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

interesting about germany. when my dad lived in holland official institutions addressed his mail as 'Rt Hon' Mr Mc.

ph. tl;dr

It's a bit of a weird rant, but he makes a couple of good points. Like caek mentioned, in Germany it's a lot more normal to show off your doctorate outside of work, so it's not like the writer's suggestions are all that crazy, it's more of an indictment of US/Can/UK attitudes toward Ph.D.'s.

thinkin baout this

http://iat.ubalt.edu/IDIA/

also thinkin baout this

http://www.id.iit.edu/prospective-students/programs-and-applications/master-design-mba/

I would try and get in contact w/ people in the programs and see what the job placement is like

first one has a pretty heft price tag, eh?

word is that the ubalt program has a ridiculously high job placement percentage, people at this meetup i went to the other night were bandying around phrases like "near 100%"

first one has a pretty heft price tag, eh?

― iatee, Wednesday, September 14, 2011 5:18 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark

second one much more so tbh!

lol that they have a "hypermedia proficiency exam" imo

ha I was looking for it and couldn't find it.

I would look some recent grads up on linkedin/facebook and get a first-hand perspective. 'near 100%' can be very misleading w/ these type of things.

oops I was looking at the 2nd one's price

yeah iit's price is................prohibitive

exploitative

ot$

do people here subscribe to the chronicle of he? i feel like i read enough articles for it to be "worth it" and part of faking it until i make it.

lol that they have a "hypermedia proficiency exam" imo

fucking hell

not having a good day of it generally but

it's actually p sensible when you look at it, it's just

how's your t going?

im actually crushing it so hard right now

but also having to face up to the fact that i cannot now function in society

lol rip

good luck

maybe do a couple of mfas next?

the world needs writers

my employment record says otherwise

last week i discovered i no longer had an office :/

do not think i am currently 'crushing it'

hoos i would... be hesitant... to do either of those programs w/o a v clear picture of what you want to get out of them

I don't read the Chronicle; it never occurs to me to do so. Occasionally a colleague will forward a snippet but o/w it doesn't seem to bear on my day-to-day or long-term plans. That being said, it might be interesting to start reading it! Maybe I will have a look.

for no particular reason, here's Euler's handy guide to whether you're gonna get a tenure-track job, in order of importance:
1) your advisor thinks you're "The One", or at least one of "The Ones" (if you don't understand this, then no, your advisor doesn't think this, so never mind)
2) you have a really extraordinary idea or result that has people other than your advisor *really* excited, & ready to write / work the phones / chat up buds on your behalf
3) you stand out for personal / cultural reasons in a way that is going to benefit an institution, e.g. affirmative-action or religious reasons

Otherwise I'd keep the CV polished for industry jobs.

This is all based on years of actually getting jobs & serving on search committees. My experience is only with research universities, fwiw.

lol i'm fucked

the # of tenure track positions to phds ratio varies widely by the field tho

im The One

euler otm if you want a job at a research 1 institution, but i hope not otm if you want a job at a PUI/liberal arts place, which is what i'm aiming at.

pua/liberal arts school

for a liberal arts college 2) doesn't matter as much, but 1) can still break the game open---being "The One" can vary here, though: it's not *just* about research prowess, but maybe "the whole package". It's good to have a teaching award on the CV.

I think personal connections matter a lot for those smaller jobs, though. maybe pedigree too: everyone likes a famous sounding school name on their webpage.

i think my research is going reasonably well, just not all the quickly. ive never been aiming for a tenure track position tho and ive already had calls from interesting/'relevant' ngos about my work so im p secure there, its just making it through the next few years

I read a book before going to grad school called something like Getting What You Came For in which the author indicated that Ph.D. students regularly experience stress levels significantly higher than those experienced by someone whose spouse has died. My spouse hasn't died so I can't say for sure, but I can say that The Fear of those years really changed me. Keep your head up, Lamp: it's really hard to understand the anxiety of feeling like it's not working, but I know it.

yeah i think realistically i will be trading on "oxford" to some extent at the LA colleges

it's my gf's first year and that def seems true...just a few weeks in, everyone is in over their heads. xp

lamp did you check out "a phd is not enough"? despite the bleak title it's actually pretty refreshing.

i shd clarify that 'crushing it' is more stressful and horrible than the other thing

yeah the first year of grad school was the worst year of my life: the first time I really felt like I wasn't good enough, & that since school was the only thing I was ever *really* good at it, that I was gonna have to cope with being a mediocrity. & then things worked out! but I wasn't ever the same

& I've seen people with The Fear & known that actually it wasn't working & wasn't gonna work, they just didn't have It.

oh it's so fucking maudlin but otoh for the most part the people who enroll in doctoral programs have their self-image tied to their academic success so in a way maybe it is like dealing with mortality as you write & work & write & work & *jealousy* & maybe I can't do this? & etc.

maybe it is like dealing with mortality as you write & work & write & work & *jealousy* & maybe I can't do this? & etc.

you certainly have to deal with mortality, finitude, and all that -- idk what it's like with science but with my thing in the end you have to tie a bow round it before you feel ready. civilians have to confront those things too i think, though.

the people who enroll in doctoral programs have their self-image tied to their academic success so in a way maybe it is like dealing with mortality as you write & work & write & work & *jealousy* & maybe I can't do this? & etc.

painfully otm

caek i have it at home but i havent read it

my first year was p bad tbh and i really considering quitting. partly because i felt like i had left a job that, even if i didnt particularly like it, i was clearly ~good at~ and that paid well for a 'job' that barely left me enough to feed myself and that i felt unprepared for. haha it did get better tho! and i think its sorta good to hit that wall but man, ugh

I'm experiencing this all through her but some things that're already particularly weird:

a. all the people who drop out and just become orwellian non-entities
b. the (very small) 'ladder faculty' vs (very large) non-ladder faculty caste system

i got into doing mine gradually -- it's nominally part-time and i guess it was, once -- and my self-image is bound up in other shit. so in that respect it was ok. but it was too big, we had too much money, too much equipment and little by little we went insane [via unkle].

hey lamp,

my interest in U Balt's program is in getting the formalized training & credential to get into the world of info architecture & ux design.

my interest in IIT's program is in the ux subfield b/w the entrepreneurial thinking/connections the dual MBA would get me.

the only reason U Balt ~isn't~ my #1 choice is because they don't also want to give me an MBA for my time.

but yeah i'd def be doing a master's project (as vs. a thesis) to make sure i was making connex irl

considering going back to do journalism or economics. Discourage me.

define "do"

journalism? don't pay upfront.

or is this a clever joke? i'll study journalism or economics... there's something there idk.