Life keeps interrupting my blog.
5. Grad School
Anyone who has talked to me in the last 6 months will know that I can summarize grad school in one word: Overrated.
If I had a dollar for every article I have read about how grad school steals the soul and leaves people with a diminished self-esteem, I would have a lot of dollars.
Having said that, I will list the things I liked and hated about grad school.
Liked:
-Working in the lab (benchwork and analysis)
-Having days where you remember "This is why I went to grad school!"
-Getting paid
-Flexible hours and vacation
-Meeting other smart people, and brainstorming with them. Very rewarding feeling, to think that you might have helped someone have a mental breakthrough!
-The feeling you get when your peer review article is accepted for publication
-Working in a top-secret secure facility
-Traveling for scientific conferences
-Telling people I was working on my Ph.D.
-Coursework: Learning new things
-Finishing
-Graduating
-Being the proud owner of a Ph.D.
Hated:
-People asking "So, when are you going to graduate?"
-People asking "Are you going to analyze me?"
-Longest lab meetings in history, on Friday afternoons
-Decap days
-Grant writing
-Peer review: Anonymous comments breaking down your hard work and micromanaging every word of your manuscripts. I have gotten comments about my data "misleading", "adequate little study", "I suppose it is worthy of publication" among others that I can't remember off the top of my head. It is hard to draw the line between criticism of your data and criticism of YOU as the writer. I wonder if the reviewers make any distinction.
-Working at bizarre hours, especially on the weekends during gameday, and not being able to find a parking spot
-Taking courses where I learned new things, but not needing to use those things until months, if not years, later, when you can barely remember them
-No structure -- work at your own pace (especially with writing. you could say you were "Writing" for weeks on end and nobody would know you had been screwing around)
-No formal requirements -- every advisor had different ideas about what "done" is, and how much time you should be spending in the lab
-Figuring out halfway that your original career intent is no longer something you want for your life
-Defending
-Fearing the defense, based on others' horror stories
-Fearing committee members, especially those who belittled every idea you presented
-Competition for federal money
-Competition for who's going to graduate first
-Competing for advisor's time and attention
-Having a non-tenured advisor
-Trying to be married and have a family
-Coworkers who thought drinking/happy hour was the way to get to know people, especially when out of town at conferences. As someone who doesn't drink, I was not ostracized per se, but never part of the social group. (Also see: Being married and having a family) In fact, it hurts my feelings a bit to see pictures posted online from parties and weddings that I was not invited to.
-Having days where you thought "Why did I ever come to grad school?"
So, as you can see, it had its good moments and bad moments. In hindsight I'm not sure I would do it again, but I'm glad it's done. Now, having a Ph.D. is something I can have forever and it's an insurance policy against anything happening to my husband. But the last 3 years were some of the hardest in my life. The highs were very high, and the lows were very low. I can barely remember most of it, because I was under so much stress. Hopefully I'm a better (if not smarter) person for it, though.
I can't say I would recommend it to just anyone. My advice to anyone considering grad school would be to think long and hard about it -- not just in terms of the time you will spend on this, but what is it that you TRULY want to do? This was a question I could only answer vaguely when I began the program, and I think that is what caused me to lose sight of things toward the end, since my original plans of becoming a tenure-track college professor turned out to be something I did not want to do after I learned more about the lifestyle.
Well, enough about that...I have to work on my lecture for tomorrow. LOL.
Anyone who has talked to me in the last 6 months will know that I can summarize grad school in one word: Overrated.
If I had a dollar for every article I have read about how grad school steals the soul and leaves people with a diminished self-esteem, I would have a lot of dollars.
Having said that, I will list the things I liked and hated about grad school.
Liked:
-Working in the lab (benchwork and analysis)
-Having days where you remember "This is why I went to grad school!"
-Getting paid
-Flexible hours and vacation
-Meeting other smart people, and brainstorming with them. Very rewarding feeling, to think that you might have helped someone have a mental breakthrough!
-The feeling you get when your peer review article is accepted for publication
-Working in a top-secret secure facility
-Traveling for scientific conferences
-Telling people I was working on my Ph.D.
-Coursework: Learning new things
-Finishing
-Graduating
-Being the proud owner of a Ph.D.
Hated:
-People asking "So, when are you going to graduate?"
-People asking "Are you going to analyze me?"
-Longest lab meetings in history, on Friday afternoons
-Decap days
-Grant writing
-Peer review: Anonymous comments breaking down your hard work and micromanaging every word of your manuscripts. I have gotten comments about my data "misleading", "adequate little study", "I suppose it is worthy of publication" among others that I can't remember off the top of my head. It is hard to draw the line between criticism of your data and criticism of YOU as the writer. I wonder if the reviewers make any distinction.
-Working at bizarre hours, especially on the weekends during gameday, and not being able to find a parking spot
-Taking courses where I learned new things, but not needing to use those things until months, if not years, later, when you can barely remember them
-No structure -- work at your own pace (especially with writing. you could say you were "Writing" for weeks on end and nobody would know you had been screwing around)
-No formal requirements -- every advisor had different ideas about what "done" is, and how much time you should be spending in the lab
-Figuring out halfway that your original career intent is no longer something you want for your life
-Defending
-Fearing the defense, based on others' horror stories
-Fearing committee members, especially those who belittled every idea you presented
-Competition for federal money
-Competition for who's going to graduate first
-Competing for advisor's time and attention
-Having a non-tenured advisor
-Trying to be married and have a family
-Coworkers who thought drinking/happy hour was the way to get to know people, especially when out of town at conferences. As someone who doesn't drink, I was not ostracized per se, but never part of the social group. (Also see: Being married and having a family) In fact, it hurts my feelings a bit to see pictures posted online from parties and weddings that I was not invited to.
-Having days where you thought "Why did I ever come to grad school?"
So, as you can see, it had its good moments and bad moments. In hindsight I'm not sure I would do it again, but I'm glad it's done. Now, having a Ph.D. is something I can have forever and it's an insurance policy against anything happening to my husband. But the last 3 years were some of the hardest in my life. The highs were very high, and the lows were very low. I can barely remember most of it, because I was under so much stress. Hopefully I'm a better (if not smarter) person for it, though.
I can't say I would recommend it to just anyone. My advice to anyone considering grad school would be to think long and hard about it -- not just in terms of the time you will spend on this, but what is it that you TRULY want to do? This was a question I could only answer vaguely when I began the program, and I think that is what caused me to lose sight of things toward the end, since my original plans of becoming a tenure-track college professor turned out to be something I did not want to do after I learned more about the lifestyle.
Well, enough about that...I have to work on my lecture for tomorrow. LOL.