RunnerGrad

Dear Professors,
If you were to informally canvass your retired predecessors and ask them what the most rewarding experiences of their life were, none of them will answer with the hundreds of hours they sat per week in front of a computer by themselves in an office. I suspect they're all male because a certain sex is more predisposed to take responsibility for supervising children should people actually try and have a family, which puts them at a productivity disadvantage relative to the other sex. You'll be getting 40 hours a week, up to 60 depending on special circumstances involving rigid, uncontrollable deadlines. If placement is so difficult following graduation, perhaps the field as a whole should be ponzi scheming training less Ph.D.s and using the leftover money to pay its graduate students a reasonable salary.
Thanks,
Students

P.S. lol@$20,000 annual salary for 100 hours of work a week. Shame on you.

Everyone focuses on the 80-100 hours per week, but the way I read the letter is not that they're expecting that from everyone, but that's what a lot of them did, and why.

They even mention it being well doable with under 60 hours per week if you have constraints on your time.

I think it's also worth pointing out that this is a top-tier program, and they're likely indicating what is necessary to stay at the top of the field.

It's interesting (to me) that when musicians, artists and athletes are consumed by their work and are at the top of the field, we think the dedication is admirable. But when we talk about academics and researchers who are, or are shooting for, the top of their field having their research dominate their life, we think it's a horrible thing.

Personally, I thought the letter was well written, and explained expectations without undue pressure.And unlike many top programs in the sciences, while 80-100 hours was mentioned, it was also clearly stated that the hours aren't as important as the productivity. Many other programs seem to hold the opinion that if you're being very productive at 60 hours, you'd be even more productive at 100.

Also, in response to Emmm, they're saying 80-100 hours per week of time put in. Not 80-100 hours per week in the lab, or even at school. Most people I know that quote times like that are also counting time at home reading papers and writing in the evenings in addition to more "normal" days at work.

I had to work 100+ weeks in my past life as a resident (worst period of my life), and while it is *technically* do-able, it is not in any way, shape, or form healthy. I had to learn how to keep compulsive checklists because my memory was unreliable due to exhaustion and my mind tried to play tricks on me to convince me my work was done when it wasn't. It was really weird feeling as though I could not trust my "memories" and it's something I never experienced before or since that period. When your mind and body desperately need sleep, I guess weird things do happen. Also, I frequently had trouble staying awake while driving home, and I switched my route to one that was pretty deserted (country backroads), so that if I hit something, it would most likely be a tree and I hopefully wouldn't kill anyone other than myself. I was too caught up in the residency "experience" to realize that this was not a healthy solution to the problem. So, ANY program that thinks you should be there 80-100 weeks or more is insane and abusive, in my opinion.

So, to translate:

"We give you so much work that you don't have time to do your own research. The problem, of course, is that you are not working hard enough. Moreover, we do not trust that you are actually working all the time when you are at home, so you need to be spending 16-hour days in the lab. Every day. Every week. Never you mind that everyone exaggerates how much work they do/how little sleep they get in retrospect, because we live in an effed-up culture where it's cool not to sleep, to be a workoholic, to brag about how horrid your life is, to brag about how horrid the weather in your city is, etc. And fat chance we will raise your stipend! Also, we have entirely forgotten that when you are a graduate student, the stress level of any interaction with a faculty member at your school is multipled times a GAZILLION. We have forgotten what it is like to be smooth and confident with people you may never see again or who have no power over your immediate or intermediate-term fate, but feel like the gum on the bottom of the shoe of the people who hold the power of life and death and doctorate over you."

I am suspicious in general of "you must be miserable because we were miserable" arguments. As a medievalist, I see very very many reasons universities should adapt to new ideas and knowledge about stuff like, oh, how much sleep the human brain needs to function semi-properly, instead of doing what has always been done. Or perhaps you physical science people would like to begin your graduate careers by teaching Bible study?

On the other hand, I think a lot of the points *could* actually be quite good ones, but the method of delivery (a mass letter to all the students in the dept? the Voice From On High?) sort of shifts it from the well-intentioned mentor voice that I assume its author thinks s/he was assuming, to the patronizing "kids these days" tone that yields my 'translation.'

I'm pretty sure that this is an average for most graduate programs but it's still utter bs. 100 hours per week means that you work atleast 14 hours a day 7 days a week. Such practices were banned and outlawed in most professions some decades ago..

I think most of us have enough passion for our subjects to put in 14 hours 5 days a week and then an additional package during the weekend (in at 6, out at 8.30 is regular to me as a MA) but to assume that one does not need any rest or disconnect is just horrible.

Even if this is the way it is - it's still not an ok practice nor a good deal for either party.

Additionally - "I love my area of study. Truly, I do--and I love my research. But if it came down to a choice between working on research and sitting on the couch with a glass of wine and a good fiction novel, I'd take the latter in a heartbeat. I'm putting in about 70 hours a week right now and don't think I can go on at this pace."

This attitude means that you should quit and do something else..

Actually this was a nice letter by your department. I put in about 80 hours and my free time is spent reading up on the literature. 2 articles should be the min. Everyone should thank your department for this letter and it shows they care about your future. If they didn't care they wouldn't of sent it. But to get jobs this is what it takes and you think it gets easier after school? A phd should be your passion and should always be on your mind. Even when I'm not working I'm thinking about my subject

I am not joking, but buy a lot of instant ramen.

You could do #4 if you really wanted to.  You just need to have a passion for fitness and dance, get your group fitness certification, and then your Zumba B1 license.  I'm a Zumba instructor and a certified group fitness instructor, and I'm far from the best dancer out there, and I certainly don't look like the models for Zumba wear.  But I deliver a fun, safe, effective class, and that's all that matters!

Please dont act like you are amazing. You didnt "compete" with anyone you were at bottom of the barrel. I hope you can survive the first quarter.

I agree that TAs should be nice and not overstep their "powers". But I definitely do not agree that we should be nice with grades and only give grades we would also want. Remember that TAs are graduate students who, on average, got into grad schools because they tend to do better in courses than the average undergraduate student. Therefore, it's not surprising that some of your students will do fairly poorly in certain classes and I would say that you should not be afraid to fail or give a D grade if that is indeed the quality of their work. 

Others have made arguments on how other serious commitments can actually help you do well. But I also want to say that even if they are not necessary for you to do well, I don't think it's healthy for anyone to be so focussed on any one goal that they do not want to do anything else.
 
It's not realistic for an academic to avoid every "non-necessary commitment". All the successful ones I know have serious commitments that are not academic, because they are human. And as many many others said, grad school is not a slight bump in your life where everything will be super hard but, somehow, magically, everything will be great afterwards and you'll have time for everything else again. Grad school is just the beginning and an academic career will demand more and more time as you progress. 

To add to what GeoDude, Takeruk, and rising_star said, I agree with the "don't worry so much" part. I came into the PhD program I am in now with a masters degree, and I haven't had any problems where I needed to "catch up." My masters coursework was enough to help me not struggle through my coursework, and this was in a PhD program which puts all of the classes into the first year. As far as joining my new lab, there was no catchup for me because I've done the majority of the protocols we do in a research setting (including troubleshooting). If you really have as much experience as you seem to be trying to say, I think you're not going to have anything to worry about.
 
Publications seem to be something that all MS students are trying to strive for before PhD.... which is silly. As GeoDude said, it can take at least 3 months for reviews to happen, and that doesn't include revisions, which can take up to a year if you have additional experiments to do. The work I did as an undergrad is just being published now (1 year into my PhD program, 3 years after I did the work), and only a portion of my MS work has been submitted in a manuscript, which is currently being reviewed. These people understand that publications take time, and they're not going to expect you to have a CV with 5 publications as a 1st year graduate student.
 
Also keep in mind that you're going to be coming into the program with a variety of people with different proficiencies. I interviewed with a girl who had her JD, but hadn't had molecular biology since undergrad, with a 6-month internship in a lab as her experience. She got in, and last I talked to her, she had successfully completed her first two semesters. Classes are designed to challenge you, yes, but they're also to make sure that everyone is up to a certain threshold of knowledge by the end. The students I was in classes with had less research experience than I did (6 years in my case) with the lowest being a summer internship. They also had not taken as many classes as I had. Sometimes they scored better than me, but I never worried about not passing. Having the research experience of a 3rd or 4th year graduate student means you've put in at least that much time in the lab and have generated manuscripts, grant/fellowship applications, etc. Be careful about saying that if it is not really true; you're a MS student, and though I don't think telling you to do this will get you to do it, you shouldn't be comparing yourself to other PhD students until you are one. Don't compare yourself to a student who has been in the lab for 4-5 years when you've only been there for 1... they've got more experience than you do. 
 
GeoDude is right when he talks about admissions. I had professors who knew how I was in the lab and who wrote me awesome letters of rec, and my research experience spoke for itself, even though I did not have any publications at the time of application. I talked about these experiences in my research statements, and my professors talked about my lab work in the letters. When I interviewed, they wanted to know all about my MS thesis project, and I willingly took them through it. When you join a lab at your new institution, you're going to throw a lot of that research out the window; I joined a lab that does metabolism, and I came from 6 years of transcriptional regulation and cancer biology.

As far as loneliness goes, once you take a step back and stop trying to cram an entire graduate career into a single year, you need to take time to do something that isn't school or research-related. I play on an intramural soccer team for the university across the street, and some fellow grad students and I have a move night every Monday night to give us a relaxing start to the week. After my qual, I will teach a intro to lab class for little kids and play my trumpet in one of the local ensembles. If I find myself getting stressed, I call my boyfriend (13 hours away) or find someone to hang out and study (or shop on a weekend).
 
Do yourself a favor when you go for PhD: even if it costs a little more, so long as you can afford it, live closer than 30 minutes from school. I'm a 15 minute drive, 30 minute bus ride, and if I were any farther, I'd be ripping my hair out. Some people deal well with being so far away, but for me, it would stress me out a ton.
 
Hopefully hearing similar things from all of us will help. Please find a day to take a break and go do something fun, soon.

bsharpe, we are in very similar situations.
 
I did my undergraduate in physics, then moved to geology for my masters (and now PhD).  I am a computational geodynamist. My first year i\I spent writing a 3-D navier stokes solver, so I had no real tangible results for my thesis up until a few months ago (and will be defending in 3 weeks !!!). That did not stop me from going from a completely unknown/unranked masters program to a top 20 PhD program in earth sciences overall, and perhaps one of the best in my field. I had no publications, and a few conference presentations. 
 
Having a publication is probably going to be impossible at this point, since at least in my field, it could take 3 months just to get through the reviewing process. That means you need to have a publication submitted by next month! Writing a manuscript is no short deal.
 
 
The three things that will matter most in your PhD application are: 1) How well your master advisor recommends you for PhD ,2) How eloquent your statement of purpose is with respect to future research propositions and fit within their program and  3) How eloquently you can talk about your research in your interviews with POIs.
 
Social skills are also important to getting into a good research program/lab, so practice up. When you go on visiting days, they are more likely to want to keep the people who get along with everyone than those who awkwardly sit in the corner. Even if you are good at social situations, its good to keep in practice. Scientists are more or less normal people. 
 
Another thing that strikes me is that you actually think you have the knowledge of 3rd and 4th year PhD students. Perhaps you do, but I highly doubt that: a 3rd or 4th year PhD student is writing his/her dissertation proposal at least and has probably read 150-200 papers on his/her topic. Are you really telling me you have read that many papers, in depth, on your subject? Furthermore how many 3rd and 4th year PhD students in your field do you know? Is your sample statistically  normalized ? Lets stop making claims that raises expectations. Just do good work. A scientists career is one meant to look over a long arc, not a 1 year period. 
 
Another note about PhD admissions. My new advisor cared about my masters grades only because of my low undergraduate grades. If you had a good GPA in undergrad, no one will care if you got a 4.0 in masters program vs a 3.5. 
 
 
 
so TLDR: Your doing great, dont stress out, finish your program normally and go on to a great PhD program. You really arent going to be able to objectively decide what a POI thinks about you vs another student, so just focus on doing objectively good work and everything else will follow.

bsharpe, I think part of it is that you're trying to cram too much into one year. It's honestly rather unrealistic to assume/presume that you can do enough original research in an area in one year as a master's student to get a publication out of it, especially one that would be accepted before your PhD applications are reviewed. It might be more realistic if you were planning to apply to PhD programs after finishing your M.S. but that's not what it sounds like from reading your posts in this thread. FWIW, most applicants out of a master's program do not have any publications when they apply for the PhD (and this has been discussed countless times here and for an array of disciplines), so you should not feel like you need to have something published in order to get accepted. A year of solid research experience under your belt plus another ahead and a good M.S. thesis/project should be more than enough for most Ph.D. programs unless you have some serious deficiencies elsewhere.
 
Second thing that strikes me is that you are equating what you need to do as a master's student to what Ph.D. students do or are doing. If PhD students take 6 months to a year to "catch up", as you describe, then why are you pressuring yourself to learn all of this material independently as a master's student? Based on what you say, it sounds like any program would know that you still need to strengthen your background in certain areas after being admitted, which should take off some of the need/pressure to learn those areas now. I think you're actually trying to cram a few years of a doctoral program into one year of a master's program, which is causing some of your stress. You should not be comparing yourself and what you need to do to what current PhD students are doing because you are not in their program. What you should be doing is finding out what they did as master's students to prepare themselves for the PhD. Surely if they're taking a few years to get things going, it's kinda unreasonable to assume that you can do what took them 2-3 years in one year, right? Advisors and admissions committees know this.
 
I guess what I'm saying is that your expectations and pressure on yourself are not the norm for most master's students and may be causing your feelings of loneliness and not enough time for socialization. It might be helpful for you to meet with your advisor, mentor, or trusted senior grad students to find out what you absolutely must do to maximize your chance for successful PhD applications, what would be nice to have, and what is entirely optional. Maybe they can help you understand where and how you can reprioritize. Hope this helps!

I am not sure why people like this are "annoying", but maybe you might consider me one of "those people" (although I would not identify with many of the traits you list there). In general, the world is not designed to reward those who are more passionate or care more about their work or field. So, to me, I don't think there is a problem at all if a student who cares very little about their field manages to do well.
 
Personally, I do care about my field and I am interested in my work. But I don't consider my field my true/sole/main passion in life. Rather, I have many other passions which I would also like to explore and for now, being a PhD student in my field is currently the best way to achieve what I want in life. I see my career as a means to get what I want out of life (gotta pay the bills). Again, my field does interest me so I do work hard at it, but I also consider the PhD as a goal and ultimately, something that will help me gain employment doing a job that I want. I don't care if my eventual career is in my field or in academia or even if it's in science. My two main career goals is to find something that stimulates me (i.e. utilizes my skill, not just my labour) and to find something that can support my other passions in life.
 
So I do think statements that academia should only be for people who are truly passionate about their field and their main goal should be to further human knowledge is both naive and a little elitist. Obviously, those who are driven to succeed will likely do better and that's fine. But if you are doing well and also don't have any passion at all about your field, then that should be fine too (but in general, I'd say it's rare to find someone who is willing to work in academia that isn't somewhat passionate about what they do).

Let's see.  I'm a Worgen Shadow Priest and a Draenei Holy Paladin.
 
Alternatively, I'm Vulcan.
 
Or maybe I'm Barbara Gordon (either BatGirl or Oracle).
 
I'm a geek who also teaches group fitness (aerobics) and runs marathons.  For some reason people don't expect geeks to also be athletic!

I'm not attending yet, but my input is that if you dedicate 100% of your life to your graduate program, you're going to become severly depressed when you experience the least bit of failure. You won't have anything to fall back on, or things you enjoy that make you feel better. It's just going to be you and your failure.

Many countries have very different grading systems. In most Science faculties in Canada, 80% is A- but in many US places, 80% is a B grade. In addition, whereas there are standardized %-to-letter-grade conversion across the degree program in most Canadian schools, I find that the conversion varies a lot between course to course or professor to professor at US schools. I've seen a syllabus that lists A+ at 97% while in Canada, almost all science programs will award A+ to 90% and upwards.

70 or above an A? That sounds really low.

BS. You need to take responsibility for the statements you make instead of blaming others for not interpreting them the way you supposedly "intended them." Is this how you plan to carry out academic publishing? "No, I wasn't making an unsupported assertion, you just didn't interpret it the right way." 

The reason that it is relevant whether or not you're in grad school, and what experiences lead you to give this advice, is that this thread was specifically asking for current graduate students to give advice to new graduate students on how to be successful. 
 
You came into an advice thread as (a) not a current graduate student, and ( giving advice that runs contrary to, well, everyone I've ever heard giving advice about graduate school. 
 
It may work for you, but since this is an advice thread, it's not exactly the best place to post your opinions about what will work best for you in grad school, especially when you don't have any experience actually trying your advice, just a feeling you think it will. 
 
Personally, I don't want new graduate students coming here, reading an advice thread, and thinking that having a life is a bad thing in grad school, will be detrimental to their studies, or make them a lesser student. It's not true, and in fact could put them at a disadvantage in all of the aforementioned areas. 
 
Also, you keep saying you're not generalizing, and then you make a general statement (i.e., you think students who put things on hold will be more successful, productive, and finish quicker) when I've already posted at least one study that shows that people in relationships are more successful, more productive, and finish quicker than those who are single. If you want to make a general argument, on an academically based board, at least be prepared to back it up with some form of evidence- empirical, anecdotal, or statistical, your choice. 
 
Simply stating an untested hypothesis over and over doesn't make it a good, or true.

Ok if people want to interpret it that way fine, maybe its hard too communicate online without sounding offensive but I guess some people are just too sensitive . I am speaking from the perspective of a younger student that goes into a program practically straight from undergrad and who does not the number of attachments or commitments like students who have a family do. I am saying that if you do not have all those attachments already, I do not think they are necessary to develop all the sudden in grad school and you can put them on hold, I think students who do that will be more successful, productive, and finish quicker. 

No, I'm offended by comments like this one:
 
"who goes into a PhD program and does not expect that they will have to put many things they want on hold, my question is why bother doing it if you are not willing to give your full 100% effort and dedication"
 
This implies that people who have "other things" are not 100% committed to their programs and that's patently false. By your logic, I should have divorced my husband, euthanized my pets, and told my family not to call me for the next 7 years so that I could be a "fully committed" student. And no, clearly you aren't limiting yourself to what you believe is best for yourself, but judging others who do not share your "philosophy" as somehow less likely to be successful than you think you're going to be.
 
And btw, note that I'm not alone in saying that having these other things in my life is vital to my success. Other grad students have posted to say similar things... so really, no, I'm not upset that "others don't share my opinions," because clearly, most other grad students on this thread do.

^^Sounds like you are the one with the attitude, I already stated they were my opinions so its funny you are being so defensive, just because I said "you" doesn't mean I'm telling others what they don't need. I am not worried about what others do with their time that is their choice, I am not forcing my beliefs on anyone but I know there are others in grad school who have the same thinking as me. It is just my belief that people who are more willing to make sacrifices will ultimately be more successful, this doesn't just apply to grad school or a PhD program so why does it matter whether I am currently in school or not? You are just upset that others don't share your opinions.

Actually, one of my most productive stints of writing in graduate school came just after taking two new foster dogs in, neither of which had lived in a home before. They didn't know how to climb stairs, had to be housetrained and cratetrained, etc. Having them on a housetraining schedule meant that I had clearly defined chunks of time in which to go to class, go to my part-time job, socialize with friends, and write because I was taking them out every four to five hours except between midnight and 7:30am to ensure they didn't have any accidents in the house. That meant that every four to five hours, I went on a 15-20 minute walk (longer walks once in the morning and evening). It meant that I had blocks of time during which I needed to be home and keeping an eye on them but also blocks of time where I had to be as productive as possible because of them. And these weren't even my permanent pets but they did me a world of good.
 
Like I said before, I'm not the kind of person that can do my research/teaching tasks for 15 hours a day. I need time to think about other things, to exercise, to watch mindless tv, to hang out and relax with friends, to cook dinner, etc. These, to me, are non-negotiable. You know why? Because in grad school you teach one class, maybe two, a semester. But, when you become tenure-track faculty that number is 2-5 per semester depending on the institution. You may not have a TA depending on the institution so time management will become even more pressing. The pressure to produce research (two pubs per year in my social science field if you're at a R1 and want to get tenure) or excel at teaching (if you're at a R2/R3/SLAC where teaching is priority and the provost and faculty pride themselves on teaching excellence) will require you to expend time on these tasks. You'll be advising students, whether undergrads or grads, something you never have to do as a grad student. So, if you can't figure out some sort of work/life balance (by which I mean, something that isn't all work all the time) now, you're going to get burned out very quickly assuming you become a faculty member after graduate school. Some of the most productive scholars I know have really interesting ways of relaxing, ranging from homebrewing to watching sports to playing guitar to being in a bowling league to martial arts training to online gaming with friends.
 
Criminologist, if you're serious about avoiding all "distractions" as you call them, I'd suggest you be proactive and make an appointment with a therapist/counselor to avert problems before they begin. Actually, that's reasonable advice for everyone and now I wish I'd put in my original post. A counselor/therapist can help you understand why it is that you want to focus so intensively on your work and make suggestions if that approach starts to fail you at some point in your studies (my experience is that it will). You (criminologist) will probably see these meetings as a "distraction" but I'd suggest it as an important way for you to be able to bounce your concerns (academic, research, personal, etc.) off of someone without having to engage in the social activities you seek to avoid. Seriously though, good luck. Grad school is tough, regardless of how smart, talented, and driven you are.