Welcome to Grad School!
Back by popular demand! I wrote this last semester, during the thesis proposal writing season. At the time I was also struggling to understand why two grad classes could be so much harder than five undergrad classes. I have yet to find anyone who can provide a reasonable explanation for this, but let me reassure anyone considering grad school that it is true.
Maybe the professors' expectations are higher; maybe it's the feeling of trepidation that accompanies the knowledge that any grade under 80% is a fail and could cause a scholarship to be revoked? Either way, I took it upon myself to write the "Introduction to Grad School...but Hopefully Not." In short, if you're in grad school, you can probably relate. And if your;e not in grad school...get a job. Really.
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Introduction to Grad School...but Hopefully Not (aka USOCS and GSB)
So, you think grad school is for you? You’ve been through your undergrad degree, breezed along getting good grades and now you can’t get a job. So why not kill two years and get additional higher education? After all, if you can handle five, or even six, undergrad classes, it’ll be easy enough to deal with the two insignificant grad classes each semester.
Congratulations, you have “Undergraduate Scholastic Over-Confidence Syndrome” (USOCS – pronounced u-socks). Symptoms of USOCS include:
- a desire to pursue years more school (you fool)
- an apathetic attitude regarding “real work”
- Thinking: “writing a thesis can’t be that hard, it’s just like writing 10 essays all in a row” (don’t have a clue do you?)
- Thinking: I get paid to go to school! (Can you say: pittance?)
- Delusions of skill level (my supervisor won’t make me re-write anything; I got an A in English 12 so I know how to write an essay; of course I’ll be done in a year; I’ve done labs, my own research will be easy…)
- Delusions of self-importance (I’ll get to be the evil TA and fail them all now!)
If any 2 of the above symptoms describe you, make an appointment to see your academic advisor (to cancel your grad plans) and get going on job interviews immediately. If you don’t find a job right away, you run the risk of getting accepted to grad school and developing Grad School Burnout (GSB).
Signs you’re got Grad School Burnout (GSB)
1. Your friends call to ask you how you’ve been and you immediately scream, “get off my back, bitch!”
2. You are basing your studying schedule for comprehensive exams or defense around the fact that you “might” die before the test. You can always get hit by a bus right?
3. If you hear someone say, “rewrite this section” again, you just may have to jump off the nearest bridge.
4. Cleaning, emailing, blogging and other forms of procrastination have become perfected art forms.
5. Pajamas and a hair scrunchee are your daily uniform and you've discovered you can subsist on Ritz crackers and pop.
6. You talk in acronyms and shorthand and actually think people understand you
7. Visions of the upcoming weekend help you make it through Monday.
8. When the fire alarm goes off in your building, you perk up excitedly because 1) you get to go outside; 2) there is a legitimate chance your work may be lost forever and it won’t be your fault.
9. You instinctively reference everything you say.
10. You destroyed your planner in a fit of rage/frustration, but you still can’t miss a class or a deadline.
11. You think your brain might implode and your eyes will start bleeding if you read another journal article.
12. You write a critical review of a paper that isn’t really critical, but you don’t care.
13. The drunken Thursday nights of your undergraduate career are a distant dream because you can’t afford to lose a day of studying to a hangover.
14. When you’re marking essays as a TA you have to take frequent breaks since all you can think is “kill me now”, or “even a trained monkey could construct a more coherent sentence”. This is even better when you’re writing these things on the essays.
15. You think about how relaxing it would be if you were in jail right now.
AND you take out your frustration by writing lists of your current habits and preoccupations.
Maybe the professors' expectations are higher; maybe it's the feeling of trepidation that accompanies the knowledge that any grade under 80% is a fail and could cause a scholarship to be revoked? Either way, I took it upon myself to write the "Introduction to Grad School...but Hopefully Not." In short, if you're in grad school, you can probably relate. And if your;e not in grad school...get a job. Really.
********************************************
Introduction to Grad School...but Hopefully Not (aka USOCS and GSB)
So, you think grad school is for you? You’ve been through your undergrad degree, breezed along getting good grades and now you can’t get a job. So why not kill two years and get additional higher education? After all, if you can handle five, or even six, undergrad classes, it’ll be easy enough to deal with the two insignificant grad classes each semester.
Congratulations, you have “Undergraduate Scholastic Over-Confidence Syndrome” (USOCS – pronounced u-socks). Symptoms of USOCS include:
- a desire to pursue years more school (you fool)
- an apathetic attitude regarding “real work”
- Thinking: “writing a thesis can’t be that hard, it’s just like writing 10 essays all in a row” (don’t have a clue do you?)
- Thinking: I get paid to go to school! (Can you say: pittance?)
- Delusions of skill level (my supervisor won’t make me re-write anything; I got an A in English 12 so I know how to write an essay; of course I’ll be done in a year; I’ve done labs, my own research will be easy…)
- Delusions of self-importance (I’ll get to be the evil TA and fail them all now!)
If any 2 of the above symptoms describe you, make an appointment to see your academic advisor (to cancel your grad plans) and get going on job interviews immediately. If you don’t find a job right away, you run the risk of getting accepted to grad school and developing Grad School Burnout (GSB).
Signs you’re got Grad School Burnout (GSB)
1. Your friends call to ask you how you’ve been and you immediately scream, “get off my back, bitch!”
2. You are basing your studying schedule for comprehensive exams or defense around the fact that you “might” die before the test. You can always get hit by a bus right?
3. If you hear someone say, “rewrite this section” again, you just may have to jump off the nearest bridge.
4. Cleaning, emailing, blogging and other forms of procrastination have become perfected art forms.
5. Pajamas and a hair scrunchee are your daily uniform and you've discovered you can subsist on Ritz crackers and pop.
6. You talk in acronyms and shorthand and actually think people understand you
7. Visions of the upcoming weekend help you make it through Monday.
8. When the fire alarm goes off in your building, you perk up excitedly because 1) you get to go outside; 2) there is a legitimate chance your work may be lost forever and it won’t be your fault.
9. You instinctively reference everything you say.
10. You destroyed your planner in a fit of rage/frustration, but you still can’t miss a class or a deadline.
11. You think your brain might implode and your eyes will start bleeding if you read another journal article.
12. You write a critical review of a paper that isn’t really critical, but you don’t care.
13. The drunken Thursday nights of your undergraduate career are a distant dream because you can’t afford to lose a day of studying to a hangover.
14. When you’re marking essays as a TA you have to take frequent breaks since all you can think is “kill me now”, or “even a trained monkey could construct a more coherent sentence”. This is even better when you’re writing these things on the essays.
15. You think about how relaxing it would be if you were in jail right now.
AND you take out your frustration by writing lists of your current habits and preoccupations.
posted by Lisa at
4:17 p.m.
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