Hi everyone!
First time poster because I was so mad I just typed in something to Google and found a similar thread. So now I'm going to post mine. I liked reading the opinions of people who are also in grad school about these things.
I'm posting because I really don't like my cohort. I'm in my first semester of a Master's program for Counseling. I love the area and the school, but I really can't stand a number of my classmates and some of them are in all of my classes.
One girl talks about herself all the time (a trait I'm trying to learn how to deal with. I'm in a counseling program, so I feel like sometimes the answer could be "you wanna be a therapist? you gotta get used to not liking people." which is true. But we're all full of imperfect human emotion and this is one of them.). Even my professors have begun to notice it. But there's about a quarter of the people who love this girl. Then there's another group who are the "judge-y intellectuals". They always pop in during discussion to assert their stance on the subject and are always laughing about things that no one else knows about. I went through all of undergrad facing people such as this. I know how to deal with people and I'm a pretty laid back person who tolerates most personalities. I don't know if it's this particular group of people or what, but I can't stand them.
I have made a few friends so that's helped. But just tonight, I got an email from a professor about a presentation I did recently. It was her feedback. But she also included ALL of the comments that my classmates made on their grading sheets. Some were nice. One in particular has me steaming, though, that said that I clearly didn't do as much as my partner for the presentation (which simply isn't true at all) and others said it didn't seem like we knew the material. I just don't understand it. I'm still steaming about it and will probably have a clearer outlook on it tomorrow.
I suffer from anxiety, especially presenting in front of people. I wish wish wish I could be good at it, but after 20 something odd years of living, I just haven't gotten there yet. On that day, I pulled through on the presentation. After my presentation, my professor started talking about "Can people with mental illnesses still be therapists?" and her conclusion was basically, "yes, but you have to have your shit together." I broke down. I had to step out of the class and had my first panic attack in a year in the bathroom.
I'm so mad at my cohort situation, but I'm also wondering if I need to take more time off before really starting grad school. And also figure out if this is for me (i've been considering other vocations). I'm considering that I may need to drop it for now and resume my education later. (I graduated early from undergrad and gave myself 6 months off.)
Does anyone have any thoughts or advice? Any similar situations? I'd love advise for handling harsh criticism.
Thanks for reading my rant!
