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

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.

study for a masters at yknow a proper uni like tcd or ucd. Coming from a bachelor of business from a shitty rural college that's not worth dick. Have public sector job but no permanent contract, brain turning to mush, cost of masters in ireland not prohibitive

sounds like the one about the brain surgeon who decides to become a historian and vice versa, except they are both historians

well i mean i'm btwn two courses i'd be interested in, or, yknow, IT and shoot me now tbh

yeah if I were in Europe I'd be in grad school, go for it ps not in journalism

yeah if it's a 1 year taught masters and the fees are irish (not racist) and you don't like what you're doing then there's not a huge opportunity cost here

journalist seems a nice job i'm sure they'll be hiring again next year right? Right?

darragh again i think its important to consider what you want to get out of it? like at least in the states an economics ma/ph.d is p employable but youre probably only getting ~value~ from a top 20 school, otherwise there are better specialized programs (like an mfe) that will help more w/ employability

also you'll prob have to work for the bad guys tbh

go i would work for the bad guys in a heartbeat if i were 5-10 years younger. do it while you can.

god

well i dunno if hibernia has any good guys left but i know a guy in ibm says he can get me an interview how's that on the scale.

my end result ranges from teaching (at any level) to becoming the darling of irish intelligentsia and usurping e dunphy or w/e

nah IBM's not 'the bad guys'

go i would work for the bad guys in a heartbeat if i were 5-10 years younger. do it while you can.

― a fake wannabe trying to be a pimp (history mayne), Thursday, 15 September 2011 17:46 (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol yeah my window of opportunity is closing fast. once you've got a couple of years of postdoc on your cv that "start on 100k" ship has pretty much sailed i think.

i wonder if they still give those jobs to any one with a good degree and the ability to solve differential equations

i mean this is pretty much the ultimate first world problem, but the main thing that worries me about going the finance route is i know so many people who said "i'll do it for a couple of years and then may my movie/write my book" whatever, but you get used to this standard of living or, even worse, you take out a mortgage, and then you're trapped. nearly 10 years later, none of them left. (although tbf one has retired.)

xp, they do.

yeah tbh i've done a couple years out of college and am no nearer to writing that book or making 100k so i mean either way

don't do it caek!!!

in quant the salaries are big, but they're not "never work again" big afaict.

i did get cold called a couple of times when i was in the uk, ca. 2007 (so pre-lehman bros). guys would ask me about diff. eqns, what languages i knew, and starting salaries which sounded pretty good to me. i don't think the cold-calling is back, but the jobs are totally still there.

yeah i mean if i did it it would be because it became clear in the next year or two that academia wasn't going to work out via not being the one. fingers crossed. my main concern is in 3 years time i take "maybe" for an answer, and then by the time i'm 40 i'm fucked.

fwiw i worked in finance for a p long time and ended up hating it and quitting, it does happen. i mean i was p young tho too, which makes it easier to walk away from the security/money

xp - yeah when i was in finance recruiting was p aggressive, big signing bonuses &c &c i had sorta assumed the market was less 'frothy' atm tho

i kind of wish my tenure review was next year so i knew one way or the other

you should just take the plunge, embezzle a few billion and then chill out in st. kitts for the rest of yr life