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

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.