S. Worthen | Weblog

Grad school is wretched, and most people I've met agree. I think peoples' experience ranges from okay/mediocre for the lucky ones and soulblastinglyhellish for the non-lucky ones. I'm somewhere in the middle. My biggest gripes include...

-still depending on the criticism/grading of others but expected to be independent (contradictory much?)
-having no visibile increase of status or income over 5-7 years
-a growing emphasis on product and time-completed over process
-in the 'studying for large exam' and 'preparing giant document' phases, having no actual day-to-day goals and accomplishments
-the rush to secure funding, coupled with the limitation of only being able to do so much (in most cases, you can't make a lateral move to another program if your funding runs out, like you _can_ do if a job is getting annoying or if you're laid off)
-not having most people understand what the hell you're doing or why you're doing it

Of course, there are things I love about grad school. I'm paid, however little, to sit around and read things that I think ought to be read. And if the gamble works out, a professorial job will be awesome (and solve many of the above problems). I'd much rather be a grad student than, well, anything else I could choose, and definitely more than all the things that people who don't have a choice have to do. But still, there are things about it that make people pretty grim.

I'd say that the two year MA I did was the best time of my life. University wasn't all that much fun, and high school was much worse. But my MA was in coastal, southern California (remember, I come from Alberta), and entire vistas of scholarship, intellectual purpose, and validation opened up to me.

It was the Ph.D. that made me feel dejected sometimes.

There were parts of grad school that were wonderful, but those are the same things we get when we're out of grad school: the cameraderie, the great conversation with colleagues, the reading as work (except that it's far harder when out of grad school unless you land a research job), the bitching about student writing ...

And then there's the continued feelings of fraud (except that you now have a degree to prove that you fooled everybody -- or is that just me?), feeling overwhelmed and overcommitted (except that you now pretty much do it to yourself) ... but also, the having people pay for your travel, the part where you know you finished, the (with any luck) employment.

Me? I occasionally miss the relative safety and protection of Doktorvater, but it's nowhere near the fun of being out there without a net. Not that I haven't done my best to create one so that I can't fall without trying really hard!

My MA was hellish to the max - I realize now that Toronto's expectations were stunningly unrealistic in terms of workload, (a ONE year MA - four courses done concurrently when in my PhD I did 2 per term and found that challenging). The PhD was fun at first - course work was terrific, comps were okay - reading list was interesting, exams and viva hellish but MAJOR sense of accomplishment afterwards. Dissertation... hell, largely due to supervisor difficulties which I gather are not uncommon. You also get so fed up with people who are by this time effectively your peers treating you as a "student" - in my case, I'm a mature student and had been teaching in a community college for years, and actually had more teaching experience than my diss supervisor...

People who say that high school is the best time of their lives are sick, sick, sick, and untrustworthy to boot. I will have nothing to do with such freaks of nature who were laughing gleefully while I was being mercilessly mocked and shunned.

I have to say, grad school is probably the best time in my life. College was miles better than high school, and grad school has been, on the whole, excluding various life difficulties that really have nothing to do with the experience of grad school itself, leagues better than college. And I think that has to do with being in a place where my skills, interests, and strengths are valued and recognized, rather than denigrated and mocked, and also continuing to mature and become more settled in who I am.

But as to the general question, as to why so many more people prefer college to grad school (again, feh, I spit on people who enjoyed high school), I think it has to do with time of life. Many of us were miserable in high school, which is a time when hormones run unchecked and people are not fully socialized yet. And grad school often takes place during adulthood--one cannot be so carefree as many middle-class college kids are, because one is more concerned with taking care of oneself, worrying about the future, financial concerns, and planning families. Finally, in grad school, the heady freedoms of college--being able to do what you want without your parents looking over your shoulder--are more or less de rigeur, and thus no longer carry euphoria with them.

My first three years or so of grad school were really my best, I hadn't discovered self doubt yet. My dissertation is definately challenging me, but mostly in a good way (I just keep telling myself this...). Sometimes I think I would like to experience college again with the self-confidence and focus I have now. I'm certainly more comfortable in social situtations now than I was as an undergraduate.

Grad school was the best time of my life (so far). Hands down, no question. I spent my entire childhood wanting to be in graduate school, just for its own sake, and I was not disappointed. But then, I am a very weird person.

*sigh* well, I guess it all depends on whether or not that person is lucky enough to be studying in a supportive and friendly environment. Unfortunatly, it seems that the majority of graduate programs aren't necessarily like that.
Teacher tend to be supportive to undergrads but once the line is crossed into graduate studies your on your own or your out. At least that was how it was for me.