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

thomp:

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf06312/

The results in table 5 indicate that individuals who did not report earning any master's degree (about 25 percent of the population) generally had lower median registered time to degrees than those who did earn a master's degree. Not surprisingly, among master's degree holders, registered time to degree was higher for those whose master's was in a field of study unrelated to their doctoral field.

Those numbers misrepresent things, in that people with any chance at a good job (which may mean any job in this environment) finish a lot more quickly than that. You need a couple of years of coursework first (which will drain your soul & force you to realize how stupid you are, at least if your program is any good; this is just the first of many hazings that you'll need to toughen you up for what's ahead). Then three years to write a dissertation is normal. You need a year to find a project, and two to write it. Add a year at the end to find a job if you're not a superstar but just a potential star. After that, there will be other hot young things that'll get the attention, unless you really have a breakthrough, which is super unusual. Again, this is all USA-centric.

xxp to caek: absolutely; but you need to be amongst the best people if you want a chance at a job; o/w don't go, imo.

E's department has a median completion time of 9 yrs, social sciences with a department that is very keen on ethnographic field work. the people who finish quicker seem to be lighter weight in terms of rigor and output.

Those numbers misrepresent things, in that people with any chance at a good job (which may mean any job in this environment) finish a lot more quickly than that

i don't see how this misrepresents things? all the people used to construct those stats were admitted to graduate school.

It misrepresents things only inasmuch as it portrays ten year stints in grad school as the norm & thus nothing to worry about.

well, they are the norm in the sense that they are the median among the people who get admitted.

obviously they are something to be extremely worried about though (especially for potential students)

right: I'm reading "norm" both in a statistical sense & in a "normative" sense framing what's "ok".

Median skews higher if it includes people who don't complete

xpost

apples and oranges, but here's the UK equivalent. RTD here is about 4 and a bit years, with little variation among subjects. it's pretty much the same in germany, which is the other system i know, but their undergrad degrees are five years.

http://min.us/jdbbzo.png

Median skews higher if it includes people who don't complete

higher than what? what's the "true" value? how to you include people who don't complete?

higher that if the set was all people who completed, which is the set you'd have to do a mean on.

i don't understand. those stats are for all the people who completed. the _mean_ of that set skews higher because the distribution has a bit tail of people who take 10+ years and no tail of people who take 1-3 years.

"a big tail"

oh i think i see the confusion. you said "Median skews higher if it includes people who don't complete". it doesn't include those people, so no, it doesn't skew high.

thanks guys

fwiw i really do not want to stay in england long enough to complete (or even enroll in, tbh) a PhD program here, and rather doubt i'd want to take a phd unless i had funding guaranteed. that a master's won't save time is a little disappointing, but my undergraduate results are lacking enough that i'd still want the leg-up a master's would, i think, achieve.

i guess the thing to decide is whether a master's would be worthwhile in terms of other career prospects if i choose not to make myself a lifer in academia? which i'm edging towards thinking it is - i'd go into high school teaching, probably - or at least it's a small enough investment of time to be worth a shot.

also i am very confident i would enjoy it, as a thing to be spending my time doing, for a year. which is probably an important factor.

so gf officially applied to french phds, despite being far from 100% on the idea. partly to keep her (academic) mom happy, partly to have another option on the table. she should (?) have a good shot at her alma mater, which is one of the better schools in the field (apparently) but phd admission rates are pretty o_0, so who knows?

I keep telling her to ditch after 2 years and get a free masters out of it. there are worse ways to spend 2 years, surely.

thomp, if you do go the masters route, remember to try to work on getting a couple of academics to know your work (and ideally you/your plans) well enough to write strong letters of recommendation. they are looked at closely by applications committees for phds.

since i haven't done any applications and wouldn't hear anything until at least august anyway, i reaaaally have to work on dispelling dark thoughts about what having to miss out on a 2011/12 start beyond having missed the 2010/11 start would do to me.

so, two further things:

i. does anyone have any advice on contacting my old professors, other than being appreciative of their time and apologetic for how late i'm leaving this? it's been three years, now, since i graduated -- worried i might have missed the boat in terms of goodwill and in being well-enough-remembered

ii. am i right in thinking that, were i to look for a secondary school teaching position in the states, a master's would be better than a british teaching qualification? i also hold a TEFL qualification and will have some experience in this field by the time i'd be looking, though not a great deal

does anyone have any advice on contacting my old professors, other than being appreciative of their time and apologetic for how late i'm leaving this? it's been three years, now, since i graduated -- worried i might have missed the boat in terms of goodwill and in being well-enough-remembered

depends on circs, but you contact them by contacting them. i had a four year gap between graduating and applying for my phd (sans MA) and it went ok.

re: ii. my understanding is that a PGCE is worthless in the states, and the masters is only useful if it's in education. this might be bollocks though. i assume you've got the visa situation covered, because you won't get a H1-B to teach in schools.

hm otm wrt contacting old professors. I wasn't academically stellar at undergrad but my tutor wrote what was apparently a stellar letter of recommendation for my MS.

So what happens if you decide you did the wrong MA program and need/want to go back. Ugh. I can't imagine more school and have no idea how I'd pay for it but I think I really want to go to nursing school. :/

what was your MA in?

Women's Health. But it's an MA and was designed to address the sociological aspects of Women's Health with the aim of training researchers, policy analysts, advocates etc. but I was one of the fist 6 ppl the year the program began and we were total guinea pigs. The directors had no idea what they were doing and neither did we and, well, it sounded/s a lot better on paper than in reality. I don't have the hard skills necessary to compete for a lot of research positions esp when the other applicants (mostly MPH ppl) so have those. Also, I realize now that I'm really interested in the clinical aspect of Women's Health and really really want to become a NP with a specialization in Women's Health. There's a program here just for that and it sounds amazing. It's just . . . more school and more money and I'm getting old etc. Bah. Maybe I should just take some stats courses and go into research it's not really that appealing to me.

Kate - this is the program I'm interested in: http://www.mghihp.edu/academics/nursing/advanced-practice-nursing/nursing-specialties/adult-womens-health.aspx

I'd do the Direct-Entry Master of Science, Nursing (NP curriculum) track

I do research right now and I did clinical women's health for years and years. If I may make a recommendation: go to NP school and get your adult health specialization instead of your women's health. There are more jobs there and as a female practitioner, all the female patients will be punted to you anyway. If you get tired of the ladies, you'll still have options and that is the great thing about nursing.

...and if you do decide to go the NP route DO IT QUICKLY. The ANA is going to require PhDs of new NPs by 2015.

wow, why? (i don't know anything about the field; sorry if that's a dumb question!)

Good question HS. I'm interested as well.

Oh wow that's really good to know. That means I'd have to enter next fall. If I were to do that I'd be finished by the spring of 2014 which means I'd get in just under the wire. That program is dual Adult/Women's Health so I think that would work. Thank you! I may email you to ask some more specific stuff. :D

Short answers: degree creep and more money (for the universities, not the practitioners).

:(

Erica: I also really strongly suggest that you work in a clinical setting to get a feel for it and confirm that you don't hate it before you spend any more money and time. Planned Parenthood is always hiring, although the pay is shit.

Kate - I have worked in a clinical setting before, a family planning clinic and loved it. Like I said though I'll probably email you soon if you don't mind giving me some details from your experience.

Not PP but a clinic inside a major urban hospital.

whatever you do in grad-school learn some statistics, that shit is useful. (goes double for Eng Lit Phds)

I know some basic stuff and have used SPSS but what really seems to be in demand for what I'm interested in is SAS and I have no experience with it. :/

Stats is a required course for nurses.

I should hope so.

SAS is not difficult to pick up especially if you've used SPSS. It's conceptually pretty similar. They are really tight with their academic licensing so its not easy to get a copy to learn on. You can download a demo copy of JMP IIRC, which is the lovechild of SAS and Excel.

Right now I use R which is a lot like programming with punchcards, but its open source, free and the O'Reilly book for it has an Eagle on the cover so it makes a good solution until our Cognos/SPSS server is up and running.

whatever you do in grad-school learn some statistics, that shit is useful. (goes double for Eng Lit Phds)

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Wednesday, 1 December 2010 20:37 (17 minutes ago)

why do lit ppl need stats?

to be employable afterwards (boom-tish)

An exceedingly facetious comment, but it is a really useful skillset to have.

that was a serious question

like, yeah, generically useful....but not especially for lit ppl i'd have thought

just finished my phd thesis iirc

listened to cavalry cross (live) while it printed. very chilled out.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1126.snc4/148868_10150352619855305_673235304_15822375_1218999_n.jpg

oh my god, a side dock in the wild

congrats btw! lol british plug

:D awesome - congratulations!

congrats caek

nice!