl;dr, I'm wondering why finishing the paper has to be done by way of getting an advanced degree. Beyond whatever sense of legitimacy the MA confers, the value might be measured by the quality of the experience: do you expect the reading, thinking and writing to be worthwhile in themselves? And do you expect the faculty and coursework in the program to help structure that?

I did an English MA in-person in the '00s, and I think the faculty were more invested in people who seemed likely to go on for a PhD. I was one of these, but I ended up spinning my wheels for ten years before mastering out, ABD. For a while I thought completing a dissertation would be worthwhile for its own sake, as I didn't want to compete in the academic job market... but ultimately I just couldn't write the thing, the reasons for which I'm still reckoning with.

Your topic sounds like something you see as intellectually rewarding in its own right. Depending on how much you delve into it, the enormous amount of secondary literature may make actually writing the thesis difficult ("what is my contribution?"). That said, not feeling the pressure to distinguish yourself professionally might make this process less intimidating.

In my PhD experience, there was a point somewhere where the reality of the task as professionalization for a job that is all but nonexistent eclipsed the idea of a more spiritual kind of quest: the exploration and crystallization of ideas. Beyond that, humanistic study is supposed to involve conversations... but I found the quality of those conversations compromised by the sense of desperation and paranoia that persisted in the social life of my department (and, to be fair, in my own head).

It might be worth $30k, if you have it, to bracket that out and just do the project. But I think sometimes the idea of the object you want to produce can get in the way of seeing the social world it serves. I mean, writing the thing and just having three professors read and comment on it (if they do actually read it) could give you the ability to discover and articulate what the whole idea is, and that might sound enriching. But for whom, for what? Is doing it for yourself enough?

I am somewhat sympathetic to the thesis of Zena Hitz's Lost in Thought, an argument for disinterested learning and against the competitive drives of academia. She's a bit myopic on the question of academic labor, though, as she managed to sail through the process herself (only to find her tenured research job tedious and unfulfilling). I think she came up in a thread here for a Chronicle of Higher Ed article in which she argued that adjunct faculty should just leave academia, as if they could, you know, just do their thing somewhere else.

But in a way, that's also the question I have for you. Could you start the work, say, by finding reading groups, and test your ideas there? Then, maybe submit essays that make part of the argument to smaller literary journals, or even academic ones? You might feel that the $30k is a guarantee that you'll really commit to the work. That might be true. I guess all of my time in the institution has made my cynical about institutional legitimation — for me, that's what a degree finally is.

I had never seriously considered grad school because I figured I'd be shelling out money on undergrad loan payments until I died but I'm actually inching towards having them paid off and am now working at a university where I get a 90% discount on tuition so uh I might actually do this shit.

Having done an MA in English at a university that had a Ph.D. program, and having then adjuncted for years at a university that offered MA and MFA but not Ph.D., I would strongly advise against the first approach. You will absolutely be a second-class citizen compared to the Ph.D. candidates, and it's likely that your program will essentially just be a cash cow for the university, that the professors won't put in much effort for you and won't expect much of you. You will probably find many of the other people in your program frustratingly young and naive. I think an online program will have many of the same problems - low effort, low expectations, the university mainly being in it for the money.

On the other hand, an MA program at a relatively cheap backwater with no Ph.D. program has a few things to recommend it. The professors are not going to be distracted either by Ph.D. candidates or by research, so they may actually do some teaching. There will be less obsession with cutting-edge thought and thus less nonsense that will be outmoded in two years. You may actually be required to work. (No guarantees on that - you will have to check the requirements of each school. But NYU's idea of a thesis was one journal-length article with no thesis defense, while the University of Alaska, Fairbanks required its MA candidates to write a full-length thesis, defend it, and take a comprehensive written exam on a reading list of 100 or so books.)

if u can afford and will have fun doing it, u should do it. i personally don’t enjoy online school (and would crumple up into a ball if i had to do it while working full time) but irl grad school is a blast imho

Has anyone here started or considered starting a humanities PhD in their late 30s? I'm very strongly considering making an attempt at applications this coming year. I already have an MA from a good terminal program, which I went into hoping that it would lead to a PhD, but by the end I was horribly burnt out (basically the culmination of a number of academic and mental health and personal issues blowing up in my face all at once). For a long time that had me convinced that a PhD wasn't in the cards. But now I feel like I'm not in a terrible position to go back. I have a good amount of money saved up as a cushion, and I have a much clearer idea of what I'd want to focus on. I also think I would finish the PhD much faster than if I'd gone in my 20s. But all of that has to be weighed against the opportunity cost and the years of lost income.

I started in my early thirties and it seems to me now like that was kind of late for me. But I didn't really have the clearest idea of what I wanted to do. Part of the problem for me was that I wanted to pursue disciplinary areas where I didn't really have a really solid academic background, just ordinary interest and enthusiasm. I was in an interdisciplinary program where you could do that -- but the learning curve for these things may just be steeper as you get older.

In my department, recent tenure-track hires have been younger, which leads me to think that if the intention is to secure such a job it might actually be harder if you're older. But if the point is to do a particular project regardless of career outcome (or where a humanities PhD can be an asset, like museums and libraries).

A thing that should really be totally basic but which I couldn't quite get myself to do is, if you get accepted to programs and visit them, really listen to how you feel about your experience there. (One piece of advice I wish I'd listened to was pay attention to what the grad students complain about, because grad students always complain, but you can gauge for yourself how significant their complaints sound.) I was accepted to the program I really wanted to get into, and I went there... but I actually felt less anxiety visiting another program where the experience might have been better, and where the department seemed more secure in its funding and more definite about graduation timelines.

My terminal English MA (which, like what Lily describes above, was in a department that didn't offer a PhD) was a much better experience than my PhD program, for what it's worth. I'd be happy to hear of the reverse being true for someone else!

I really wish MAs in humanities were given more credit. Face it, undergraduate humanities programs are largely diluted and shallow unless you really dig in as a student; a good number of your cohort are there to get any degree to show they went to college and may or may not have deep love for the subject matter. I have deep love for this subject matter. But I'm also 50 and not going to derail my life to enter a doctoral program and am under no delusion that I could or should get an academic job, per se.

I personally feel like I got more out of my undergrad English degree than out of my MA program, but then I did dig in as an undergrad. But I agree that MA degrees should be given more credit - specifically, I don't see why humanities MAs should be considered so much less qualified to teach college-level classes than Ph.D.s, when we've taken all the same classes. I'm not trying to discount the amount of work and knowledge that goes into a Ph.D., but it's specialized, focused work on a very specific, probably arcane topic, and it's not going to make much difference in your ability to teach undergrads.

(Yes, I know, research, prestige, publishing, limited jobs, etc. I understand why Ph.D.s get to be professors, if they're lucky, and I don't. It's frustrating, that's all. I'm a very good college-level teacher, and I can't make a living at it unless I get a Ph.D., and I don't want to get a Ph.D. because I dislike the current approach to academic writing and don't want to spend years of my life adding to it for no one to read.)

Thanks for the comments, NJS! Very helpful.

Having done an MA in English at a university that had a Ph.D. program, and having then adjuncted for years at a university that offered MA and MFA but not Ph.D., I would strongly advise against the first approach. You will absolutely be a second-class citizen compared to the Ph.D. candidates, and it's likely that your program will essentially just be a cash cow for the university, that the professors won't put in much effort for you and won't expect much of you. You will probably find many of the other people in your program frustratingly young and naive. I think an online program will have many of the same problems - low effort, low expectations, the university mainly being in it for the money.

On the other hand, an MA program at a relatively cheap backwater with no Ph.D. program has a few things to recommend it. The professors are not going to be distracted either by Ph.D. candidates or by research, so they may actually do some teaching. There will be less obsession with cutting-edge thought and thus less nonsense that will be outmoded in two years. You may actually be required to work. (No guarantees on that - you will have to check the requirements of each school. But NYU's idea of a thesis was one journal-length article with no thesis defense, while the University of Alaska, Fairbanks required its MA candidates to write a full-length thesis, defend it, and take a comprehensive written exam on a reading list of 100 or so books.)

xp — glad to be of help!

so lol, ten years after posting itt about starting my Ph.D. program, and a year and a half out from posting itt about defending the diss, i am now considering going back to school for a masters in library science. am i insane? is it just that the grass looks greener?

REASONS I AM THINKING ABOUT THIS:

* 9-5 structure might really be way better for me psychologically
* i'm detail-oriented, i like logging and organizing things
* really enjoyed the one year i spent with an internship as a processing archivist
* want to remain adjacent to/involved in research, humanities, scholarship, etc.

REASONS IT MIGHT JUST BE "GRASS IS GREENER":

* whole scholarly 'job market' just wigs me out
* i am not overflowing with great ideas for things to research/publish, which wigs me out
* certain aspects of teaching also make me pretty anxious/wigged-out

wtf am i getting myself into with this going BACK to grad school stuff?

the great question of course: how much is my interest in a lateral move driven by the innate qualities of this field, versus the specifics of my current adjunct situation?

(obviously unknowable)

pic.twitter.com/bRB59YKk3Q

— gal debored (@ckayerawlings) October 2, 2022

Can you get funded? :)

would be a very important thing to figure out! a lot of programs advertise that they have fellowships, TAships, etc., but by itself that doesn't necessarily mean much.

end of phd/preparing to go on academic job market is one of the worst parts of my life

i'm in this permanent state of crisis where i have an enormous amount of very hard work to do, but the anxiety/stress is crippling and i end up procrastinating way more than i should, which then feedback loops into more stress because i'm not making sufficient progress

Best wishes. If it makes you feel better, even the thought of “that” part of the process was enough to steer me away from the phd, at least for now.