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

nice one, ed!

Holy shit I only just read below the fold in the email (damned blackberry) and I have a $9000 partial scolarship.

WOOT!!!! That will go far in Pittsburg. You could probably buy a house for that out there.

Holy shit indeed! At all of the following:

That acceptance now comes via the intertubes and not via snails.
$9K!

Pittsburgh rentals are even cheaper than Minneapolis ones AFAIK.

about $600 for a big 1 bedroom with full livingroom and a study knook.

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/images/00007R-54.jpeg

(congratulations, ed)

caek, is real letter?

xpost as long as you keep the LR and kitchen separate, WINNAH.

yes, it's real (but I was not the recipient): http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00007Q

that is how they roll

ed, what are you going there to study?

Engineering, Technology and Innovation Management a very interdisciplinary MS.

Two years?

1 year with a a summer internship, kind of wish it was 2 given the economic climate.

haha yes a lot of my peers from undergrad days have emailed me asking me if they should come back to uni to ride out the storm. good luck with the move and the school.

and congrats on the scholarship. presumably you don't have to pay fees with that $9k?

hahaha, no the $9 is offset against the $44k in fees so my fees will be a mere $35k.

good grief.

I wish you the very best in all things, but I honestly cannot imagine paying to go to grad school. (Unless this is one of those professional qualifications that will double your salary.)

It enables me to jump out of this dead end career and into something more lucrative, yes. Also I have not explored other avenues of financial aid yet (couldn't in most cases till I had an offer)

ah, all is well.

I have seen far worse episodes of this comic:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd092908s.gif

so i suppose i should be getting used to these four-hour sleep sessions (not really going to call it "going to bed" anymore)

caek why is letter dated 2000 for class of 2005?

"class of xxxx" means xxxx is the year you're due to finish in the U.S. and an undergrad degree takes four years by default.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh gotcha

of about four and a half hours' study so far today, around a third of it was reading some of the most appallingly badly presented, impenetrable and WTF-am-i-meant-to-take-this-seriously? bollocks i've ever come across. i ain't putting up with two years of this nonsense, that's for certain :(

Why do you think I left!

i'd say i'm looking forward to sleeping in the library again but i actually don't know if i'm getting any sleep tonight!

Rrowr!

Surviving?

1 more month!! sort of.

ok not really.

Yay tza!

Could those of you in school say why you chose what you're studying and if it's working for you so far?

well, i was right

i've never given a presentation on more than 24 hours w/o sleep before, stoked to see how it's gonna go!! :D

i have - you'll be brilliant!

i am studying performing arts management (most people have no idea what this is) - basically i have learned every aspect of running an arts organization (development, marketing, p.r., general management (commercial and not-for-profit), labor relations, entertainment law, finance, etc.). i feel very knowledgeable and secure in my skills as a leader, but it's a difficult field to break into and, in the end, generally more about who you know than what you know. my professional network has grown exponentially in the past 2 years. i would not have my current job if not for connections made from this program, but i'm still not at the job level i was told i'd be at this point in the program when i initially interviewed with my adviser. part of this is because of the economy, part of this is because i think my adviser is overly optimistic (though in the past, people at my stage in the program have had better jobs). regardless, i make less money now than i did before i entered grad school (but that was not a job in this field), but i like the direction i'm heading and feel like once my thesis is done, i could apply my knowledge to other industries (not that i necessarily want to). basically the "is it working?" question is a very, very difficult one to answer!

the economy sucks for the arts right now, also for everything

yes, i am aware of this.

It will improve. Don't worry. And the fact that you think you've learned skills which are portable will surely help.

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