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

why do you care?

who said anyone cares?

ok, that sounded snarkier than it should have.

i don't care, i just noticed. there's a difference.

also is a bit funny since ppl always used to get all postal when someone started a thread on a topic that'd been previously discussed.

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

-- rrrobyn, Tuesday, July 29, 2008 3:21 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^^^ real talk

also i start doctor school a week from tomorrow and i am scared shitless

mostly because i forgot everything about science :-/

wtf is a "mitochondria"

well, you cared enough to make a comment about it.

aw dude you forgot mitochondria? mitochondria and ribosomes and golgi bodies are like the coolest things

all doin' the work to make the nucleus look good

lol gbx!!! u better party hard this weekend

lol I remembered that one! xp

xps tom otm

Even if I could do the math, I think a grad school class in finance would put me to sleep within 5 minutes.

grad school = pain and suffering

but then you're done, and people are, like throwing money and healthcare at you.

also rrrrobyn/bell i have one of the fruitier BAs and i still managed to trick people into thinking i should be allowed to cut a guy legally, so there's that. but then i also had to do 18 months of doctoring pre-school and take a dumb test and then chill for a year, forgetting everything.

xp i was kidding about mitochondria and cellular stuff. it's mostly orgo i've let slip.

woah evan wtg!

deej: that is in the cards, yes. big party, i will keep you posted

also is a bit funny since ppl always used to get all postal when someone started a thread on a topic that'd been previously discussed.

-- tehresa, Tuesday, July 29, 2008 5:07 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I got bitched out for this by Ned in my first thread!

check yr email gbx

i should have given flash cards to all the people i delivered to this winter.

"sign here"

"ok....what is the conjugate base of hydrazoic acid?"

"....shit"

all you need to know about mitochondria:

http://infodome.sdsu.edu/about/depts/spcollections/exhibits/1002/images/lengle.jpg

you will learn a lot, but you will also get fat

its hydrazoic acid minus one hydrogen

sheesh, you have to memorize names to be a doctor?!?

i still managed to trick people into thinking i should be allowed to cut a guy legally

the truth is that i would really like to cut people open and fix stuff. but doctor school seems like crazy talk for me. right now. and i still want to be a communications/writer/journalist person on one very important level.

p.s. gbx i keep forgetting to tell you that you rule for doing all the work and getting in and being almost actually in med school!!

bah, i really hated grad school. i hated it, and didn't finish, which i might hate more. i had an exceptionally bad run of luck when i was there, tho.

i say, if you want to work in finance, then you're absolutely doing the right thing and you'll be just fine. it's supposed to be hard! otherwise it wouldn't be worth much.

i dunno v, i was just making stuff up. i guess that's what they have PDAs for now.

i did just order an anatomical atlas, though, and will be remembering the names of parts on a dead person for about two months straight starting next week.

bell: get a RPN calculator. <3 <3 <3

http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/74421824/318380

Good luck to both of you. My application goes in next week and fingers crossed I will be in the same boat come january.

ps thanx rrrrrrrrrrobyn.

you should be a nurse and then do journalism about it

i just want gbx to be able to prescribe me some of the fun drugs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande

gbx i already have one of these babies
http://salestores.com/stores/images/images_747/HP12C.jpg

I've thought about the nursing thing too but I'm still undecided. We'll see how I feel after I finish MA in January.

Bell - you can do it. It's only a year. It's going to be tough but also so worth it!

oh i see you just totaled how much you're spending on books

xp

you don't need a prescription for SMILES, kevin!

just as you cant crush a smile and snort it through a straw either evan.

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/5349409/2/istockphoto_5349409_smiley_face_button.jpg + http://www.prezzybox.com/data/media/5370.jpg

gbx what school are you going to? what kind of doctorer are you wanting to be?

lol i have that calculator

wife hates the reverse polish

minnesota.

right now i want to do either emerg. med. or pediatrics or both. basically i want to do aid work abroad, and they're desperate for primary care docs and ER docs.

i just wish they had some kind of military/indian health service style debt relief program for people that want to work in the third world R U LISTENIN BILL GATES

then again, surgery is basically the coolest shit ever, but i will actually be forty years old when i get out of residency :-/

xp wife is crazy dogg, polish is the jam. i have trouble with other calculators now

"the reverse polish" sounds like something from the pages of cosmo magazine :X

eat a bratwurst from the middle

my best grades in law school were in finance and urban policy - uhhhhh

someone make a joke about money and living in nyc

more like 'these are not actual law classes'. urban policy has interested me since like half my best friends majored in it in college, but i have never been especially interested in money or math.

there is an MPH at columbia that i want to get...deals with public health and the built environment. ie "whoops maybe we did it wrong"

i have a friend that basically wants to do the same thing as you once she gets over that cancer thing

i just wish they had some kind of military/indian health service style debt relief program for people that want to work in the third world

i wouldn't be surprised if this happens in an O admin

sorry to hear about your friend's cancer, gabb.

i think i would be surprised! not sure it'd go over well politically to earmark public funds to send american docs (most coming from public institutions) to third world countries when so many people here lack adequate access to health care. that's why i was thinking gates foundation: set aside an endowment, let it accrue interest. the care and feeding of a doc abroad is relatively cheap, so whatever money there is left over could be used to aggressively pay down debt. a relief doc could have all their expenses covered, make a pittance abroad (but vastly more than the locals), and have 50k/year plowed into their loans and it'd still be cheaper than having them practice in the US and be paid a low-end salary. i think?

not sure it'd go over well politically to earmark public funds to send american docs (most coming from public institutions) to third world countries

yeah I disagree with this personally because I think the answer is putting funds into local public health programs up to and including better continuing education for local doctors and nurses which also means local/regional journals so that the arbiter of all research in the developing world doesn't have to be the fucking Lancet

nb I basically borrowed that whole opinion from the letters section of New Scientist

i know that there are similar loan forgiveness programs for teachers (and landscape architects who work for state parks) within the US...

A little late here -- my thoughts on here from four years back. They still apply.

Library school people:

1. 3 classes + full-time is doable, just barely. I would actually recommend 1 or 2 classes plus full-time, but I'm kind of a perfectionist, academically. Most of the people went to school who worked full-time took about one class at a time--it's easier financially that way too. It will not be challenging intellectually, though the tedium is sure to challenge.

2. I didn't even have to take the GRE for my program. Choose another program? It's totally not worth doing all of that math for library school.

3. Today I walked in on a woman changing her granddaughter's dirty diaper in my program room. I had a program in about 20 min. and had to aerosol the smell away.

Choose another program?
I wish it could be as easy as that. I can't really afford another program. A large chunk of it gets paid for by the University as long as I am a full time employee. I have to keep my staff position, too, since I have MS and can't go off my health insurance. Can't believe the bastards won't let me in to the program b/c of Math! I got A's in the hours I've completed so far. I hate life sometimes.

can you study and retake the GREs?

Yes, that's my plan. It's just kind of spirit-crushing.

You can retake the GRE once a calendar month and up to 5 times a year, but at $170 a pop I'd rather not. Studying helps, despite what ETS says.

The maths is conceptually not that hard so just practice practice practice at it.

Hey gbx what made you choose Minnesota? How many schools did you apply to? I'm applying to med schools now and I'm increasingly convinced my chances of getting in are about 0.

It is almost a universal thing after sending in your AMCAS to start worrying that your application will get laughed at and nobody will let you into into their medical school. At the risk of sounding all self-helpy, this is totally the wrong attitude, especially since you are going to have state and re-state the reasons why you should get in over and over again once you start getting secondaries back. You need a ton of positive motivation to slog through the 15th or 20th time you have to write 250 words detailing your research experiences or complete an 800-character box about an extracurricular activity that had significant meaning to you.

it's so ridiculous that you have to take GREs for graduate school.

Hey gbx what made you choose Minnesota? How many schools did you apply to? I'm applying to med schools now and I'm increasingly convinced my chances of getting in are about 0.

-- Lamp, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 16:19 (Yesterday) Link

they let me in

i mean, it's also where i grew up, it was one of my top pics, and MPLS is awesome. BUT, it's also the only school that accepted me (I applied to 15). not to be debbie downer or anything.

I am scrambling to finish a paper that is due at 2am Saturday (basically late Friday night) because I procrastinated all day yesterday and this afternoon. This is dudder than heck.

That's a weird time for a paper to be due.

No kidding. His last assignment had a similar due date. I hate it, because it assures that procrastinators like myself are going to have horrible, lonely Friday nights, because there's no way we'll bust our asses this hard on Thursday night.

hahaha, I like this professor's style.

I have a feeling he's passing down the pain from his own grad time.

Well, I have to give him credit. Originally, the due date was Friday, 2am (AKA late Thursday night). But their was a classroom uproar among a group of non-procrastinators, a collection of people I can't understand. They DEMANDED that the due date be changed to late Friday night instead. The prof put it to a vote. By a near unanimous vote, everyone chose to delay it to where it is now. In the other corner, the only other person who voted to keep the due date on late Thursday night, a Thai man with a lazy eye who I've never heard speak out loud, made eye contact with me and I felt like we had a little "moment".

God this paper is driving me nutz.

GET OFF OF ILX

just got my student aid refund the other day, so it's good to know i'm not gonna starve for the next four months

also i am another sucker doing grad work on a friday night so yr not alone, Z S

I got off ILX for an hour and got a good amount of work done. It's nearly over now. To reward myself...I'm gonna get back on ILX for a minute.

Two weeks done, and I am completely digging it. But it has been reasonably smooth sailing so far, and there are choppy seas ahead...

I am happy about one thing, though. The other day I got into a class with David P1m3ntel. For the last 35 years straight, he's had a year-long class where a group of 10-12 students get together and write a paper with him. Each year, it's been published my a major peer-reviewed journal, often by Nature or Science. This year we're writing on the sustainable population of Earth in 100 years, with no fossil fuels. It may prove to be controversial. But it's cool to think that in May, unless my colossal bad luck manages to ruin everything for the first time in 35 years, I'll have my shabby name out there in a peer-reviewed journal (probably for the only time in my life, but hey)!

It may prove to be controversial.

You might want to remove the part about how only members of ILX and your class will survive.

I am scrambling to finish a paper that is due at 2am Saturday (basically late Friday night) COB tomorrow because I procrastinated all day yesterday and my boss dropped the task on me this afternoon. This is dudder than heck.

welcome to the working week already

Shit, I've gotta stop putting fake smartass working titles at the top. Just now, I almost submitted a paper titled "The Worst Paper Ever: My Paper"

when the share drive fails and your 0900 briefing summary winds up retaining your placeholder bullets (e.g. BADMINTON, MARIO KART, CURLING) instead of the actual stuff you spent an hour or so updating, you are allowed to complain

What if I told you that my share drive is failing right now, and my 0900 is in shambles?

Shit though, this title should just be titled "What the fuck am I getting myself into?", and opened up to all

THIS TITLE SHOULD JUST BE TITLED

alright I'm going to bed now

Two weeks done, and I am completely digging it. But it has been reasonably smooth sailing so far, and there are choppy seas ahead...

― Casuistry, Saturday, September 20, 2008 3:58 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what degree you getting?

sailing

periscope engineer

give me a ping, vasily. one ping only

Medieval studies is the correct answer, but sailing is the better answer.

took only four weeks to go from bushy-eyed optimism to "wtf i am not cut out for this shit"

It never, ever gets better! It only gets worse! haha!

http://www.theminorthirds.com/ilx/latin_homework.jpg

Home: transcribe the first half of that.

"Homework"! Not "Home".

awesome. i am drafting theater plans. not an architect. not a designer. unpacking my dad's drawing board and t square from like 1954 or something. i am just going to laugh at everything from now on.

casuistry is studying.......elvish?

Looks like Greek to me.

srsly i just freaked out over a 5-page paper, and this is the "easy semester"

It's Latin. Those are Roman characters. Those characters evolved into the ones you're reading on the screen in this sentence right now, basically.

I thought I ID'd some lambdas, pis, deltas, and taus, but it seems not.

this is my 'easy' semester and i feel like i am working harder than ever. wtf.
xpost

The pis (the last letter on the first line, say, before the final dash-like-thing) are "a"s. The lambdas (big hooked thing towards the end of line 2) are "b"s. The deltas and taus are "d"s and "t"s.

When was that written, Casuistry, and by whom?

Well, the text is a speech by Claudius, 1st c., but that copy is apparently from a few centuries later, 4th-6th c. That's all the info I have, since it is a homework assignment and all.

Sorry, my bad. It's perhaps a little earlier than that.

WELL JEEZ

I know. It's as if I should be in a class learning how to figure this out.

that is pretty awesome.

yeh. at least the stuff i'm toiling over ... or, rather, meant to be toiling over but not actually reading because, y'know, it's the weekend and really, i'm just going to get up early on monday morning and FUCKING BLITZ IT is in english.

at least, it claims to be.

also, this:

took only four weeks to go from bushy-eyed optimism to "wtf i am not cut out for this shit"

is kinda OTM. although with me it was two weeks to go from "rock! masters here i come" to "fuuuuuuuuuucking HELL there are not enough hours in the day for this".

It's way more fun when it's not in English, though!

^NOT!^

I'm in my second and final year now, but for some reason this semester is waaaay more of a pain in the ass than the previous two, even though on paper it seems like it should be about the same.

^^^this!!!!!!!

on paper this should be easier!!!!! is not!!!!!!!

I have been accepted into Carnegie Mellon. Holy crap I have a so much to do to make myself able to move in january?

Anyone want to rent a very nice central London apartment?

WOOT!

nice one, ed!

Holy shit I only just read below the fold in the email (damned blackberry) and I have a $9000 partial scolarship.

WOOT!!!! That will go far in Pittsburg. You could probably buy a house for that out there.

Holy shit indeed! At all of the following:

That acceptance now comes via the intertubes and not via snails.
$9K!

Pittsburgh rentals are even cheaper than Minneapolis ones AFAIK.

about $600 for a big 1 bedroom with full livingroom and a study knook.

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/images/00007R-54.jpeg

(congratulations, ed)

caek, is real letter?

xpost as long as you keep the LR and kitchen separate, WINNAH.

yes, it's real (but I was not the recipient): http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00007Q

that is how they roll

ed, what are you going there to study?

Engineering, Technology and Innovation Management a very interdisciplinary MS.

Two years?

1 year with a a summer internship, kind of wish it was 2 given the economic climate.

haha yes a lot of my peers from undergrad days have emailed me asking me if they should come back to uni to ride out the storm. good luck with the move and the school.

and congrats on the scholarship. presumably you don't have to pay fees with that $9k?

hahaha, no the $9 is offset against the $44k in fees so my fees will be a mere $35k.

good grief.

I wish you the very best in all things, but I honestly cannot imagine paying to go to grad school. (Unless this is one of those professional qualifications that will double your salary.)

It enables me to jump out of this dead end career and into something more lucrative, yes. Also I have not explored other avenues of financial aid yet (couldn't in most cases till I had an offer)

ah, all is well.

I have seen far worse episodes of this comic:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd092908s.gif

so i suppose i should be getting used to these four-hour sleep sessions (not really going to call it "going to bed" anymore)

caek why is letter dated 2000 for class of 2005?

"class of xxxx" means xxxx is the year you're due to finish in the U.S. and an undergrad degree takes four years by default.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh gotcha

of about four and a half hours' study so far today, around a third of it was reading some of the most appallingly badly presented, impenetrable and WTF-am-i-meant-to-take-this-seriously? bollocks i've ever come across. i ain't putting up with two years of this nonsense, that's for certain :(

Why do you think I left!

i'd say i'm looking forward to sleeping in the library again but i actually don't know if i'm getting any sleep tonight!

Rrowr!

Surviving?

1 more month!! sort of.

ok not really.

Yay tza!

Could those of you in school say why you chose what you're studying and if it's working for you so far?

well, i was right

i've never given a presentation on more than 24 hours w/o sleep before, stoked to see how it's gonna go!! :D

i have - you'll be brilliant!

i am studying performing arts management (most people have no idea what this is) - basically i have learned every aspect of running an arts organization (development, marketing, p.r., general management (commercial and not-for-profit), labor relations, entertainment law, finance, etc.). i feel very knowledgeable and secure in my skills as a leader, but it's a difficult field to break into and, in the end, generally more about who you know than what you know. my professional network has grown exponentially in the past 2 years. i would not have my current job if not for connections made from this program, but i'm still not at the job level i was told i'd be at this point in the program when i initially interviewed with my adviser. part of this is because of the economy, part of this is because i think my adviser is overly optimistic (though in the past, people at my stage in the program have had better jobs). regardless, i make less money now than i did before i entered grad school (but that was not a job in this field), but i like the direction i'm heading and feel like once my thesis is done, i could apply my knowledge to other industries (not that i necessarily want to). basically the "is it working?" question is a very, very difficult one to answer!

the economy sucks for the arts right now, also for everything

yes, i am aware of this.

It will improve. Don't worry. And the fact that you think you've learned skills which are portable will surely help.

I am in the Quickening. Doing very hard sums for 12 hours a day, and I've still got 9 months to go. When it gets to more than 24 hours a day you start going back in time, right?

for months at a time the last year of my grad studies, I would only sleep every two days. I got a lot done! I'm not sure it was worth the cost, though.

Apart from bone weakness and delirium, what was the cost?

the best was last spring when i stayed up for like 5 days to finish my strategic plan for marketing. after turning in, we had to go to a reception, where 3 sips of wine very quickly made us all complete globs of goo.

for months at a time the last year of my grad studies, I would only sleep every two days. I got a lot done! I'm not sure it was worth the cost, though.

― Euler, Thursday, November 20, 2008 4:00 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

My last semester in college I scheduled all-nighters for most Sundays and Thursdays. It was just the right amount of time in between to recover. I can't WAIT for grad school! (I hope I get in somewhere with funding!)

guys i cannot believe you can go without sleep as adults! i did that in college but i have not once been able to do it in grad school.

the cost of repeated allnighters was something like my sanity, plus some burnout issues that I'm still coping with, seven years later. I knew it was bad when, upon walking into a seminar, my profs would look at me and shake their heads. It was like, this is how a drug addict must feel.

ugh, i have never ever been able to do an all nighter. if i sleep less than 5 hours i feel sick. i usually make a point to get 8 even if my work isn't done. i guess that makes me a bad person but i've done ok.

I can still pull allnighters just fine (in my mid thirties). I don't know if you're in grad school to get a tenure-line job in academia, but if so, you'll probably still need to pull them occasionally; at least I do, because of deadlines etc. Basically I get paid a lot better than a grad student, but I work a lot harder than I did too, which is kinda hard to believe looking back.

no i am in law school

i considered phd though and i know i would still be doing the same thing! if i do stay up late the next day is completely useless anyway

awesome. This academia stuff is nuts (as I watch our budget slip away each day).

Through my first year of grad school, I slept maybe 3-4 hours or night, with an all-nighter once a week or so; weirdly enough, I think I was more active, energetic, and productive than at any other point since I was a teenager. But I like to think that was despite the sleep schedule, not because of it.

(After that I got a full-time job as well, and was kind like "screw it, I'll skim the hell out of this novel if it gets me a solid 6 hours in bed.")

yeah I know a guy who's made it through a successful twenty-year academic career so far getting at least 12 hours a night. So it's doable! He must be more focused than I am during the day (e.g. no ILX).

Twelve hours a night? Dude must have some weird summers.

lol

actually he's been in South Bend and Chicago that whole time, so summer is pretty short

i think i actually get more sleep now that i'm school because i'm working from home so i get to wake up an hour later

Euler I know Chicago's a tad northerly, but the sun still rises and sets along the same lines as everywhere else!

It's less the sun than the unending cloudy gloom, but my memories of the area are now colored by snow-covered glasses.

the sun does set a little earlier in Chicago than most places

one good thing about getting accustomed to functioning without much sleep is that you can cope with conferences a little better. In my areas there's a weird macho vibe at these things, where people try to stay out really late, drink a lot, but talk big time shop while they're out, then show up the next day and kick more ass than others, just to show how tough they are.

The conferences are intense. I was in Austin last week, so there was a six hour time shift, and I was getting maybe six hours sleep too, which is way less than I usually get. I'm still totally spaced after being back for four days. There is definitely an expectation that you will stay out late and be at the venue 30 minutes early in the morning checking your email all bright eyed. I generally ignore that and bail a couple of afternoons.

huh. I'm so curious about the MLA, which I'm going to for the first time this year. It just seems so....insane.

did you finish that article I linked on the other thread? terrifying. I have the astronomy equivalent in long beach in five weeks. i have a fifteen minute presentation and four days of interviews and arse-licking.

http://aas.org/meetings/aas213/schedule_scientific.php

Someone post YAAAAAAAOOOOOWWWWWW.jpg.

astronomers might be more nocturnal than most, of course

xpost Yeah word to those considering PhD/academia: every conversation I've had lately with early career friends seems to end in a sort of mutually depressed silence.

I used to love working academic conferences, but that was as an academic press booth-runner. I learned too late that no wine-and-cheese book-release "reception" can beat putting two dozen Krispy Kremes on your table early in the morning on the last day.

huh. I'm so curious about the MLA, which I'm going to for the first time this year. It just seems so....insane.

I went to the MLA as an undergrad nine years ago, just to check out some panels and lectures. It was pretty fun. I got to meet Michael Berube and discuss an article of his I'd recently read in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I also happened to mention, in a crowded elevator, that I went to school in Kalamazoo, and someone else piped up, "Do you know Stuart Dybek?"

ala conference is in chicago next year, was trying to figure out if it was worth paying up for a student membership or even going

gah i never should have looked for and found this - like I needed to know for certain that almost every job I've applied for has asked good candidates (i.e., NOT ME) for additional materials already.

In my areas there's a weird macho vibe at these things

Euler, not sure if you've done so already or are even inclined to mention it but what field are you in? And are you happier now in a tenure-track job (which I assume you have right now) than you were as a grad student?

I found out I wasn't shortlisted for a job via the astrophysics rumor mill this morning. Fucking internet.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2006/07/17/rumor-has-it/ for useful analysis of rumor mills

Seriously, at least your hippie rumor mill is anonymous.

My right mind is telling me to up and pick another profession.

I've been told to think of this period as an endurance test. They put us through this bullshit (thesis included) not because the people that manage to get through it have skills that are directly useful as academics, but because it indirectly but definitively demonstrates persistence and toughness. (This is bollocks, btw.)

I'm speaking to the head of the department I'm applying to in half an hour. Wish me luck.

Good luck!

presentation went ok, my slides were sort of terrible and i spoke way too fast but what can ya do

now that i'm pushing 32 hours, it is time to sleep and I AM SO EXCITED

ala conference is in chicago next year, was trying to figure out if it was worth paying up for a student membership or even going

It doesn't hurt to pay for a student membership cause it's very cheap. I joined right before the ALA conference in DC. If it's in your hometown, you should definitely go. I think my employer paid for it, but it's still pretty cheap if you pay for it yourself. Lots of public-library employers are there and you can get through about 10 interviews a day. Even if you plan to stay in Chicago it can be an easy way to connect with Chicago Public and possibly other local libraries. (I got my job this way.)

i hope donna rouge got to sleep. sometimes at that point you suddenly can't make yourself go to bed!

i conked out immediately! got about 8 hours (and am about to get 8 more)

Kevin (from a few days ago, sorry), I'm a tenure-line faculty member in philosophy, closing in on tenure time (gulp). I should be fine (I've written a bunch and have a book contract but you never know), but I'm starting to get a weird eye twitch which I'm sure is caused by the near-constant stress. I have a book on grad school called Getting What You Came For that cites a study that the average grad student (and junior faculty member) experiences daily stress at a level higher than what's felt by those whose spouses have just died. My spouse is still alive so I can't say for sure, but I buy it.

I guess I need to get back to work. Which, to be fair, I would enjoy doing. But I am also enjoying lying in bed and contemplating a nap.

it would be helpful if on all those affirmative action cards they want you to fill out and return that there'd be a box to check for "grew up really fucking poor and am currently working two jobs that eat up most of my time so sorry if my application isn't perfect mr/s ivy league degreed department chair." it's almost enough to make one wonder what marx would think of the academic structure his most fervent contemporary american readers have established

isnt that what your personal statement is for

we send out job application letters, c.v.s, teaching philosophies, dissertation abstracts, and writing samples. you can work a sentence or two in there, but there's no personal statement per se in my field. which in the end is probably a good thing. i know a lot of people who'd be like, "fuck this system -- all the rich kids get the fellowships"

it's all about your letters, kamerad: ask your advisor to write about this. Letters get read; personal statements don't.

my advisor has made it clear over the years s/he (anonymity) could care less about my personal life and/or any attendant struggles i've overcome. fortunately the letter about my achievements is strong. my bone of contention is that we spend six+ years of our early adult lives immersed in marxism and marxian inflected thought. but then when the real world kicks in, all of a sudden it's class-blindness time. it's a pretty sad joke

i think it's pretty clear marx would find the relationship between the university and its graduate students appalling. i recognize the situation you're in, kamerad. at least you're almost done with this bullshit!

could care less

<Considers it; remembers "another think coming" thread; decides not to bother>

Could those of you in school say why you chose what you're studying

Psychology. MSc conversion course: ie "to enable [me] to build on the transferable skills ... attained in [my] previous undergraduate degree in a related subject and provide [me] with the necessary level of study ... acceptable to the British Psychological Society". Or so it says here. I'm doing it part-time while still working part-time as a hack.

and if it's working for you so far?

I think so. Early days yet. Ask me again once I start getting lab reports back :/

so true, horseshoe. and i'd wager the specter of marx would probably advise steering way the hell clear of graduate school unless you have family money. the thing is, if i had to do it all over again, i would. the experience of reading so intently for the past seven years has set my mind right

if i may be so bold, grimly fiendish, what is the "another think coming" thread?

Euler, thanx for the info! I appreciate it.

Concisely: Taking Sides: Another Thing Coming Vs Another Think Coming

thanks, aimless, though i'm afraid my expensively-gained exegetical skills aren't up to parsing g.f.'s <second thought>, unless it's aimed at questioning my "could care less" usage. in that case, i could care less; it's probably a british v. american english type deal

As any grad student should be able to explain, "I could care less" is the sarcastic version of "I could not possibly care less about this matter than I do at this very moment" (NB: when this construction originated, speakers were more verbose).

Due to the widespread use of the "I could care less" variant, the sarcasm it displayed when coined has been reduced to a vestigial appendage, barely noticeable, as with the human tail bone at the base of the spine. In ordinary converse, the two phrases are functionally equivalent.

well aimed

like i said

(^trick post^)

kamerad, you don't need to invoke Marx to make your point, which is that while academics are very liberal as a rule, they are not especially interested in subverting what they take to be a well-functioning meritocracy. I guess I don't think that's inconsistent. I am bothered by the tendency of my colleagues to work for salary maximization, to the extent that it affects the kinds of the topics they write about as well as their loyalties toward colleagues and students. But I understand that most people just want to get theirs. I just wish we were more like Socrates and less like Donald Trump.

unless it's aimed at questioning my "could care less" usage. in that case, i could care less; it's probably a british v. american english type deal

Got it in one, and -- that given -- nicely done, too.

In ordinary converse, the two phrases are functionally equivalent

I won't argue that, in the US, they probably are. Not much I can do about that; hey ho. I rep for US English over UK English almost all the time. It can't be perfect ;)

In the UK: "could care less" is still -- thankfully -- seen as an aberration.

I'm glad all the style guides I make up in my head to deal with work issues are limited to technical writing

euler, i appreciate your thoughtful post. i'm also aware that i'm complaining about the team i'm trying to join. i just wish the american academy did function as a meritocracy. it's always struck me as ironic that the more prestigious the school, the more free time you have to write your dissertation, and the less teaching you have to do. as for my own experience, my graduate school cohort is the most privileged group of people i've ever been involved with. many parents pay rent or outright buy homes for classmates by a factor that far exceeds anything i saw as an undergraduate, and forget about the equivalent for high school. while for the less fortunate, conference travel is prohibitively expensive, for others a plane ticket and hotel doesn't call for a second thought. the effort to get that first article published isn't as onerous when all you do is teach and don't have part time jobs besides to make ends meet. and there are the frustrating intangibles. for instance, schmoozing with professors is a lot easier if your backgrounds are similarly middle- and upper-middle class. none of this is taken into account in any substantive way (just theorized by people like walter benn michaels and michael berube), which wouldn't be so annoying if we weren't expected to absorb socialist thought, and spit it back out in our own work and (worst of all in this context) at our students

kamerad, how do you propose taking intangibles like the ones you're mentioning into account in hiring?

In my experience my graduate student colleagues were not overly privileged; none of them as far as I know received any money from parents. However, our stipends were substantial enough, and the town cheap enough, that some students bought homes on those stipends. It sounds like my economic experience in grad school was quite different from yours---had we held a job outside of our fellowships, we would have been kicked out of the program. I traveled a lot on my department's coin, thanks to an advisor with funding.

It's pretty awful that your advisor won't consider your personal details in writing your letters.

I have ambiguous feelings about the state of the meritocracy in academia, but I suspect being on the inside colors my views substantially. I find the herd mentality of so many academics silly---they write about what everybody else is writing about, pat each other on the back, and use that to boost their fortunes. I'm not saying it doesn't make financial sense, but it's disappointing. Whatever resentment I have toward my field (and I generally don't have much, just dirt on my shoulder) is that it doesn't reward risk-taking, but neither does our economy so I guess this is par for the course.

or instance, schmoozing with professors is a lot easier if your backgrounds are similarly middle- and upper-middle class

This is completely ridiculous. Either put a bit more work into learning about the academic interests of your colleagues, or learn some basic social skills. Socio-economic background has nothing to do with it.

Oh, come on. A similar non-academic/cultural background will obviously facilitate easier subsequent discussion; similarly, a perceived feeling of distance from that background will make it more difficult to put those "basic social skills" into action. And that's before we get anywhere near the social confidence that comes from wealth.

I don't think Kamerad's saying it's impossible; just that social background can give you a massive head start.

Yes, it's a 10m head start in a marathon.

Give me a break, we're not talking about shmoozing over wine and cheese during intermission at an opera. A simple "I liked your recent paper in Journal of XYZ" is fine, or if you haven't put in the effort to learn what your colleagues are working on, then a simple "what are you working on lately?" will do, because it's not as if academics need to be prodded into talking about their research.

But besides that, it's a lot easier to socialize with people in one's own age group, so personally I'd be less focused on finding common ground with older professors and spend more time making connections via their students instead. Academia is sensibly hierarchical in that way.

NTBT, you make a fair point. and it's in the cultural climate of the humanities not only to pretend that there's no substantive difference, but that there shouldn't be. in practice, though, it hasn't been my experience. i've made friends with the parents-bought-me-my-house-during-school crowd. hanging around them, and seeing what they've gotten away with, in terms of not having to hand in papers, or using one paper for two seminars, and so forth, was somewhat embittering. "what are you doing this winter break?" "temping." "how about you?" "hiking in south america." when schmoozing with professors, in-house or at conferences, temping is probably a less appealing topic of conversation than hiking in south america. but maybe i have a chip on my shoulder

kamerad, I can certainly sympathize with your complaints/critiques about academia. But your description of your advisor's reluctance to refer to personal struggle or overcoming in a letter might not be motivated by icky disinterest in you as a person and might instead be a purely-in-your-best-interests awareness of what kind of letter will get you a job. That might still be a sign of a problem in the field, but it might not be a sign of a problem in your advisor. Now that I'm on my first hiring committee, I have to point out that *anything* in a letter that looks like the letter writer is making an excuse for the candidate gets them put in the B pile pretty quickly. You're looking for someone who is unambiguously the best/smartest/most qualified. When you have 290 apps for one job and you only want to invite 10 people to the MLA you're looking for anything shaky in a letter in order to put that person aside. There are ways to point out "hard working" qualities that would be positive and would let the letter writer refer to outside employment, but generally speaking such references start to look like the blind date equivalent of "she's got a great personality".

i never once spoke with my adviser about putting anything in my letter, aside from asking him/her to write one for me. i'd already learned year ago, from awkward conversational tilts on my part toward the personal, that there wasn't any interest there beyond the writing i was producing. that's not my complaint. my complaint is that it's quite clearly the case that there's a relationship between a background of socioeconomic privilege and success in the academy. in any other profession, people would just say, "well, no duh." but in the humanities, at least, there is an agenda to teach social justice to undergraduates that is not extended to the training and hiring of new professors. how could this change? i have no idea. but maybe starting with asking questions about parental finances, not just race, would be a start

Of course, the root of the problem is funding, and if I had the choice between hiring a student or professor who afford regular trips to conferences and one who couldn't, I'd also hire the person who had money, i.e. was capable actually doing their job by disseminating research. In that case, simply asking about parental finances won't change anything.

Conferences aren't pay-as-you-go resorts, they're job duties, and therefore any dept who can't afford to let its people do their jobs should be asking itself why it exists in the first place. But yeah, I know, that doesn't solve the problem either.

"there's a relationship between a background of socioeconomic privilege and success in the academy"

kamerad, I've been trying to make it clear that I'm sympathetic with your situation, but the claim I just quoted seems hard to defend, and it's certainly likely to put a chip on your shoulder that isn't going to help you, practically. It's hard to defend: I work at the highest level of my specialization, and know my fellow workers pretty well. Few of them came from what you're construing as privilege. The ones I consider the most eminent, who are now my close friends (despite the thirty year age gap), come from working-class backgrounds, and like me, they're first-generation *college* students, not just grad students.

The most privileged people I know in academia are the children of academics: they definitely have a leg up on how the whole thing works. But it's not $$$, it's culture.

Actually, I want to say a bit more about culture. Learning to talk to colleagues isn't a trivial thing to learn, but if you want to succeed, you must learn to do it. My cultural learning curve in grad school was very steep: I'd never had feta cheese, or eaten Asian besides take-out Chinese, or been to Europe, or had wine besides Mad Dog, and so on. After one year of grad school, I'd done all of those (and by the end of grad school, lots more). To make it in academia, it helps to be able to fit in at academic social events, and that means being comfortable with and fluent in high culture. But this doesn't require having $$$$, and that's been one of the oddest lessons I've had to learn. Being able to navigate a conversation with a European fifty year old scholar, while just a 20-something grad student, is definitely doable even if, like me, you come from a low culture background. For one thing, you can talk shop. For another thing, you can show you know a little about their world, and can express curiosity.

I promise this is my last post for a while! But I'm very interested in this conversation.

grimly fiendish wrote of "the social confidence that comes from wealth". No doubt wealth does this, but it's not like it comes *directly* from wealth. It comes from the exposure to culture, manners, and education, that wealth brings. But you can get those things without wealth. I just don't yet understand how, exactly. I know that my undergrads, at a big state school in the midwest, don't generally have these, and it hurts them tremendously. They don't come to office hours, they don't come to colloquia, they don't come to department parties, and when they do, they don't know how to talk to a prof. That affects both how I think of them, and how they do when/if they move on in academia. Can these matters be taught? I think we're running up something that lots of nineteenth-century novels were interested in, but that I don't yet understand.

euler, your points are well noted, and i wouldn't want to refute them. there is a self-congratulatory spiral of resentfulness by which one can slouch and shrug one's way out of a job. in any profession. furthermore, it's horribly self-destructive to enroll in graduate school only to pull some bitter kid in the back of the class routine. what i'm getting at (and i'll stop ranting after this post) is the cognitive dissonance arising from reading, say, bourdieu/adorno/zizek in the context of discussing the depredations of western global hegemony, while the professor who assigns them is so aloof his/her behavior borders on snobbery. or say you take a course on l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e poetry (which yes, might be a problem in and of itself), an aesthetic explicitly rooted in marxism, but you're only allowed to discuss class in the abstract, not class matters pertaining to yourself and the people in your seminar. upthread, you mentioned that you wished the set-up were less trump and more socrates; sometimes it's hard not to feel like you're caught in some update of plato's "euthyphro," in terms of the gap between the theory you learn (and are expected to express familiarly), the situation in which you're learning it, and the indifference toward your socioeconomic situation of the people assigning you the theory

kamerad, I understand what you're saying. It's not the same thing, but I love how the one colleague I have who calls himself a Marxist, micromanages his retirement fund and stock portfolio, selling short and so on. I love it = I think it's funny and ironic.

Langpo doesn't have an aesthetic rooted in Marxism, it has a justification (and perhaps comes from a scene) rooted in Marxism.

Not that that adds anything to the discussion, it's just something of an automatic reflex for me to say something like that when the issue comes up. Carry on.

i don't want to continue derailing this thing. just want to say "thanks" euler for your thoughtfulness. i bet this thread will be useful for people considering graduate school (my contributions notwithstanding)

Euler and kamerad's discussion is interesting, but for people thinking about grad school, it's worth noting that they're talking about an issue that either doesn't exist in my field or to which I am completely oblivious. I didn't recognize what you were talking about in my own experience. I went to state comprehensive and am doing PhD at Oxford, so it should be the kind of thing that would bother me, if it bothered anyone.

I don't doubt your concerns are real though. Perhaps I've been inoculated by four years as an undergrad here. Also, for good or ill, astronomers and physicists are probably less interested in the social skills that go along with being financially or culturally elite.

caek, I think you're right that these things probably matter less in the hard sciences. Although my grad work was in math in addition to philo and there was some of what I'm talking about in math, for instance the tendency of mathematicians at conferences to head for Asian food for dinner (which was jarring for me at first until I got familiar with things).

For instance I still dress like a mathematician (i.e. very badly), but philosophers are pretty fashionable (relative to academia) and so I feel out of place...fortunately as a logician (i.e. a little math, a little philo) I get away with it.

I get the feeling that the 5 sigma cool mathematicians are cooler than their equivalents in the hard sciences. You do get media-friendly/rock star physicists, but I would rarely call them cool. The most cosmopolitan/urban/stylish people at astronomy conferences are the ones in Hawaiian shirts.

Unrelated, but maybe tied in with kamerad's feelings, I do remember seeing culture shock among the American grad students I've met, both at meetings in Europe and in the U.S. when they're in a room full of European people. I guess this is tied up with wealth somehow. European students have an advantage here because they tend to know U.S. culture better, but this is not necessarily because they are particularly intellectual or well traveled.

That's interesting re. culture shock with Europeans. In my grad program in math, there were a lot of (eastern) Europeans, but this was in the mid 90s so they were...differently European than folks from e.g. the UK or France. I spend so much time in Europe (and to a lesser degree, Latin America) these days that I don't notice these things. I'm also generally at least twenty years younger than the average attendee at the conferences I go to, so I don't see young Americans in these situations often anymore.

I just marked a piece of work on which a student had written "lol" at the end of a brain-dump which he hoped contained the answer. I was sorely tempted to write "tl;dr".

grades: pissing me off

just got my first Bs of grad school (one b, one b+). i am depressed. mostly because the b+ is the class i worked hardest in, and the b prof gave me no constructive crit whatsoever.

have not even checked grades for past semester yet. maybe now i've plied myself with some gin i can deal with it?

i don't know i prepped with wine and it's making me want to cry.

yeah i just checked mine. :(:(:(

blurghhhh

well...if it makes you feel better i got a B-. total bummerz. and i'm out of gin, too

b prof gave me a b- on the final grrrrrrrrrr. fuck him, he never "got" me all semester, why should my gpa suffer?

i'm trying to figure out why this was the case w/o actually e-mailing my professor. this was the class i had the hardest time grappling with content-wise, though, so it's probably best i do anyway.

man. so upset right now

commiseration <3

kjndfkjndsgf. thanks, tho. are you finished w/ yr program now?

thesis + one more class (a seminar, should be easy)

well that's a relief i guess (depending on how far you on thesis). i think next semester should be less of a hassle (three classes and an internship as opposed to five classes) so hopefully i'll have room to improve...

just sent maybe-more-defensive-than-it-ought-to-have-been e-mail to prof about grade

you ARE on

yeah, i wanna call prof and be like 'yo 4 classes and a 35-hour a week job is a lot, give me a fucking break!' but i don't think it would go over well.

thesis + one more class (a seminar, should be easy)

How did you pull that off? My last semester is going to be 4 classes (one of them is a seminar, should be easy) + thesis, despite trying my hardest to make my last semester an easy one.

i dunno, that's how they schedule my program! first semester was 5 classes + 20hr internship.

my program is constructed in such a way that i have almost zero leeway with classes (i.e. nearly everything i take is a "required" class) BUT since i also went to this school as an undergrad in a similar major, i get to jettison a class i already took as an UG in favor of another one i'm really looking forward to, so that's definitely something

xpost five and an internship? jesus

Damn, first semester sounds horrible but I guess it's paying off now. My program, on the other hand, is designed to be scheduled by the students themselves. Which explains why I fucked it up so badly!

sorta paying off. i almost lost my mind this(last) semester.

Serious question: are Bs in some way qualitatively worse in the US system? Only most dudes I know would be reasonably happy with a B- ... hell, I would. Indeed, we got told to pretty much expect Cs; As are "approaching publishable level".

I've only had one grade back so far and I was delighted with it; once we settle into the endless round of returned coursework, I'd be chuffed to fuck with a B average.

Yeah, a B in the UK is really not the equivalent of a B over there. I was at Georgetown for a year and was perfectly happy with straight B's because they translated to 2.1s when I came back to the UK but my friends would get really stressed if they even started dipping towards a B+.

Interesting. I know some people like that here, of course ... hmm. Desire for excellence or unhealthy and unrealistic competitive panic?

I guess the answer to that depends on which side of the pond you're on, too.

It's certainly very important for some people going on to certain post-undergrad stuff at the best schools (medical, law, etc.) to avoid B's. I think a lot of this is to do with the granularity of transcripts and grading in the U.S. compared to the U.K., where we reduce 3/4 years to either "1", "2:1", or "2:2", and we don't normally issue transcripts breaking down scores. If employers could see individual grades they might be taken more seriously here.

I get the impression that grade inflation is a problem at undergrad level in the U.S. while it's a problem at GCSE/A Level in the U.K.

When I asked Oxford for a transcript, which I need every time I apply for something outside the U.K., they send me a document with my grades with "THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD DOES NOT ISSUE TRANSCRIPTS" in bold at the top. Right.

Also stupid is how the grades are raw marks and it doesn't say what they are out of. I guess people assume I got 86% on undergrad astro, when I actually got 86/150, and 24% for lab work, when I actually got 24/24.

This probably gives an idea of how seriously individual grades are taken in the U.K.

You're dead right about the transcripts: I hadn't thought about it like that. I had the same thing trying to get mine from Edinburgh earlier this year (graduated 1997): there was no useful information on there at all. Mind, I think that's changed now: with the major Scottish universities at least, there's a huge move away from a finals-based system to one in which coursework is a major part, and I imagine that in itself will begin to shift the focus away from one overall result and on to individual grades.

That said: I'd still be happy with a load of Bs ;)

Here is my theory:

In the US: Transcripts make individual grades as important as averages for grad school/jobs -> pressure from students/admissions, etc. on colleges/professors to award good individual grades -> grade inflation at college level -> B = not good.

In the UK: No SATs for university admission but rather individual subject grades instead -> pressure on governments, exam boards, etc. to award more As/A*s -> grade inflation at school level -> B = not good.

I do think, however, that breaking down grades by course/paper/subject is generally a good thing.

I agree with your theory and the overall idea of breaking down grades. The problem comes, I guess, when grades of any sort take on such disproportionate significance.

Key thing that would do wonders in the UK: not going straight from school to university. Given the current economic circs, that's a more forlorn hope than ever.

http://www.barrylutz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/noooooooooooo.gif

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

srsly

18 hrs. til first class of semester 2!

pro: For once I signed up for a "fun" 0 credit class. Twice a week, I will be meditating for an hour AKA chilling the fuck out.
con: For the rest of my life I will know that I missed a Historic Moment on January 20th, 2009 because I was chilling the fuck out.

whew. things are finally looking up
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/123101/
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/01/2009013001c.htm

Universities are fucked right now. State university systems are talking furloughs, unpaid leave (but you still have to teach your classes). My state's legislature proposed a 10% furlough for the entire 2009-10 academic year. Yay, a 10% pay cut. And I'm already on public assistance before that pay cut. And I am a full-time, tenure-line faculty member in the humanities at a research-I university. Things are worse for second-tier state institutions and many private colleges too. And we are being asked to propose exigency plans, i.e. who to fire first if the shit really hits the fan by 2010. That's gonna do wonders for faculty morale.

xpost

That Benton piece is very, very interesting, no matter what one is studying. Thank you for sharing the link. This:

they've been praised their whole lives, and no one has ever told them that they may not become what they want to be, that higher education is a business that does not necessarily have their best interests at heart

perhaps gets to the nub of it. Me: I've made an informed choice to go back to school after 12 years of what could be termed a successful career. I'm old enough and ugly enough to know that there are no certainties; if I do pursue my studies over a longer period and at a higher level, I'll be doing it primarily for myself and for my love of my subject, not because I think it's going to make me money in the future.

But I feel incredibly sorry for young, bright new graduates who haven't got that real-world experience/cynicism/realism: what are they to do? If there aren't jobs out there in the big, bad world, staying within the academy will look even more attractive ... but shit, what do you say to them? "Lower your expectations completely, do it for the love of the discipline and prepare to end up no further up the ladder when you're done?" Brutal, probably true ... but in a capitalist society where GETTING ON and MOVING ON UP is seemingly all that counts, it's not going to wash.

well good luck, it seems rigged, a country club pyramid scheme sometimes, like benton says ~

As things stand, I can only identify a few circumstances under which one might reasonably consider going to graduate school in the humanities:

* You are independently wealthy, and you have no need to earn a living for yourself or provide for anyone else.

* You come from that small class of well-connected people in academe who will be able to find a place for you somewhere.

* You can rely on a partner to provide all of the income and benefits needed by your household.

You come from that small class of well-connected people in academe who will be able to find a place for you somewhere.

But there's no way to know ahead of time if you'll be one of these or not (unless you go somewhere that rarely places anyone).

i took this as a veiled reference to the children of professors proliferating all over the humanities, family business and such

out and out filial nepotism is not something i've come across in academia. i think the prevalence of teacher's/professor's kids in academia has a lot more to do with them learning more from being around their folks.

either way they have a huge head start. i never met a professor's kid until i got to undergrad, and then in graduate school, it was like "where's your dad/mom teach?" but maybe they are genetically superior

(xpost) I just finished applying to grad schools, and am waiting to hear back. Sometimes I think that's an incredibly stupid plan, and then I remember that I have less income or job security than most grad students at the moment, and it seems smart again. One of the quotes from the second article makes me uncomfortable because it is how I'm thinking:

They think that graduate school is a good place to hide from the recession. They'll spend a few years studying literature, preferably on a fellowship, and then, if academe doesn't seem appealing or open to them, they will simply look for a job when the market has improved.

Well, yeah...if I get into any funded graduate program, the odds are very high that I'll be making more than I am right now, plus I'll be able to get health insurance, so why not try? I'm stubborn and insisting on working in the field I'd like to work in after grad school even if I can only get part time jobs that barely pay, but I'd probably be better off financially if I'd just applied for every random sales & marketing job listed a few months ago. My life feels like a bet with myself to see how long I can get away with having plans before I give up and go for "any full time job I can get." (I've never seriously planned to become a professor, and I have learned from former bosses and coworkers that an MA would help in the fields I'd like to work in, but I'm not sure if a PhD would help or harm the job prospects. The plan is not to worry about it until I have at least an MA in hand and hopefully the stupid recession's over. But maybe the plan itself is stupid.)

I agree with caek about filial nepotism. I've seen very little of it. You see a lot of advisor-nepotism, not sure what to call that.

is that particularly different than other fields, though, substituting "advisor" for "supervisor" or something?

I don't think it is.

Somehow this revive has made me more depressed about my prospects than I already was. I did not think it possible.

If only there was a parallel "grad school: fuck yeah this is awesome" thread to provide a little hope.

I don't know about grad school but prof life is awesome. I just spent my whole weekend working on a really badass paper on a really badass topic and I made progress. I live the dream even as the man threatens to kill it.

you get to live all over the world! that is awesome.

this thread is making me feel a bit happier about not applying for grad school!

the filial nepotism thing: I think kids of academics are more likely to think of it as a possible/worthy career? And there's a bit of a benefit in having parents who already understand how to go about getting funding etc. That said I know v few academic-offspring who've gone into academia. I dunno, I grew up a kid of academics and there was a definite benefit in that I didn't feel overawed by my lecturers when I got to uni, and I had good general knowledge that makes me seem more well-informed than I am, but it also means I don't have many illusions about the actual job of it, or about how good I am. Friends of mine have, in the past, been all "oh surely you are applying you are so well suited i would like you as a prof!" (lol flattery) but the thought of spending a significant proportion of my life cap in hand to the ahrc or trying to maintain a position on the citation index or whatever is fairly offputting. I love my subject, but I'm still not sure that I love it enough and think it valuable enough to drag it through all of that.

what i get from that article is the same thing my professors said when i asked about grad school, which is "go to grad school if, and only if:

• you're okay with being an adjunct professor for the rest of your life and

• you absolutely cannot see yourself loving anything as much as you love researching and writing"

And that is about right. (I went to grad school around the same time Benton did -- talked about my experience on another grad school thread on here.)

http://www.futurama-area.de/LiH/OComics/16.gif

wow, that cartoon is cold.

I remember reading that one in high school and noting 'Hmm, better not go down THAT road.' Of course I did end up becoming a grad school dropout and that cartoon's pretty accurate but misses a key point -- the debt, which I was lucky enough to avoid. And when I did leave grad school is when I was able to start enjoying life again, so hey!

lol @ "completely unable to enjoy anything"

Oh yes, the debt. My first payment comes later this year. *GULP*

I dropped out of grad school, and really the bitterness for me was when I was enrolled, not afterward. I can't imagine trying to be a smart guy all day now. Also, just paid off the last of my loans yay!

Hey, I've mastered the 5 secrets of grad school success! awesome!

So is it completely unrealistic to just look at grad school as a different sort of job? Do you really have to try to be a smart guy all day?

At my work, I have to prove to one guy that I'm "smart (enough)". When you teach a class you have to prove to 30-50 people that you are smart. When you publish, you have to prove to perhaps thousands of people that you are smart.

some people are really good at compartmentalizing, but in general it takes over your brain to the extent that there is no room for anything else for several years. i'm pretty sure i used to be an interesting person, but i can't remember the last time i read a book for pleasure. and year, the standards of smartness are high and ongoing.

interesting biographical note: i have dropped out of grad school twice and i'm still only 27. i am going to finish it this time though.

I think that proving you're smart when publishing is different than trying to be the "smart guy all day," though...I read that as "trying to broadcast the impression of being smart at all times," rather than actually doing smart work. Maybe that's a bad distinction though. (xpost)

My mathematical graduate edumacation taught me that 30 > 1.

I just try to keep reminding myself that I am constantly multiplying and dividing myself by 1.

No 1 to divide imo

Seeming smart when teaching is a lot different than seeming smart when writing for publication. In fact, when I teach it's more about being a good performer than it is like seeming smart, because I have to keep 50 college students interested in what I'm doing right then. Whereas when I write, it's not for right now. I don't have to be "on" in the same way.

I love what I do enough so that it's a pleasure to get to work on my stuff every day. I imagine this is what it's like for artists.

A powerful state lawmaker believes Georgia’s university system must not be too bad off financially if it can afford to employ experts in oral sex, male prostitution and “queer theory.”
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/stories/2009/02/02/sex_experts_legislature.html

“I’m personally outraged that our taxpayer money is supporting professors, that this is what they’re offering as their services,” Hill said.

Haha. I remember my best friend at uni getting into womens' studies. She's now a professor. Her area of expertise was oral sex. I was like, 'What do you really want honey? To publish papers or to find an Australian male who knows how to lick the pan? Good luck!'. She left for England. Personally, I think she should've left for France.

this is a fairly accurate portrait of what goes down

http://oregonreview.blogspot.com/2009/01/michael-oakeshott-and-educational.html

and worth reading for anyone seriously considering getting involved in this charade. money quote: "students distracted by huge debt loads and excessive expectations of paid work while enrolled cannot be expect[ed] to focus on learning."

that sounds right but then let's organize to get states to pick up more of the burden of paying for universities, by taxes. At my big state institution we keep raising tuition as our (very conservative) state legislature keeps lowering taxes. What this means is that we raise sales and property taxes to pay for secondary ed, and raise tuition to pay for universities. I guess on one level it makes sense for the students to pay their own way (which is how my legislators and their base see it), but then these people tend to be skeptical of higher education's worth.

in my state there is solid evidence that each dollar invested in the university system yields a dollar and then some back, eventually. the problem is that eventuality is not immediate enough to make political hay out of. plus it's a very hard sell to someone who never got to go to college (still more than half the country at this point), and maybe whose kids can't either, that s/he should pay state and federal taxes so that someone else's kids can. quite rightfully the not-so-well-off most liable to manipulative arguments that college is wasteful and even anti-american might envy those born into a more privileged class whose university tuition (and all the unquantifiable preparation for higher ed) is a birthright. tapping into resentment regarding what's commonly represented in popular culture as a fairly leisurely undergrad lifestyle can't be that hard for conservative politicians who (hypocritically) present themselves as anti-intellectual, anti-elite populists. figuring out how to convince my putative envious skeptics that supporting the public colleges is still in their best longterm interest$ could very well be a game changer

grad school - american equivalent of a uk masters degree?

yeah, I saw U Arizona's bitter letter today announcing their big cuts, and reporting how much more than a dollar each dollar they're given yields. This is a good start. My own view, not very popular amongst my colleagues, is that we academics need to do a much better jobs of arguing for our importance. One way of doing that is to argue our *financial* importance. I'm pretty confident that will work out, though to include the humanities on board you'll need to be delicate. And I don't want to concede the Marxist point that the only value that matters is financial. But for the sake of argument right now, I'd rather we grant that and make the best case we can. One reason I'm willing to grant that is that I don't think that we in the humanities have a good ready-made non-financial argument for our value that will convince your "putative envious skeptics". Just saying "it makes you a better person" doesn't cut it in the US, and it doesn't pay to whine about that. I'm optimistic we can find such a case, but it will take real work, and will probably take people who didn't grow up pampered or who don't associate with common people today (unfortunately, many academics fail this).

re. grad school: when I use this term, it means education after bachelor's degree work, for instance work toward a master's or doctoral degree (UK, US, etc.).

my own embittered point of view is that people who grew up pampered are disproportionately represented in the academic industry's power precincts (as everywhere else) and a pet hobbyhorse of theirs is to perpetuate an aristocratic disregard of financial matters, both because they can and also if they were interested in practical money issues, they'd have gone to law school or business school or just straight into high finance. i think that getting these chairs and deans and academic all-stars to think practically enough to deal effectively with the harsh realities of the market would result in removing one of the chief professional privileges of their calling that distinguishes it from law and business and hence would be no easy feat

I think it depends on what you count as pampered. I was thinking by that, rich. But I could see someone thinking pampered anyone raised in a median income family, who didn't have to worry about homelessness or having enough to eat. I don't know a lot of rich people in academia; I know some, but fewer than I know among my college peers. But I don't know anyone who grew up poor. My parents didn't go to college, and in my generational cohort that puts me in the least privileged segment.

As to financial status now: everyone I know thinks about their practical money issues. What other practical money issues should they think about? Job prospects for grad students? Sure, I agree. But I'm not sure that's what you're getting at.

in my state there is solid evidence that each dollar invested in the university system yields a dollar and then some back, eventually.

Empirical evidence suggests this is true, however I believe people have a distorted opinion of what portions of the university system is financial valuable—unfortunately for some on this message boards, it’s not the humanities, or even a majority of graduate programs. Hell, most universities don’t even offer a worthwhile multiplier.

By most estimates the greatest multiplier is at the bottom—community colleges. Hilariously, economists and policy wonks have known this to be the case for nearly twenty years but little (or, nothing) has been done to get every able American into a community college program. One reason is the stigma attached, the other, and most common is cost.

It’s strange to think that our parent’s generation went to college on the GI or Pell. Today the Pell does not cover tuition for even the poorest student at a moderately priced community college. Reform is approaching however, The American Opportunity Tax Credit proposed by Obama, would in most instances make a community college free for all students willing to provide community service post-graduation and I honestly believe, if that tax credit sees passage, the multiplier spurred will be far more significant than anything in the stimulus bill (aside from credit transfers, obviously).

allen, that's really interesting and i hope that happens. euler, i meant to broadly paint the people in charge, who set agendas, as hailing from the pampered classes, by which i mean at least that their parents paid for their undergrad and grad tuition and housing or could have if necessary, thereby sheltering them from the dismal experience of dead end part time jobs even while borrowing tragic sums of cash. i'm not basing that on any empirical evidence, mind you, just my own experience

I am really enjoying myself here, at the moment, coming back to school and coming to CMU seems to have been the best decision I have made. The danger now is that I drift over into an EPP Phd (Engineering and public policy) and never leave.

REALLY not into grad school right now.

Like, screaming pissed off furious at it.

my own embittered point of view is that people who grew up pampered are disproportionately represented in the academic industry's power precincts (as everywhere else) and a pet hobbyhorse of theirs is to perpetuate an aristocratic disregard of financial matters, both because they can and also if they were interested in practical money issues,

― kamerad, Tuesday, February 10, 2009 2:57 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark

Truth! They also tend to be very boring and socially competitive.

You guys I got into a grad school today! Still waiting to hear back from some others, so not sure if I'll go to that one, but it's exciting. I have options. Options to move halfway across the country to the middle of nowhere and do obscure exciting archaeology stuff. :D

Hey, congrats!

congratulations! my resentful bitching notwithstanding, it can be quite an amazing experience

Congratulations.

Congratulations, Maria!

yeah, congratulations! Have fun!

Way to go Maria! Welcome to the beginning of a few years of posting on the "what the fuck am I getting myself into this grad school stuff" thread. :)

Got into my graduate program of first choice this morning! Woo!

woo.

That's awesome Mordy!

Which program was it? Do you have to move to a new city?

NYU Performance Studies. And no moving! Same city I'm currently in :)

You're going to be surfing out this gnarly recession wave while chumps like me try to find jobs!

grad school - american equivalent of a uk masters degree?

― fucks capacitor (a-bomb), Tuesday, February 10, 2009 2:05 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not biting

The way looking for an internship is going I am feeling like signing up to do a second masters or a phd looks like a good plan.

I always have it in my mind that Ed was going to be one of those scrappy scientists at NJIT, but I don't think you ever ended up there, did you, Ed?

No I am at CMU, passed over transport planning for Engineering and Technology Innovation managment and I'm now looking to see if a Masters in Energy or a Phd in Engineering and Public Policy might be a good next step.

Ed, maybe N3lli3 could help with internship leads, as she is SCIENCE person also policy wonk?

Good call, let me send over some details. (I have already applied to work for Dr Chu)

!!! Well, at any rate, I think she could get to him in under 5 phone calls!

How are you funding all this, Ed?

If it's possible to do a Phd in the US without going massively into debt I'd definitely consider it. The worst part of this recession for me is feeling trapped in current job against a deadline of being booted in the next 12 months or so.

it would depend on what the phd is in. dissertation fellowships in the humanities are drying up due to the recession. also phd programs are long, boring commitments; i really don't think it's a good idea to enroll in one just to escape the economy.

Masters I am paying for. Phd would be paid for if I could get on it, they only offer places if they can fund them. And don't worry, I wouldn't be enrolling to escape the economy, I would be enrolling because I would get to do an interesting and substantive piece of research into something I care about.

Me too, there's plenty in the public policy area that I'd be interested in and that's potentially worthwhile.

Steven Chu is a solid bro to physicists everywhere.

i will probably pass by mordy a couple of times a week next year and NOT KNOW IT ooooh

We could share photos now tho, and then we'll recognize each other!

Congrats Mordy!

Ed, Engineering & Public Policy sounds really interesting and useful.

As for funding PhDs in the US, it's looking fairly likely that I'll end up going for a PhD instead of an MA next year just because the PhD will be paid for. Can't decide whether this is a TERRIBLE IDEA or not because it's such a huge commitment (I mean, I could start and drop out, but that might end up more traumatic than just doing one thing or the other).

ok so apparently the 'evaluation' section of my thesis (which is a boring management residency report, not anything groundbreaking or thought-provoking) in which i identify strengths and weaknesses and offer suggestions for improvement is 'too crticial' and does not suck up to my program heads enough by saying how all the classes i took prepared me for my job. my adviser has asked me to 'cut the critical stuff' and 'focus on strengths and solutions for weaknesses,' but i don't understand how you can propose a solution for a weakness without identifying it, which is, i believe, inherently critical! constructive criticism, but still criticism. i don't want my thesis to be a sham :(

so instead i'm gonna whine about it here.

this reminds me of a class i took on derrida... the prof had a huge boner for derrida (as well as cute grad student chicks, which was gross), and anytime anyone approached derrida with anything but awed reverence, he freaked out and accused us of trying to make names for ourselves by ripping derrida apart. i finally gave up and wrote a retarded paper about deconstruction that had a lot of useless wordplay, and he gave me an A+. uc irvine doesn't even have a+ as a grade, but he gave me one anyway.

unfortunately, concerning your predicament, i don't have any suggestions that you probably haven't already thought of.

so i'm done with this shit, hallefuckinglujah

ugh. it's like, i have spent 2 years rounding out my skills as a professional in this field, and it should be a GOOD thing that i can identify this stuff and find solutions as, to me, it means i may be prepared/ready to take on these challenges (in this org or another one). i feel like it hurts my professional credibility to make it some 'this was all roses and fantastic and if i HAD to choose 1 bad thing it would be that maybe the water in the bathroom is a tiny bit too cold when you first turn the tap on!'

like what if a future employer asks to see it? and this shit will be on file @ my college for all eternity, for anyone to look at.

Hahaha, ytth, no names to be mentioned of course but I can guess among numerous candidates. (My argument has long been that Derrida was a clever humorist but that a lot of people missed the humor...)

zing?

zing = he's dead now.

i am quite enjoying my program right now! being taught by some of the best...

now if only the admins would stop being such quacked fools

my adviser left me two five-minute long messages today about problems with my thesis. the "problems" she refers to were there in the first draft, which she said was excellent and well-written. i am so livid i don't know what to do. she has just cost me 4.5 weeks.

THESIS gawwwwwwwwwd.

On one hand, it's the bane of my existence. On the other, I'm 99% sure no one will except for my adviser will ever read it, ever. EVER. So maybe I should just shit it out and get it over with.

I am loving this so much, I am trying to line up a phd.

i'm going into a phd program next fall, for sure. kind of excited about it. i won't even have to move that far.

i've mostly planned on stopping at the MA but i found out about a ph.D program i might conceivably be into this morning and now i'm not sure. but i should really concentrate on the next year-and-change first

ed, we all feel that way for the first few months. just wait.

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Who else is completely losing their mind?

me :(

a paper was due friday before spring break it is now tuesday after spring break and i have not done it. the guy said he didn't really care when we hand it in but the main reason i can't do it is it's stupid like "tell me how you feel" shit. i can't do this anymore!!!!

I am the worst at writing "tell me who you feel" papers. Are you graduating this May Harbl, or are you going on into next year still?

i am losing my mind

i am graduating which makes it 100x harder to do anything. i do about 20% of my reading for classes now i think!

I wish my school would subsidize the 2+ years of rehab I'm going to need after I graduate.

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck man, fuuuuuuuuuuck.

in part because i've realized that i *hate* the way the curriculum is structured here. ours is one of the most traditional, lecture-only curricula in the country (from what i gather), and it's extremely frustrating. it's not that the material is hard (the stuff you learn in med school isn't ~that~ difficult, it's mostly that there's a lot of it and it covers a lot of ground), it's that the pace is sorta breakneck and pedagogically antiquated.

lol liberal arts major from some new england college

would so much rather be working on a thesis/project than str8 memorizing shit for a multiple choice test

oh see that is the exact opposite of me (much to my surprise!)

(ps still not in grad school; I am doomed to be a BA for life)

actually, what i'd really prefer is an actual Problem-Based Learning curriculum, but unless they let me design my own i'm sorta SOL

adviser wants to know how my thesis is coming. i don't know how to tell her 'it's no different than the last time we talked because i was out of town/otherwise occupied for a week and a half. ps you are insane for making me make massive changes to it at the last minute you big jerk.'

would so much rather be working on a thesis/project than str8 memorizing shit for a multiple choice test

Yeah, I'm with Dan - At this point I'd trade working on my thesis for just about anything in the world. I guess the grass is always greener.

it is kind of really hitting me now, that thing they ("they") say about this inertia-ish thing: so much stuff about law school everyone goes "i hate this" "this is pointless and should be done this way" "why are we doing this" and there is basically a consensus about it but like when you leave there's no longer any point in changing it or getting rid of it so every student has to go through the same thing. namely (1) the last semester or two of school where no one is learning a thing and (2) law review which is some big prestige shit when you get on it your second year and then your third year you're like fuck this

prob goes in law school thread. anyway i wish instead of going to class the last year you could just have a full-time job.

My thesis is due in a month, and I am on PAGE SIX.

Wait - hold the phone...now I'm on PAGE SEVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it is kind of really hitting me now, that thing they ("they") say about this inertia-ish thing: so much stuff about law school everyone goes "i hate this" "this is pointless and should be done this way" "why are we doing this" and there is basically a consensus about it but like when you leave there's no longer any point in changing it or getting rid of it so every student has to go through the same thing. namely (1) the last semester or two of school where no one is learning a thing and (2) law review which is some big prestige shit when you get on it your second year and then your third year you're like fuck this

prob goes in law school thread. anyway i wish instead of going to class the last year you could just have a full-time job.

sorta the same in med school, except that it's also coupled to this bootcamp/vicious cycle mentality where ppl are like "it's med school, it's SUPPOSED to suck." whereas me and most of the older students are like "y'all are crazy, i used to have a life, etc." I mean, i'd rather spend twice as much time doing my pre-clinical stuff if it meant i had time to be a normal person

i don't even really mind it sucking as long as i'm getting something out of it. i learned a lot in the first half but now i'm like ????

I am afraid that the night that I finish my thesis I will party so hard that I'll end up in county jail.

After all, Andrew W.K. did not party hard until he finished his thesis - then he spiraled out of control.

i just have to finish this damn thesis (which should have been DONE by now @#(*U% which makes me not want to do it at all) and host 1 panel discussion at the end of the month and kinda show up for class once a week to listen to other panels. i am skipping tonight because i am getting sick and also because i couldn't bear the thought of going, so yeah, feelin u, harbl.

i am kinda staggered that someone can ask a multiple choice question with a straight face in graduate school.

Maybe it's one of those multiple choice quizzes where you have to circle all of the correct answers for each question. Those are a little more difficult.

doing ok for now but expect a GOD AGH FUCK EVERYTHING post from me in ca. 2 weeks

i am kinda staggered that someone can ask a multiple choice question with a straight face in graduate school.

― caek, Tuesday, March 31, 2009 6:51 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's med school. they can get away with it because that's how the USMLE (board) exams are structured.

yeah i think you can get away with them in any professional school (like are MBA's smart enough to write essays lol jk). we have had legendary ones such as 150 mc questions, 2 points off for wrong answer, +1 for right answer, 0 for blank. i actually love those exams as much as it's possible to love an exam but people tend to leave them in tears ;_;

mbas are the most disgusting savages in the world imo, etc.

rly i'm just jealous i didn't go for a recognized major.

can I just

http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Karen-Watts/My-Despair-Poster-C12180059.jpeg

AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

My brain is scrambled, my anxiety is through the roof every minute of every day, I have dreams about my thesis almost every night, and my personal life is falling apart.

what the fuck did i get into with this grad school stuff FUCK

Fuck, I mean I didn't even remember that I already posted this months ago

http://www.barrylutz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/noooooooooooo.gif

lol sucks to be you

j/k good luck :)

month of hell begins now

i turned in my heavily revised thesis on tuesday. my adviser is out of town for a funeral of someone v v close to her (she was so distraught she didn't even stick around for our class that evening), and was to read our theses on the plane and then call us. i understand that she is going through a difficult time but i have not heard a peep from her since tuesday and if she decides to go all crazy on me again, i need this time to be 'fixing' shit! argh@)#(**

good luck, students.

aw, you guys. you should maybe take a day off if you can.

what i mean to say is, even if it seems like you can't, you probably can and should.

i think the problem at this point is that i am taking days off when i'm supposed to be working because adviser's personal life is interfering with our production schedule, as it were. tbh i think this is unfair bc i had a whole mess of personal things to deal with while i wrote/edited but did not let it make me miss deadlines or anything.

Unequal power relationships are often unfair to the person with less power.

yeah, it's pretty much the most frustrating thing about grad school. they run your life but ignore you at will. i'm sorry, tehresa!

i know, i mean the whole thing is basically like an ego-booster for adviser/way to suck up to the department at this point. i just want it over.

i am so bored of school right now, and then i feel guilty for feeling bored

i'm done this fall. . . i can't fucking wait, i have had it

i'm done in december, looking forward to it but kind of frightened

ha, i start this fall (library science). totally excited about the classes but i already know that the homework is gonna get old and be a total drag like 2 weeks in.

i've just never really been a person who's been excited about being in school, even though i usually do pretty well. from the beginning, this has been about getting a new career, not "going back to school," so it's hard for me to stay excited about stuff that seems barely related to the practical side of librarianship

doing ok for now but expect a GOD AGH FUCK EVERYTHING post from me in ca. 2 weeks

― i want an internet that has fun arts and crafts to do at home (donna rouge), Tuesday, March 31, 2009 7:54 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

GOD AGH FUCK EVERYTHING LOSING MY MINDDDDDDDDDDDDD

(man, right on time)

mark you're doing library science??? where are you doing it?

xp yea i agree - what i'm most excited about is the increase in earning potential after the degree

destroyer - simmons

i just got that degree and i can't get a fuckin job

haha no way, i am doing my mls there part time right now. i will be 1/4 done on may 7.

lol @ donna rouge.

I finally cleared up time to devote two days purely to thesis writing. So while I'm in the middle of a 11 hour stretch of writing right now, it feels reeeaally good to be able to dedicate myself to it and not have to stop and do HW.

xp cool! we should get in touch in the fall and get some beers!

To clarify, "reeeaally good" as in the way it feels "reeeaally good" to pull out a splinter.

xp yeah dude definitely sounds like a plan. let's mutually try to remember that we had this plan!

will revive beer thread inevitably (or else this one if school's rough) in the fall

i just got that degree and i can't get a fuckin job

― I think no pants is sexy. (Matt P), Tuesday, April 14, 2009 3:00 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

where do u live?

3.5 years left, yay

more if i tack on an mph/ms tho, yeeks

I get to play at being researcher this summer and have a good chance at getting a fully funded phd. come january. I may never leave.

I should be feeling more ARRGH about the end of semester looming but the major work to be done is the big group project and my team is the most incredible team I have ever worked with. Shit gets done, fast, well and ahead of time. We are chewing up the work and looking for extra credit, I love it.

I am trying to get excited about things like not having to commute or say the same things all day to the idiotic public next year, but I'm kinda worried I'll spend too much time on schoolwork and have no life.

Also it is not surprising to see more emerging ILX librarians ;)

xp yea i agree - what i'm most excited about is the increase in earning potential after the degree

this is such a false grail

earning potential - cost of getting degree = false grail, for real

btw my thesis update is: adviser liked most recent version and wants me to make some 'slight changes' to chapter 2 (where have i heard this before!!?!?!). i am too scared to actually take it out of the folder and see what she wrote on it (though she told me the first thing she wrote was 'yes! yes! yes!' so...).

xp yea i agree - what i'm most excited about is the increase in earning potential after the degree

this is such a false grail

not really false in the long term. you're pretty limited in the field (both in pay and career options) if you want to be a librarian but don't have an MLS. please correct me if i'm wrong (no condescension meant here) but are there library assistants who make more than librarians? even subtracting the cost of a degree, i'm pretty sure that it's worth it financially for me to get an MLS

yeah i think an MLS is still justifiable depending on how you do it and the degree really does translate into more $ in most library situations. i just kind of fucked it up, borrowed way more than i should have, nearly dropped out my second year, was pretty underachieving in general.

mark, i live with my parents in utah right now. i'm casting my net really wide though. i'll move anywhere if it's affordable. my problem is a relative lack of experience -- i've never actually worked in a library! i have two archiving / cataloging internships that i didn't get much from. so i'm only kind of viable as an archivist, which narrows it down a lot.

living in utah seems like such a mixed blessing

i was really referring to the idea in general, not your major specifically.

yeah in general you're totally right

ha, i start this fall (library science). totally excited about the classes but i already know that the homework is gonna get old and be a total drag like 2 weeks in.

― mark cl, Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:56 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

what i'm most excited about is the increase in earning potential after the degree

ha, i should qualify what i said earlier a little bit. i know this is a grad school commiseration thread and i know for a fact that i don't like homework, but all in all i'm definitely excited for grad school. there's so much cool stuff about the field that i've had little to no experience in that i'm pumped to learn more about.

earning potential and career enhancement etc., of course, but i am actually excited about spending a couple years learning more about the field as an end-in-itself

btw my thesis update is: adviser liked most recent version and wants me to make some 'slight changes' to chapter 2 (where have i heard this before!!?!?!)

lol tehresa, i had this experience more than once and took to not changing the work at all and just giving it to them over again. it tended to work.

i identify so much with being too scared to look at the comments. :-/

i tried that the first time (just made really tiny changes) and then she made me do massive revisions, which she seems happy with... except the 'slight changes'...

ayo adviser says i can give thesis to dean! 1 step closer!!!

so. every week we turn in homework to our instructor and to each other in class. then, for the following class, everyone grades each other's homework, & we go over the homework in the following class.

let's say we have to miss a class. what do we think of an instructor who WONT let us use email to send each other? instead we have to go to school to turn in a physical copy or give our homework to someone to turn in for us? i say it's insane.

yeah that's dumb

i had to peer review a couple of draft final papers this week and one of them was soooo bad and i had to a) come up with a few nice things to say so it wouldn't all be negative and b) phrase my criticisms in a polite way and not just like "uh this paper sucks and you obviously didn't work on it and i worked my ass off on my paper and i'm pissed you thought it was ok to turn this in, even as a draft"

hah! that sounds like my adviser, who insists that using email is unprofessional. lady, it is 2009! i may have mentioned this already... nuts.

oh man n/a--that is so tough. i had to learn how to write critiques of fiction and stuff for workshop. it took me a couple of go rounds to learn how to say that stuff in a constructive way.

yeah--i just don't get not using the email. email works! pretty well!

what's even worse is when someone half asses a story or a chapter, turns it in, and you work hard on their critique and write a page or two and then when they critique your stuff, it's like, five sentences/a paragraph at the most

yea i pretty much hate any type of academic work in which i have to work w/ other people or rely on them for anything. always hated group projects and the like, critiquing other people's papers (unless it's a friend and they're really looking for good constructive criticism and vice-versa)

not really an anti-social thing, i just would rather do my own work. i think it's mostly b/c a shocking number of people half-ass everything in school and it makes it not worth it to collaborate

i should say that i haven't started grad school yet - i'm sure it's different from undergrad in that respect (of so many people half-assing it)?

Sadly, it's not that different. Don't get me wrong - I've had a few group projects this year that were OUTSTANDING because the other members actually contributed their fair share and turned in things on time. But for the most part, "group work" still means you do all the work and the rest of the group gets a good grade for doing absolutely nothing.

In other news, on the thesis front I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel (which I fucking should because it's due in two weeks!), AND I got a call from the EPA today saying "we really want to work for us bro". It's been a good day!

want YOU to work for us bro

huh i've had pretty good luck with group work i guess, all of my projects have been reasonably evenly distributed. but i'm in a distance education program so maybe not meeting face-to-face does something to make everyone think "oh shit i better work on this"

Then again, when I think about it the truly awful group projects I've had the past few years have invariably involved undergrads and/or PhDs who never show up.

yea tbh i feel like it would be easier to designate work to people over email xpost

congrats ZS btw!

most of my classmates are such hyperactive overachievers that group work is sort of a breeze. i'd probably be the freeloader if any of them could actually write. luckily(?), they can't, so i've been designated writer/editor of all the projects we've done, which is a nice arrangement, since i can do everything from home.

^this is my experience with my big project this semester. My only complaint is changing any cell in our rambling excel model pretty much means a coffee break.

In other news, on the thesis front I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel (which I fucking should because it's due in two weeks!), AND I got a call from the EPA today saying "we really want to work for us bro". It's been a good day!

― "buttz" (Z S), Thursday, 23 April 2009 13:29 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Its a good time to get a job at DoE or EPA, EPA especially are screaming for anyone who can make turn lab results into NPV/IRR.

man this semester needs to end, like, yesterday. ugh.

at least the project that caused me to lose my mind upthread is more or less done, or the tough part of it was anyway

yes.

also: last class of the year is next tues. it is my turn to host a small panel. i had a cancellation last minute and now can not find a 2nd panelist! if i fail this with 1 week of grad school left i will die.

but i am turning my thesis over to the dean tomorrow!

i'll be on yr panel. can i talk about how email is evil?

NO.

you need to talk about public relations strategies and tactics for attracting non-traditional audiences.

MY THESIS WAS APPROVED!

high five!

:D

congratz

psyched!

thanks, dudes!

congrats

next week is the last week of classes but i still have four papers due before i'm done. one is "finished" but i'm holding it off on turning it in in case i have any last-minute epiphanies (not due til next week), one is nearly done but i'm still implementing some suggested additions from the reviewer, and two i haven't started yet. of the two i haven't started, one is a short "what have i learned" essay (easy), but the other is the big final project for the class :/

WOO and indeed YAY: hearty congrats.

WAY 2 GO, TZA!

next week is written finals

lab final for neuro this coming friday, physical exam final this afternoon (gotta go study....now!)

then i light out for the territories

i am hosting my panel tonight (finally confirmed 2nd panelist on sunday afternoon lol) and next tues we have a party. guys... i can't believe i am finally done with this grad school stuff!!!!

good luck n/a and gbx!

been stressed lately, mainly about final papers but also because most of my classmates seem so dorked out about what we're studying, like they're really into it and know all about it and have conversations about it, while i basically am just doing what i need to do to get through school and i feel guilty for being bored by a lot of this shit, especially because that's how i treated college and i feel like i didn't really "take advantage" of being in college educationwise and careerwise (making connections etc).

i wouldn't feel guilty--you're using grad school as a means to an end. i was bored by college too (and i've been bored in grad school 75% of the time) but i've gotten enough other stuff out of it that i feel it's worth it and stuff

tehresa, I am giving you a virtual high five that reverberates loudly into the digital night!

It sounds like this:

Wha-POW-ow-ow-wwwwwwwwwww

^_^

btw next week, I think Wednesday/Thursday, if all goes well I'll be here soliciting digital high fives because by then my thesis will also be approved. :)

i think we need to have an end of the semester sing along to School's Out

omg awesome congratulations tehresa!!!!!!!!

Awesome job Tehresa. caps and gowns all round.

Roll on May 11th for my final deliverables.

zs, i will reciprocate your fiveness!

YAY TZA. Pretty soon the only person writing 8000 words of speculation around here will be...me.

yay i passed yay

good job

Pretty soon the only person writing 8000 words of speculation around here will be...me

*Waves, weakly*

Hoping to have the year's final assignment finished tomorrow, ready for polishing (did someone mention turds?) and submission, along with its friend, on Thursday. Then comes SUMMER, during which I fully intend to catch up on interesting reading for which I didn't have/make time this year; read ahead for next year's courses; and work on my research-project proposal. Oh, and spend a bit of time thinking about what the fuck I'm going to do next, and e-mailing course directors going REMEMBER MY FUCKING NAME (note to self: must work on that e-mail before sending it).

Also: congratulations gbx! Sorry, didn't read that bit before posting :)

i mean, guys, i passed a 30-minute practical exam (doing a physical), still have two weeks of finals and 3.5 years of medical school left

hey I'm doing a Masters, I technically belong here. But then my experience as a part-time student is nothing like the immense stress and so on you're all on about, I heartily recommend it (although two years to do a Masters is one thing, seven or whatever to do a PhD is slightly different). It's like cheating, but legit. I handed in my work for the semester, a single 5,000 word paper (okay, 6,600, brevity is a skill I've yet to develop), and now I'm technically off until September. But in that time I can start working on my 15,000 dissertation, which is due in in sixteen months. O yeh.

But on the other hand, my experience of a long long line of tiny steps towards something big is making me envious of all you guys with your big scary events.

I just drop into this thread to congratulate the grad-school folk at each hurdle passed; my assigned 8k words is for something else entirely.

Friend is doing a curatorial PhD and is scared she'll get booted off, but over the course of the degree she has been sacked from job for being pregnant, had kid (both mum and kid nearly died), brought successful sex discrimination/constructive dismissal case (org is now trying to play 'if we pay you, we go bankrupt' BS), moved under extreme pressure and has had to do all of this plus lecture part-time at a uni 100+ miles from home with no help whatsoever from her former partner.

It's good to see people making progress! I just finished 6000 words of PURE UNADULTERATED SCIENCE myself (but don't ask how long it took)

i mean, guys, i passed a 30-minute practical exam (doing a physical), still have two weeks of finals and 3.5 years of medical school left

So? Every little counts ... I just put the final fullstop on an essay (which still needs some editing and tweaking, and a reference section) but FUCK IT, YAY ME :)

hey I'm doing a Masters, I technically belong here. But then my experience as a part-time student is nothing like the immense stress and so on you're all on about, I heartily recommend it (although two years to do a Masters is one thing, seven or whatever to do a PhD is slightly different)

Ha, exactly ...

I handed in my work for the semester, a single 5,000 word paper (okay, 6,600, brevity is a skill I've yet to develop)

Wait, what? Jammy sod. Last semester: 11,000 words. This semester: the same. *Shakes fist* :)

y'all made me curious so i checked - mine was 9,730 words.
i think my hueg marketing project last year was twice that though. lol @ joek thesis.

anyway, gbx doing a physical is nothing to sneeze at! lots of doctors suck at it!

ah, you guys with your requirements of less than 100,000 words not including appendices.

yeah, i know i got off relatively easy, but also i'm doing more of a professional thing than a research thing.

: )

I really envy you writer-types. I have 2500 words of a 6000 word paper written and I have absolutely no fucking idea what else to write about, and the damn thing is due in two weeks! There's only so many examples you can write about to support your argument before the reader is like, "OK, I get it. Move on."

caek, I take it that was your dissertation?

one paper between me and freedommmmmmmm

i have a while to go, but I don't remember the last time someone turned in a phd thesis less than 50k in our dept, xp

I have 12K at the moment, but I've got probably another 6K to add on (IN THE NEXT WEEK AAAAAAAAAGH).

travails of the grad school student:

A few hours ago, I was happy because I had added on 3 1/2 quality pages to my thesis. I had it saved on the desktop at the library (note: DUMB). I stepped outside to make a phone call. I got sidetracked, and then was coerced into stopping into a little wine and cheese event, and then I came back about an hour later. It turns out that after an hour, the computers here automatically reboot and delete everything on the desktop. So now I'm sitting here trying to retype the ideas and structure of what I had written before. Aggggggggggh

can i just

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpg

gmail urself

yeah I know how to do it. I didn't expect to be out for an hour and have my data deleted, whoops.

dropbox.com

advice like that is what people who lose files love to hear

Especially people who already know how to use the internet.

Next time I see someone drop their keys, I'm going to walk up to them and be like "hey man, if you don't want to drop your keys, you should think about attaching them to your belt loops with a clip." Later, if I find anyone who didn't finish their taxes on time, I'll inform them that they should probably file their taxes before April 15th next time.

saying "be careful" to someone who has just stubbed their toe

'wear a condom next time'

I like how dropbox.com is not even a legit website.

You need a nice computer monitor?

http://www.nicecomputermonitor.com, duh

Feel your pain! I lost like 2 pages when I was working at the laundromat and my battery decided to randomly die (gotta get this checked out bc it did it again last night!). So frustrating!

hey i dunno if apple are still doing this but they replaced mine for free http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/

if apple *is* still doing this

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/04/the-dilemmas-of-graduate-education.html

i don't really have an opinion about this debate and thinking about it doesn't seem like fun, but ymmv.

I only had to learn once that in this neck of the woods, if you open a file from email and forget to save as, you'll be saving to an irretrievable temporary files folder. ho boy.

I think even if I wasn't part-time my workload would be pretty low. Suckas. Another couple of 3,500 word essays would've been me for this semester (although I'd be expected to have a good chunk of dissertation work done by now too. That, though, is only 15,000 words itself).

thanks, harbl! i installed that update but my cycle count is still low. genius bar appt on sunday!

lol i accidentally did that at work last week and almost had a heart attack at the idea of 3 hours of work GONE. i was like 'NO I HAVE BEEN SAVING IT EVERY 5 MIN WHERE DID IT GOOOOOOO?' but the weird thing is i had saved as bc i changed the doc name but it still saved to the temp folder bc i must not have been paying attention!

Ah, man: I feel your pain, Z S. That is seriously sucky. And it happens once in a while to all of us: eg the time I managed to answer "No" to "Save Changes before closing?" (this was at work, with a page that was meant to have been on the press 10 minutes previously) despite ... well, despite obviously meaning to click fucking "Yes".

Grah.

i feel the pain too Z S. could be worse. my tale of grad school geek woe is i spilled water on my laptop two weeks from finishing dissertation chapter 2. all panicky i had that thing upside down like a tent on my rug for two days running, hoping somehow the water would drip out. it didn't of course and my computer was totally fried. after mooching a ride to best buy i found out rust had started forming on my hard drive. somehow they saved all the data though and transfered it onto the new laptop i had to buy i couldn't afford. and then after all that i still had to finish the chapter on time

and did you finish the chapter on time?

I'm heading into the home stretch here (due this coming week), and I need tales of inspiration.

got it in on time, yes. and it turned out to be the proverbial better-than-the-original; my anger at myself and fear i'd fuck up again somehow not only crystallized my recollections of the original material, but fostered a clarity allowing me to see dialectical nuances i hadn't noticed in my first, more innocent go-around. so hop to it! chop chop

slap chop!

you're gonna love my thesis!

Just for fun, to anyone who wants to answer:

How many people do you think will ever read a good chunk of your thesis, besides your advisor(s) and yourself? And for those who graduated from this thread years ago, how many people have read it?

my guess: maybe 1 student in a future class looking for an example of what the thesis is supposed to be (i just know this bc i read two alumni's theses before i started writing mine).

Ha! That's my prediction too. In my program you're forced to read and critique a past thesis. Since I'm one of a very small group of environmental policy students here, there's a good chance my thesis will be critiqued pretty often in the years ahead by those future env. policy students.

pretty much all the novel content of my thesis will have been published in 3 or 4 papers by the time i submit, and probably no less than ten people will read each of those. but i need to put several months into turning those into a coherent 200 page document in order to call it a thesis, and no more than five people will ever read that.

I doubt anyone but me has read my whole 450+ page dissertation, but yeah, I've published chunks of it here and there over the years in journals, and those have been read by a few people (yeah, probably 10 people for each, maybe 20). Although it's hard to tell: once I turned on monitoring on my personal webpage, and posted a new paper, and within an hour it had been downloaded by people with university URLs. So maybe more people read than I'd guess.

I do occasionally get crackpot notes in the mail by people who've read something I've written, and want to tell me their own (bizarre) take on something. Recently I got a long note about the SETI project, by a guy who'd written all over the outside of the envelope as well as all over the notes jammed inside. It's odd as I don't work on anything even mildly related to SETI or astronomy. But it's not the first of these I've gotten. I take them as a badge of honor, like I've arrived as a scholar when crackpots seek me out.

How many people do you think will ever read a good chunk of your thesis, besides your advisor(s) and yourself?

My massive 6,000-word paper/final project will be a revolutionary magnum opus that's gonna totally change the world and get published in the Harvard Business Review and make me a very rich man. If I can finish it on time, that is.

Thesis = FINSIHED.

Can I just
wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

I mostly finished it off last week, but today I finished the conclusion, fixed up the reference page, wrote the abstract, spell checked, etc.

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

http://bestanimations.com/Military/Explosions/Explode-01-june.gif CONGRATULATIONS! http://bestanimations.com/Military/Explosions/Explode-01-june.gif

congratulations

i finished all my big papers, but i have this bullshit 1,000-word "what i learned this semester" busywork essay due monday and i have no motivation to wrap it up, even though it should be easy

good on yer leif. can't beat that feeling...

http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF

How many people do you think will ever read a good chunk of your thesis, besides your advisor(s) and yourself?

my advisor never read a word

it's weird to be getting an MFA in Poetry, as my thesis is essentially going to be my first book-length collection of work (it is a multi-genre investigation of the 'idea' of fences and enclosures), and thus, might be read by numerous people (more than 20-40 at least) as there ain't no way in HELL i am not sending that shit out to the publishers i respect (and know my stuff).

yesssssss zs!!!!!!!!

OK, I know I preemptively celebrated here after turning in my thesis, but today I'm actually DONE done because I've taken my last final and turned in my last project report.

http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
I
http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
hereby
http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
announce
http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
myhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
retirement
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from
http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
this
http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
thread
http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF
!
http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF

Anyone else done done?

I hereby announce I got a postdoc offer a couple of weeks back. Unfortunately they can't find the money until June 2010, so I'm just adding more stuff to my thesis to postpone submitting in order to avoid a gap on my CV. "more stuff" = 9 more months than planned : (

congratualtions again though!

Congrats, where is the postdoc? Are you funded for the gap? Can you use the gap to work on publishing?

columbia : ), not yet : (, and definitely (yaaaaow)

i should revive the job thread actually, gimme a minute

Congrats to YOU caek! Postdoc at Columbia, that's wonderful! If I had a similar offer I would probably post 30 Drudge sirens. :)

awesome, congrats!

zs i am done done, too!

I'm not going to post the drudge sirens, but I am going to go

WoooWOooWoooWoooWOooWOooWOooWOooWOoWOoooWOoo

Looking back at the past two 1/2 years, I have to say, it was slow, agonizing torture, and it probably permanently changed me in a negative way.

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

WoooWOooWoooWoooWOooWOooWOooWOooWOoWOoooWOoo

OK I can't help it

http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF

WoooWOooWoooWoooWOooWOooWOooWOooWOoWOoooWOoo

i will never be done with advanced school :(

:D

columbia : )

:D

What the fuck did I get myself into with this commencement stuff? Sitting in the pouring rain while people under a tent don't get that they need to cut their speeches wah wah O_o

gah yeah that is otm. i would have so liked to skip commencement!

also i would like to echo z s's sentiment about being permanently changed in a negative way, for real :(

Really wondering why this seemed like a good idea. Apparently the first time it's rained at graduation here in 23 years.

kinda jealous of u dudes done with this shit already, not gonna lie

They are giving us complete resumes for all alumni honorees now. You'd think they'd realize to cut that shit!

My father just texted me this: "inconsiderate windbags"

^lol

where's yr commencement at?

I skipped out on commencement a couple weeks ago and felt sorta bad about it but this makes me feel a little better. Tza I'm sure your parents are glad you're there etc.

Given yr last post - maybe not!! lol

On the quad.
Xpost

Two people in front of me just got up and left.

ours was soooooo long and boring and the professor elected by students to give a speech and hand out diplomas was one of my (and many others') least favorite professors, it was puzzling how she got picked

my UG commencement featured a rock band made up of professors from my school's neuroscience department

i was pretty stoned during my commencement, it was ok

Lol dad says their view is great now because so many people have left.

I'm hungry :(

It would be nice if my friend with whom I'm sharing an umbrella would offer to hold it for maybe 3 min?

how would you liveblog it then?

Are your gown and hood of sufficiently garish hue?

Not bad. Black gown, burgundy/hold hood

We get tartan piping on the gown and on the lining of the hood and the school's interpretation of the Carnegie tartan pays special attention to clashing with itself.

He just quoted Tony Robbins

Hang in there, tza!

Sorry guys, I drowned for a while but now I have lunched and am home drying out (literally not boozily lol I am drinking prosecco) as a newly minted mistress of fine arts ;)

[http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF][http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF][http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF][http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF]

WoooWoooWoooWooo

uh

http://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIFhttp://www.abovethelaw.com/images/entries/animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20animated%20siren%20gif%20drudge%20report.GIF

WoooWoooWoooWooo!

CONGRATS TZA!

:D :D :D