Recent bit of conversation:
Me: Aw, crap.
J-man: What?
Me: I've been in college for nine years. I'm in 21st grade.
Yep, that's the size of it. Ten years ago I my highest academic aspiration was to go to the best state university my state had to offer. Now I'm four and a half years through a PhD program in a neighboring state, contemplating a second master's degree while I finish the PhD.
Is it all worth it? The master's degree(s), yes. The PhD, I'm not sure.
Alyssa at Apple Pie and the Universe posted an Economist article about "why doing a PhD is often a waste of time." She nicely highlights some of the main points of the article, mostly focusing on what's wrong with academia. I'd like to draw attention to part of the solution:
There is an oversupply of PhDs. Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things. [emphasis mine]
I've been confused by the seemingly conflicting views that academia produces too many and too few PhDs. That seems impossible, unless the sources of these criticisms are different. Academics say too many, businesses say too few. The solution? Train PhDs to work in business, not just academia!
I am not the only grad student in my department who does not aspire to follow in our advisors' footsteps. However, my training so far has perfectly groomed me to become a researcher and has made me fairly certain that I don't want to be a researcher (or professor at a research university). Almost daily I question the personal benefit of what I'm doing, but I figure I have a year or year and a half left so I may as well finish. It probably won't close any doors and may even open a few.
During the time I have left, I have to cobble together supplementary education to make myself marketable outside the academy. I have no solid mentors (so far), only a smattering of people whose personal interests I feel I have to account for when I receive advice from them.
Maybe my inexperience in post-secondary education is making this more difficult than it needs to be. My undergrad self was certainly not as well-informed as she could have been. Or perhaps this is a failing of the PhD training grounds. Perhaps there just isn't much support for those looking outside the traditional career tracks.
I'd like to call attention to a great post by Cherish over at Faraday's Cage: The happiest grad students.
It's an interesting idea that the happiest grad students are employees elsewhere. Most grad students I know are the traditional sort for whom being a grad student is school and job. Most of them are jaded after a few years. In my office I'm surrounded by disparaging comments about classes, research, and academia in general. Most of us seem to look not to our jobs for satisfaction, but to everything else in our lives. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, our job as students seems more like a trial than professional fulfillment. If we can withstand several years, our vocational horizons broaden and we never have to go back.
I cannot speak to being a grad student while employed elsewhere because I have seen very few examples of that. Those I have seen have been at a distance. The students are rarely seen around the department. It seems nice, but I've never been sure if it is a grass-is-greener case. At least I'd have better pay and insurance (probably).
Do you agree with Cherish's assessment? Why?
It's official: I'm staying in grad school at least one more semester. I'm submitting a paper with my adviser early next week, then submitting my fellowship renewal. If next semester goes well, I'll just finish grad school. If it doesn't... well, I'll have to face that later. I'll assume for now that it will go well. At least I've learned about academic bureaucracy through this whole process.
In order to do what I can to have a productive semester, I intend to make it fun. I will make fun in my research life, my non-research academic life, and my personal life.
Research is still a question mark. I need to do something related to my proposal, but it does not have to follow it to the letter. In my last post I mentioned that education and outreach may be a good supplement to keep me interested in my research. I don't know how to do that specifically, but I will definitely think about it over the holiday break. Any ideas from the peanut gallery? If I make research fun, I will have no problem completing my PhD.
I'm registered fifth-semester German and third-semester Spanish. I miss languages, so it'll be nice to work with them again. I'm not too concerned about the classes' difficulty because I catch on to languages pretty quickly. I'm also taking a hydrology class. Hydrology will be a new subject for me. I hope it will give me a better sense of nature as a system. Most of my classes only touch on the atmosphere's relationship to the rest of the Earth system.
Making my personal life fun is (for once) the easy part. Jujitsu, biking, cooking, friends... easy :).
Welcome, everyone, to 2010! I hope your holidays went well.
2009 closed just the way I hoped it would: quiet, happy, with friends and family. I didn't even attempt work over the holidays, so I feel much refreshed on that front.
My biggest challenge last semester was that I didn't know where I was going or why I should care about my work. I wasn't sure I wanted to follow the professor path anymore, and I'm still not sure of that. But, I think I figured out a way to continue with grad school while exploring other options. It's at least worth a try. I should also get back to my motivational program from October. That was a good idea.
If I don't want to be a professor or researcher, why do I need a PhD? Maybe I don't, but it's not going to hurt. The experience of finishing a huge project can apply to myriad jobs. I'm particularly interested in science writing. I've always liked writing, and it's obvious that I like science enough to attempt a PhD. I also see poor or non-existent communication between scientists and the rest of the world. Perhaps I can make a real difference there.
I'm a little disappointed that I didn't try for a journalism degree in undergrad, but that would have added another year and another ~$17k in loans. I have enough school debt as it is. I'm not sure I can take J-school classes here, either. Most of them are reserved for journalism majors. (Why is that, by they way? It was the same in undergrad.) I emailed the teacher of an undergrad science writing course in a different department to see if the course would be useful to me. He suggested it'd be more useful to get an old journalism book and practice on my own since I already (presumably) know how to write. The Idiot's Guide to Journalism isn't exactly a textbook, but it's a start. And it cost me less than five dollars.
Here's my plan. I'll keep working on the PhD and try my darnedest to get the prelim out of the way before next fall semester starts. Then I'm not required to take any classes the rest of the time I'm in school. That will either free me to take whatever classes I want (whether or not they are related to my field) or to leave Uni-town altogether. I can treat PhD research more or less like a normal job, maybe even give myself a time sheet (that probably wouldn't last very long, but it's a funny idea). Then I can schedule at least a few hours a week to work on science writing type stuff. Those add to maybe 50-60 hours/week? If I decide science writing is not for me, I can easily replace it with something else and use the same general framework.
If my mom can handle a full-time job and two tech-school classes on top of normal life, I should be able to make this work, right? I just need a little more self-discipline than she does since I have much less accountability for my time and progress. Maybe a more quantitative plan... next post? We shall see.
My sudden absence again was due to a family camping trip. Besides the dead car battery in the middle of the trip, it was rather unexciting: two days of driving for four days of camping. I did enjoy getting out of town for a bit and getting some reading done.
During the four days of actual camping, I read quite a bit. I finished a book about scientist-mothers, Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory. While I probably won't do actual lab work, these mothers' stories contain useful compromises and warnings for my future. Between that and Mama, PhD, I've gotten a good reality check on the benefits and challenges of career and family. I highly recommend both of them.
I have not, in fact, disappeared off the face of the Earth. I just finished my seminar and a literature review for an NSF-style proposal that is the semester project for my class.
The seminar is an oddly justifiable and valuable means of torture. I spent three weeks working 12-15 hours most days leading up to the seminar. The house went to hell, my sleep went to hell, and I may have told the kitties to go to hell at some point.
I've never been very comfortable speaking to large groups, nor very good at it. Somehow, this seminar was amazingly successful. I got good ratings from the group at large and a couple of people even commented that it would shame most conference talks and many invited seminars. Maybe I can do this scientist thing after all.
After all the stress of preparing the seminar, studying for the qual, and immediately having to write a literature review for my class (due today), I am again questioning my intended career path. A large research university seems to fit my skills and interests best as far as the balance between teaching and research, but I'm not sure I want the pressure to perform and publish that comes with that job.
I still want to teach and do research, so I don't think I want to work at a teaching university. (I understand that professors at teaching universities still do research, but I think I'd rather it be a more explicit and significant part of my job.) I don't want to be a researcher because that tends to remove teaching. Maybe a researcher who does a lot of outreach? Or maybe I can still do this professor thing after all, too.
How does grad school compare to being a professor as far as stress and time consumption? And where's that advisor of mine?
A-proposing we will go, a-proposing we will go,
Hi-ho the funding-o, a-proposing we will go
During a student discussion with a faculty candidate, it came out that undergraduate mentors often help their students navigate their way to grad school. How prevalent is this? What exactly do advisors do to help their students? Some students even have the advantage of having parents in academia. How much of a benefit do both these provide?
Yah, I know. I fail some more at NaBloPoMo. But at least it's reminding me more often to post something.
I've somewhat regained my brain, I think. In my department, there is this thing called a thesis agreement that is supposed to be submitted before you start any significant research. It outlines a project that the student and advisor agree is reasonable for a master's degree. It is intended to protect the student from added expectations and the advisor from a slacker student.
I'm in my second year of the master's program and expect to finish by August 2009 (then continue directly into a PhD). My thesis agreement is still not submitted. I just sent a draft of it to my advisor this afternoon.
This may seem like a problem since it conflicts with the departmental guidelines. However, it is not an issue at all. From what I've heard, most students don't submit their thesis agreements on time. I'm comparatively on-the-ball.
That seems to be the way in academia...
