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

Yeah :-( I'd gone for 8.

F*ck, more exhausting shit. There are much worse supervisors than this, so I feel like a wimp for feeling at the end of my tether. Dying to vent (boring) details, maybe I should start a grad school 77 thread.

for gossip purposes i really want to know who your supervisor is even though its probably not anyone i have ever met or will ever meet

I will totally post on a wtf grad school thread on 77. Haven't started yet (still waiting to hear back from one of the two MSW programs to which I applied), but I have done this grad school think before and know I will need some wtf venting.

Created. Apologies for the boringness of my opening rant! Objectively it is really not so bad. I have a problem with disproportionate anger towards people I consider rude and disrespectful.

I'm about to pay tuition for next quarter's class after just finishing up THEE WORST QUARTER IN THEE WORST CLASS I've ever taken, which has prompted me to question whether I even want to keep going on in this program in favor of yet ANOTHER career change. UGH WHY CAN'T LIFE BE AN RPG.

And oh yeah the class I'm signing up for is 7:10AM, wtf.

^^^^that is so many levels of wrong I can't even get my head around it

http://christianityandvirtue.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/a-day-in-the-life-of-phd-in-theology/

i have no idea where to put this but i feel it needs to be shared.

people who show us how to live etc etc

augustine, academic monographs and journal articles, tolkien, pope poetry, vampire diaries, narnia

it's good that we've got such penetrating thinkers looking after our religious traditions

not to mention looking after his moustache

Augustine's tache was a right state, we're finally onto something here.

this is like 180 degrees from my grad school routine, both past (basic science research) and present (social work).

can I just

I mean this guy is really a retired person pretending to be a grad student, right?

seems like he has a nice submissive christian wife but they didn't even do it that day

yeah funny how he makes no mention of "preparing/cleaning up after" breakfast and dinner, and yet participates in the consumption of said meals.

seemingly he's in his mid 20s. kids today...

"interesting, albeit girl-oriented" is a phrase i'm gonna try running with.

the part where you watch tv is in generally pretty accurate though

who the fuck watches Buffy at 7 in the morning?

UK grad students have less coursework, no comps, and less or no TA obligations, right?

I'm just trying to make this make sense.

02:00

I weep hysterically over a seminar paper that was due 14 months ago.

an hour of that, ten hours of ILX, thirteen hours of sleep. Done and done.

No comps and generally nothing serious as far as coursework goes, Sund4r. TA obligations vary a lot but in the humanities probably the majority don't have any / they're all foisted on the few students in the department who have funding.

I mean this guy is really a retired person pretending to be a grad student, right?

seriously! i like that he sometimes bother to attends a seminar but only in the midafternoon and only if he's not too busy watching youtube

xp and I was gonna add that American students in the UK generally don't have internal funding, but then I realised I have no reason for thinking that he's American. Other than that even at our worst, we are not like this.

oh so he has a youtube account http://www.youtube.com/user/historicaldavid/videos?view=0

(Of course, he's American.)

tbh im sure ill enjoy this guys well-reviewed fantasy trilogy about a human rogue who fights dragons during the renaissance or w/e

I hope wifey has a good job because who is going to employ this guy if/when he ever graduates?

some religious school

oh dear god I just watched one of his videos

^^ as did I. good lord. my credulity strains to encompass his actuality. what is his point, other than smoking his pipe as poorly as I've ever seen a man smoke a pipe?

Inkling chic?

finding the account with so many videos felt like stumbling on a treasure trove, but they're pretty tough to watch. :'(

There are no such things as TAs in British Universities. All teaching and small group work is done by lecturers. The only exception is Oxford and Cambridge where there is an extensive one-on-one or one-on-two tutoring system, and grad students will often be involved in that. If grad students have funding in the UK (many do, but certainly not all, and less in the humanities… and the ratio is even less for non-EU students, which is a double whammy as their fees are usually 3 or 4 times higher), there are no responsibilities attached to it except to complete the PhD. It's a more traditional and rather less industrial system. As it is in mainland Europe. The priority is original research. Also good if you want time to make pipe videos, though, obviously.

I get angry and embarrassed when Americans make asses of themselves in a foreign land. Like, stop making people think we are all assholes.

I moved back to my home city (St. Louis) a couple months ago, and I'm working in the Media Center (equipment rental for students) at a small university in the area (this will be easy to figure out, I just don't want to be googled so I'm not mentioning the name). I'm part-time now, but my boss claims he's trying to get me bumped up to full-time.

I have a BA in Film and Video, with pretty bad grades (2.71 GPA, I was a complete idiot about homework as an undergrad). They offer an MA in Media Literacy, which is something I'm extremely interested in, but which I have very little hope for with regard to job prospects. It's a relatively cheap program, and I spoke to an advisor today, apparently I could apply tomorrow and would likely be accepted next week, starting class this summer (this is obviously not a program people are clamoring to get into). I don't get tuition remission now, but if the full-time thing ever happens, I won't have to pay anything. Teaching that exact subject to kids has been one of my ideal jobs for awhile now, but a search for "MA in Media Literacy" reveals only a few people, all of them, it seems, unemployed.

Is this a terrible idea? I honestly can't decide.

sounds terrible.

if you can't find multiple career areas in which you might turn your degree to your advantage w/o much coaxing or selling, or can't find a degree subject which is pretty much tied by definition to a line of work with a healthyish job market, i don't see how it's reasonable to place any hopes on (or spend money on) the degree, future-wise.

i think something a bit more computer-oriented or instruction-oriented might serve such purposes better than a program in media literacy.

Do you want to teach kids or university students?

(I think j. is basically right, though. This seems like the sort of thing where, if there are jobs teaching the subject, you might not need an MA in media literacy anyway.)

j: I share and agree with all of those concerns, but let me argue anyway: I literally could not get into a single computer-oriented grad program, and would not want to anyway because coding of any sort baffles and angers me. In a different world teaching high school would be awesome, but with NLCB/test-giving/basicallyfuckteachers being the stated policy of both parties for the foreseeable future, I can't imagine teaching unless I was teaching exactly what I wanted to study. I see this as, at the very least, a chance to do grad level work and prove, both to myself and potential future schools, that I can excel at it. I see very few other paths to post-secondary education for me, and despite how much I sucked at it when I was very young, drunk, and stoned, I really like school and I like this particular subject a lot.

Sund4r: Ideally university students, but having been in a relationship with a professor (whose four degrees and impeccable grades/work just barely got her a professorship), I know that that is completely impossible at this point in my life. That said, I like teaching kids and think I would be pretty good at it, especially if it was a subject that I care about and feel is important for people to learn at an early age.

I want to be clear without being overly negative: my transcripts and resume suck. I've bounced from city to city, doing mostly work in either unrelated fields or in film production, which at this point I want to actively avoid. I'm not in the position, right now, to convince anyone to let me teach anything. I can see that changing, however, if I do good work in a program like this. I know there are better degrees/schools, but I don't know how on earth I would convince them to let me in.

(p.s. thank you for giving learned advice and letting me argue with it)

n, i was actually thinking of fields like what i guess is called 'instructional design', under the auspices of or related to programs in education or pedagogy. they appear to be connected to the webification of higher (and presumably lower) education, and as far as i know they wouldn't involve the development (coding and such) side of computers so much as the implementation-and-applications side, in an environment that is going to involve a lot of video and audio media, the internet, etc.

So would you be able to work full time in the media center and also work on the MA and have 100% of tuition reimbursed? If so, and you're up for a ton of work,
I see no reason not to do it.

So happy this awful semester is almost over. Breadth requirement courses I hate + disastrous course I'm TAing + total lack of any intellectual or personal stimulation = serious disappointment.

j: I'm still uncomfortable, as I'm kind of a half-assed neo-luddite, but that doesn't sound completely terrible. I appreciate the thought and will ask around about similar programs. The other thing, though, is that, unless it was Portland and I had people moving with me, I do not want to relocate for at least a few years. My family and friends are here, parts of my life that I went without for a long time. Whatever St. Louis has to offer is what I'm looking at.

silby: No tuition benefit now, but if you believe my boss (I don't tbh), there will be sometime soon. However, the amount of work doesn't at all scare me. I'm basically one level above work-study students at this point, so no one would have any problem with me doing coursework while I'm on the clock, and even if they didn't, it's an easy job and I have plenty of free time currently.

i am a fully-funded phd student in a humanities subject and have realized i probably do not want the life of an academic. i do not know what else i would do, do not know if there are any better alternatives, and everyone else seems to be omgsograteful for the opportunity. i do not know where to turn. i love this subject, but i don't know if i want to know QUITE SO MUCH about it, and i do not have time for my boyfriend, friends, cooking, life, etc. lately i have found i have forgotten how to talk to people. instead i just talk at them and feel as though i have to have some original thesis on everyday topics before they can be considered interesting conversation. i get blank stares and i know i am just becoming more and more of a caricature. i am a bit drunk right now, yes, but i will not regret posting this as i do not have a reputation to uphold here as some of you seem to. xoxo.

some options:

(a) take the pay and the opportunity for sanctuary from 'life' and learn about things you want to, if you don't 'succeed', so what, you're in charge

(b) get a little official success (i.e. finish) and get out, start the rest of your life being able to point to a serious accomplishment that few people can point to

(c) get out now and capitalize on your insight into the importance of actual life

Are you still doing coursework now? I'll just add to that excellent summary that if you haven't got to the dissertation yet, it's worth keeping in mind that a PhD dissertation is a pretty serious commitment and requires quite a high level of self-motivation and (obv) solitary work. In the humanities at this time, the chance of all of this leading to a career in the field is not terribly high. It might be worth considering whether you will be able to make the commitment. You could start looking at other options now while you still have the security of grad funding and wait until you have something to leave for?

eaumaille, ime it gets better! students are young & feel the need to impress in convo, & their lives outside work feel unique: you feel like you need to build bridges in convo. but we age & then our lives all converge more (snowflakes melt) & we're more sure of who we are & then convos feel more natural.

I just returned from a weeklong conference in my area & had a great time, gave a couple of talks, made new friends, spent time with old friends. It gets better.

Plus you come to know not only how little you know about your area, but also how little others in your area do too! There's no mastery. So then there is space for other things in your life.