Alyanumbers

For someone like me, who's foreign and has never lived in the US, the GradCafe has been very useful in understanding how academia works, what the culture is like, what to put in my SoP, etc. It also gives me a good idea of the level of competition, and helps me better my app by comparing myself to people on here--who are generally among the top applicants, I think.

Of course it's not going to be that useful if you already have a mentor who's guiding you through the process. I don't, however, and I doubt I'm the only one.

Okay, this YouTube video definitely made me laugh:

Yeah, I'd like to know if he's single, too! I'll find out in a few weeks...

Yes, what you described was my situation.

Something that I should add, though, is that my ex is bipolar and he never shared that with me directly. He finally told me about it when we were on the verge of separating. I read all I could about bipolar disorder, and it all started to make sense--his bizarre energy levels, moods, violent outbursts, uncontrollable temper, and charismatic personality. If he had told me about it truthfully, when we first met, I probably wouldn't have stayed with him let alone marry him (that's probably why he didn't tell me). Any kind of mental illness just complicates things in a relationship; it's not impossible, but it's more difficult. So besides youth, there may be other factors.

There is more to do in graduate school than can reasonably be done by a mere mortal (read: me. Probably you too). The advice you got is a very good one and you should give it some serious thought. Once you start school, you are going to have many simultaneous demands on your time: reading and writing for several courses; teaching requirements; research requirements; possibly, some service requirements (e.g. small organizational duties within your department). At some point - as soon as possible- you have to learn to prioritize. You can't possibly do all of the required reading for all your courses, for example. It's also sometimes a strategic choice to submit final papers that are "good enough", not "publishable as is". I have friends who don't want their professors to see anything less than perfect work and guess what - they have taken a number of incompletes and are behind on their requirements. I have chosen to submit papers that will earn me my desired grade but nothing more. If it's good/interesting work, I can follow up on it after the deadlines, but there is no need to get myself all worked up to meet some made-up deadline. Same goes for teaching duties. You can invest as much as you possibly can and still be lacking in terms of additional study aids/office hours/advice you could give your students.

You need to learn not to let any one aspect of your work take over all your work time. For that matter, you also need to learn not to let your work take over your life. It's important to learn to schedule time in your calendar for off-work activities(!), or else other duties will just take over that free time. It's also important to take time off to rest - and schedule it too, if you must. Just block off time for reading, writing, teaching, hobbies, rest, anything else you want. You may have noticed that this sounds like a heavy load -- it is. This is where prioritizing and doing less-than-perfect work in some areas becomes crucial. I'm not advocating for doing average work in all aspects and all the time, but rather learning where it's important to show your strong suits and where you can get by with doing less. Courses are often a place where ok-but-not-perfect work is really all you need.

Eigentuemer,

That is a ludicrous sum of money. I've spoken at two major international conferences, and reading of others I think the highest fee I've seen in my field (Classics) was c. $120. Two this autumn are waiving fees and providing accommodation for speakers to boot, so I'm thinking this is a high-powered *for-profit* enterprise you should be very wary of. Even though we're in different fields, I'm sure you can find another and better opportunity to display your research skills.

Best of luck,

W.

So true...I don't TA, but work with undergrads a lot and will be supervising a staff of them soon. Humor is what I use to connect with them. I use self deprecation too - it helps to show them that you don't take yourself so seriously, and I think they will respect you more for it. Just don't over do it - fine line there.

Also, I would suggest being more strict when you start out with your class, and see how it goes. Everybody wants to be laid back and cool, which is ok if you have mature undergrads who can handle it. BUT, if you have immature undergrads and you let them run wild at the beginning, it is soooo hard to reign them back in when you have a Lord of the Flies situation going on. I would say be more structured at the beginning, and see how they deal with it. Give them a little more rope as the quarter/semester goes on, and if they hang themselves with it, pull back. If not, then you can ease up

Good luck!

In general, yes, because there are no classes over the holidays.

Feel very annoyed about TAing, and it will alleviate your fears about TAing.

Side Effect: You will feel annoyed about TAing.

Establish a firm rubric ahead of time for ALL students that incorporates expectations for grammar/syntax. If you offer the opportunity for one graded draft, then do it for everyone. There is absolutely no reason to expect less from a non-native English speaker if they know what the expectations are well in advance. The responsibility is theirs to make sure that the writing meets the standards you've laid out in the rubric. You should also be aware of the assistance that is available on your campus with regards to academic writing for all students (another poster mentioned the Writing Center - your school likely has one) and actively encourage all students to use that resource. Also, as an aside, I'm kind of bothered by your phrase "write with an accent" which really isn't culturally sensitive. People don't "write with accents." I hope that isn't a phrase you're going to use with your students!

IMO, anybody who tells you that grad school means you'll have no time for a social life or relationship is full of it and probably trying to do some sort of weird masochistic bragging thing about how hard grad school life is. I've known a lot of grad students, some of them at top programs in stereotypically-difficult fields, and they have crunch times like any other working adult, but exactly zero of them have been so busy that they can't have a social life or relationship.

I am, by the way, a half-time MS student, a full-time worker, a political activist, and happily married with an active social life. And I did well enough in my MS to have gotten a PhD acceptance (possibly with more coming; I've only heard back from one school). Grad school's no more hosing, in terms of time required, than many non-academic jobs (as long as your advisor isn't one of those professors who thinks they're a feudal lord).

Sometimes the hard thing, if you've moved to go to grad school and left your old friends behind, is making friends in the first place, rather than finding time to hang out with them. Your cohort could be a source of friends, but there's no guarantee that you'll like them just because you happen to be in the same field (look at the numerous examples of intra-field professorial feuds). You can also meet neighbors, people in student clubs, and people in community organizations, for starters.

Even if this prof is your advisor, IMO what she did was unethical. Evals are supposed to be anonymous, so that evaluators feel safe to write anything they want without being swayed to write only positive things and fear of retaliation. If your advisor suspected that her evals were tampered with, she should have taken up the issue with the person in charge of them. She should not have put you in the awkward situation by asking you directly for how you rated her. Climbing up the academic ladder, most professors have learned to grow thick skin and should be used to hearing things that don't agree with them. Whether she learns from her evals and makes improvements is another issue, but it is certainly not yours to worry about.

Yup, the Therapeutae, Cainites, Ophites, and Sethites. There is a lot of presocratic influences; however, that's because Pythagoreanism is essentially Greek-imported Egyptian religion that made transit via the trading colony of Naucratis. I didn't find much (or anything) in the way of taoist or buddhist influences however, since most of the religious tenants that I was dealing with had their origins in native Egyptian source materials that predated those two religions by at least 600 years.

I think you have completely missed the point of what I was trying to say. It is not about doing justice to what you study or relaying that information accurately. Look, like you I have theological degrees. And yes, I think how one interprets the Bible affects how one lives. And while I suspect that you and I take differing sides on the hermeneutic debate, I would suggest that it is neither your job nor mine to seed doubt in people's minds through the explanations of our particular fields of academic interest.

First, if someone asks what you are studying, they are not asking to have their beliefs challenged. The question is polite talk at best. Explanations in polite conversation are generally unwelcome.

Second, if you try to change the way people think in such a ham-fisted manner, all academics will be perceived (by association) as heady, high-minded, and arrogant. We all lose when you do that. I wish I had a dollar for every person who has said to me, "I knew a guy once who was educated like you but he was so insufferable."

Third, your 30-second explanation, should be much simpler. It should be "I'm a Bible scholar." It should be something everyone can understand.

Fourth, what I actually study does have a huge impact upon peoples lives because it challenges core assumptions on the reliability of the Gospel documents. The origins of Gnosticism have been used to challenge earliest developments of the Christian church, e.g., the Gnostic gospels of Elaine Pagels. However, in casual conversation people just don't need to know that information.

Fifth, I don't really study "pyramids, tombs, or mummies." I study asiatic migration patterns in Egypt during the Ramesside period, which is around the time of the Biblical Exodus. Would this have an impact upon how people perceive the Bible? Yes. Would people understand that if I told them? Probably not. So, I tell them something they do understand. Again, casual conversation is not about being right or accurately conveying the exact nature of your studies. Casual conversation is about being polite, or in your case, not being rude.



Well, the first question is not genuine question. If you were savvy enough to recognize it, you could have responded accordingly. Perhaps a counter question instead of an explanation would have been more appropriate. The second question could be answered with a simple "yes" or "no, I try to understand XYZ." And even the third question could be answered with tact. You do not need to explain comparative linguistics or source critical methods or redaction criticism or Bultmannian demythologization or any of that other worthless garbage that non-academic people really don't care about. If you want to talk about that junk, save it for the classroom. And you can tell an explanation is too complicated because people show signs of being irritated. If you cannot explain it to someone who is in Grade 5, your explanation is probably too complicated.

I think you misunderstand. Just because people have polite questions, doesn't necessarily mean that they care about the answers.

This is not something I ever worried about. I know I had professors who liked me -- I've since become friends with some of them -- but at no time would I have expected that to affect their grading. How are they helping me by giving me inflated grades? In fact, I remember doing particularly badly on one section of a test with one prof. He just handed it back -- with the crappy grade and no comment. Fortunately, I'd done really well on the other section of the test, so the overall grade was not terrible. And I did get a lower than typical score on one final with a prof I liked -- but I was auditing her class, and I was teaching (giving a final of my own and grading projects) and attending a conference/workshop the same week as the final, which meant studying had last priority. So, the only thing that happened as a result of our friendship, in both cases, was that I felt more embarassed than I normally would have at performing so poorly. In both cases, I got the grade I earned. But I tend to like people with strong moral compasses, and I don't think I'd have gotten friendly with a prof who played favorites in the way you describe.

FWIW, I recommend:
A set of blank correspondence cards from Crane and postage to send thank you notes.
Purell and lots of it.
Your sense of humor--most notably the ability to laugh at yourself.
At least one Moleskine notebook as a journal for venting.
A +1 rule for taking extra sweaters/jackets with you to campus so that you can make the transition from the outdoors to the often frigid temperatures of a classroom or a library without breaking stride.
Using the student discount rates for academic journals specific to your field of study, as well as to popular magazines of your choice that can provide moments for intelligent procrastination.
Waterproof shoes.
A television and DVD player.
A pair of noise cancelling headphones.
Splurging on a single item that will really provide you a measure of comfort and luxury, even if that item temporarily stretches your budget. The item can be a pair of shoes, the backpack you've always wanted, a nice outfit, a Gore-Tex jacket, a nifty pair of sunglasses, an air purifier, a portable A/C unit, or some minor consumer electronic device. The years ahead are going to have some trying and stressful moments. And in those moments, it will be the small things that help you rally in the face of a set back.
A reliable compact LED flashlight if not also a Fox 40 whistle.
A hard copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. (If applicable)
Hard copies of all of your software apps and computer OS.
Enough plastic hangers for all of your clothes. (The time you save not having to fold laundry will pay off in the long run.)

HTH.

Check the City Guide.

Dear folks,

I'd like to elicit your thoughts and comments on a heartbreaking issue. I came across this article in which the authors surveyed graduate admissions committees for "kisses of death" that would lead them to reject otherwise strong applicants. I discovered that the disclosure of struggles with one's mental health represented an ostensibly egregious error in that category. To survey respondents, this indicated emotional instability, and the authors of the article warn that evidence of a turbulent personal history or trauma could suggest an inability to function as a successful graduate student.

I'm objecting to this reasoning not only because I've struggled with severe recurring depression ever since I was 13, engaged in violent self-harm before attempting suicide nearly two years ago, and am thus inclined to rush to the defense of the despondent. I object because the characterization of my brothers and sisters in suffering as "unable to function as successful graduate student" infuriates me, and I view surviving trauma and abuse (or self-abuse) as a testament to one's strength, not infirmity. I object because exhibiting our humanity when we convey these narratives should elicit respect in the very least--not icy reprimands, "kisses of death."

I object because divorcing personal history from professional ambition can carry particular sting. In this context, stigma is the shame of having to keep something private for fear of prejudice, disgust, disdain, disapproval. I have no doubt that private victimization, however defined, can propel us to achieve in our fields. Grief motivates us to dream harder. And the relationship is bidirectional; our academic work can spur emotional growth, our zest for living. There are probably hazards to this linkage of the private and the public, but they do not justify discriminatory admissions practices. Indeed, very few things do.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against qualified people with disabilities, including those with mental illness. I say "qualified" because an applicant or employee must still perform the "essential duties" of his or her position. If a psychiatric diagnosis interferes with this, then an employer could legally deny an applicant employment. It's immaterial whether the disclosure of psychiatric history is voluntary, I believe, as in the case of personal statements--just as an employer or university cannot discriminate on the basis of religion if one were to offer that information. In any case, the judgment that a mentally disordered individual cannot execute the basic functions of his or her position cannot be made on the basis of stereotypical generalizations but on objective evidence. This also applies in assessments that an individual may be a "direct threat" to him/herself or to others.

For all the moral disgrace of mental health stigma, prejudice, and discrimination during the application process, I've discovered that these are likely to dissolve once nestled safely in a graduate program and under the wing of a supportive advisor. I was blessed with such an advisor already; indeed, I was surprised he was capable of such compassion as when I informed him via email that I had landed in the hospital after doing all I could to end my life. I don't plan on disclosing my history to my current advisor, but I can already tell that if I were to relapse, she would grant me all the resources I would need for an accelerated recovery.

So how are admissions committees quick to dismiss applicants who discuss emotional/physical trauma and/or mental illness but equally quick, as individual advisors, to accommodate students suffering the same? If mental illness really does manifest an inability to function as a successful graduate student, then graduate students who disclose their illness to advisors and department chairs would be deemed unfit to continue their studies and promptly expelled. The reasoning of survey respondents in the above article leads to that harsh conclusion.

Ultimately, capricious, inscrutable admissions committees can reject applicants for reasons that have nothing to do with merit. We've grown accustomed to that by now. Fairness doesn't always prevail. So why raise the issue?

Well, for one I'm concerned that misconceptions about the mentally ill as violent or dangerous will continue to dominate admissions/hiring decisions. Though this callous discrimination can melt away in relationships with colleagues, thus challenging those stereotypes, our attitudes towards groups as whole entities does matter. There's a difference between demonstrating compassion to a schizophrenic co-worker and having favorable attitudes towards schizophrenics in general. These are of course related, but I would argue that much of what passes for prejudice reduction occurs at the interpersonal level only, not the intergroup level. So ambivalence towards certain groups can survive independent of our interpersonal treatment of members of these groups. And such ambivalence (or antipathy) still poses a problem because it can predict discrimination in organizational settings and perhaps political opposition to budgetary allocations for mental health services.

Put simply, I will never doubt the capacity for human beings to love one another within their established social networks, but I am far more pessimistic of our good will towards groups in general. To bridge that distance, I suppose we ought to feel every suicide as the suicide of a loved one, every abuse as the abuse of a loved one, every illness as our own--but that would defy our bloody history. That's the tragedy here--placing groups at a psychological distance justifies our cruelty even though every tear, every death, should break our hearts whether or not we know the afflicted.

So what do you think? Is mental health stigma still a problem? I'm sorry I've spit this out so incoherently. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!

Hey guys! I truly appreciate everyone's advice. I think mjj is starting to feel bad, and I just want to point out - it is completely natural for people to interpret situations from their own experiences. If a friend told you about trouble in their relationship, you would probably have completely different advice for them if you were going through a divorce than if you were in a happy relationship. Let's lighten up a bit - if someone has made it to graduate school, let's hope to God they have the mental capacity to decide on their own whether going to the Dean is a good solution in their particular situation. I'm sure that if mjj was directed to the Dean, their situation was exponentially worse than mine!

That said - I've been thinking a lot about this situation. We emailed back and forth all weekend, and I think my presentation is to a good place. However, I think my advisor is really concerned with US making HER look good. I think she wants us to be her, to write like her and speak like her. I don't think that's really fair. I think she should be nurturing our talents, not bulldozing over them to make sure we don't "screw up." I don't mind being pushed to improve, but it's like she's so afraid of us making her look bad, it makes us incredibly nervous. She will visibly get angry at us when we aren't doing well. I'm downright afraid to look at her when I'm giving presentations!

I can bring up her style of editing drafts, but I'm not really sure how to bring up the fact that she makes us so nervous and kills our confidence. I have been talking to her other students and they feel the same way.

Well, thanks again everyone! I'm very grateful for all of the replies. It helps me feel a little more sane :-) Now wish me luck on my presentation tomorrow!!!

ktel,
Maybe I am not making myself clear. Obviously this person needs to speak explicitly to someone about her problems, whether its the Adviser herself, other students, etc. In my PERSONAL experience none of this worked and I ended up getting screwed after I graduated. The person made my life a living hell and I was afraid to even apply to graduate school. I finally spoke to a different Professor, the new Chair of my dept, and she suggested that I write a letter to the Dean describing my experiences. I have yet to do so, but one main difference between myself and MoleMocha is that I don't work with the lady anymore, so I see the concern with going to the Dean in that particular situation. I was suggesting something that was suggested to ME by a department head. I'm sure there are more ideas to go around. I wouldn't call it tattling. I look at it as standing up for oneself. If this poster's situation was nearly as severe as mine, I would definitely speak to someone who is able to change the situation. Remember, this is academia and it is a professional environment. If someone is acting unprofessionally they need to be addressed.
If it is not a severe situation, then deal with it, and quit complaining.
PS
I am speaking to a personal matter that is very similar to the situation described, so my gut instincts are based on what I experienced. It wasn't just a person who criticized writing. It was someone who made me feel like a pathetic excuse for a student, stalked me, criticized my work and ideas, and told me not to apply to graduate school.

i think that every student in the "applying" sections of these forums should read your post. this, to me, sounds like a normal advising situation. normal. not good, not ideal, not as it should be, but rather, as it tends to be.

i'm not a science student, but i'll try to break down what i understand to be the core of your conflict:

you are not running his experiments as he would like, or giving up on them when they're not panning out, because (as you yourself admitted) you don't really care about the results. you don't see the point in doing them, so why spend hours tinkering with them if they're not working? a fair decision for a professor to make about his/her own work, but maybe not a fair one for a PhD student to make about a professor's work.

at the same time, as you attempt to progress in your own research, you're criticized for your approach. running an experiment three times, instead of once, on a project you care about (but one that your advisor does not), is a completely legitimate thing for you to do. it's your work, not his, and you need to get it done properly, not him. in that instance, he was wrong to criticize you for being thorough in your experiment.

in essence, it sounds like neither of you are particularly invested in each other. not him in your work (which is a big problem, objectively speaking), and not you in his (which he sees as a big problem, which makes it a big problem).

if you weren't so far along in your program, i'd tell you to consider switching labs or getting a co-advisor. now, you're so far along that to even get a co-advisor will seem antagonistic to your current advisor. what you CAN do (and i recommend you do), however, is get a MENTOR. find a professor in your department whose career trajectory you wish to emulate. find someone you respect, whose work ethic you admire, who approaches your discipline with the same ethics and sense of importance that you do. find that person and go talk to him or her. tell this person that you're really happy with the work you're doing with your advisor (even if it's not true), but that you value this person's input on the professional and administrative aspects of your field. ask him or her who to network with other scientists. how to find the time to make progress on your research project, not some tangent of it, but the real project. and, after a couple meetings of building rapport with this prof, then approach your dilemma regarding your working relationship with your advisor. DON'T frame it as wanting to leave (because, at this point, you shouldn't), but ask for advice on how to improve your work with your advisor. how should you go about prioritizing your own research experiments without dismissing your advisor's needs? when should you defend your intellectual position and when should you acknowledge that you're still learning and perhaps your advisor has something to teach you?

people often mistake advisors for mentors. many wish (and sometimes get) an advisor that also acts as a mentor, showing a student how to get through grad school, how to deal with other professors and students, etc. while your relationship with your advisor sounds absolutely less than ideal, that's on both sides of the equation, not just yours. neither of you see each other as ideal. seek out a mentor you can trust and ask for advice on how to improve that situation for BOTH you and your advisor.

There are two things that would attract me:
- Student profiles. Namely, give me the stats of a student currently in the program or recently graduated. If you can show me a number of students that have graduated and gone to top positions, that says something about the quality/influence of the program/professors. Likewise, if the current students are publishing in top venues consistently, that's a plus -- I would probably be publishing in the same venues if I was working with these students and their advisers. Let me know if they've won any major awards. I don't want to know about their hometown, what they like to do in their spare time, just the stats.
- A profile of a strong professor who would be willing to chat with me.

I don't know if people care about "facilities" or not (I am a theoretical computer scientist). I *surely* don't care about "funding", if you don't have "funding" then you are not even in the running. Strong publication record? Well, OK, if it is students that are putting out these publications, and they are recent, sounds good. I also don't care about no fee applications; what is most important to me is my time. If you're willing to fill out my application for me, take an SOP tailored to a different school, then you might get an application from me.

But really, there are only three things I care about when looking at a program: the reputation, the professors, and the students. You guys don't have #1, or you wouldn't be spamming people. If you have #2, then show me you are interested in recruiting me by letting me talk to the people I want to work with--that says way more than some generic mass e-mail. If you have successful #3s, then show me the mirror: implicitly tell me that I am going to be just as successful as the students you have and just graduated.

(sorry if this topic already exists or is inappropriate for this board)

As a preface: going in to grad school, I was nervous and had lots of doubts. I had no clue if I was actually ready for graduate-level work and research and if I had chosen the right program. At this point, I've been in graduate school for about a month and a half, which isn't super long, but I think it's long enough to give me a decent feel for my program.

I'm half a semester in, and I'm absolutely loving my grad program. My cohort is wonderful - we've organized a weekly anime watching group, we go to movies a lot, eat lunch together, have game nights, go to parties...it's just a fun group of people. My classes are challenging, but manageable and interesting. My classmates are really smart, and people pull together before assignments are due to help each other out. In my undergrad, I had a really tiny department (class size averaged 3-4 students, and each class was only taught every other year), so being surrounded by so many students who are genuinely interested in and good at computer science is a new and wonderful experience. The professors in the department are all very friendly and helpful and get along with each other - there's a lot of collaboration. There are 3 weekly lunch-talks in systems, machine learning, and computational social science where we can get free food and listen to interesting (or not-so-interesting) talks. My advisor is wonderful. I only got a research project two days ago because the lab's been very busy and my advisor's been trying to think of a good project for me, but everyone in my lab gets along really well and works together a lot. There was a big deadline two weeks ago where the entire lab pulled together to finish one project in time, which was kind of cool to be a part of.

There. I just wanted to share my excitement with other graduate students and see if anyone else is feeling similarly. I see a lot of topics about people having problems with their grad program which has left me wondering how many new students are enjoying grad life. It's just such a weight off my shoulders to feel, after agonizing about it for the past year, that I've actually made the right decision.

him asking you out is definitely unethical, but it isn't illegal at every school. it's worth finding out whether it's illegal at your institution before the date.

in my second hand experience, this will NOT adversely affect him, even if the relationship ends terribly, and WILL adversely affect you even if the relationship ends up great. if things go great and you get married, you will always be the advisee that he married. your colleagues will not take your work seriously, they'll assume you received your jobs and grants because of him, your career will never match his let alone surpass it. in your professional life, you will (at best!) be nothing more than his wife. if the relationship doesn't go well and it ends, the best case scenario then is switching advisors and not needing him on your dissertation committee. more likely is that one of you will think the work relationship is still fine and keep being his advisee, but he'll hold you up, actively sabotage your progress, ignore you altogether, or derail your dissertation.

listen... a few years ago, at my undergraduate institution, a female graduate student started dating her advisor. he dumped her, harshly, and then she killed herself. her suicide note said it was because of him. if he breaks up with you, you don't just lose your relationship. you risk losing your career, everything you've work for over these years. i hope the dick was worth it.

also... the power dynamics between an advisor and an advisee dating are so incredibly unbalanced. he is in a position of power over you, there is NO WAY you could EVER have a truly equal relationship, as awesome as he may treat you. whether or not it's illegal it's hugely unethical and you should question the character of any man that thinks it's okay to date one of his subordinates.

don't shit where you eat.

I was at my mother's on a "shower break" from the revolution, as I'd spent the night on the pavement in front of the Parliament. I saw I had a new email message, and was expecting a journalist or a friend checking in on me; it was an automated message telling me I had a new message in my InTray on the uni's server. So there were 5 stressful minutes as I opened the website, and the page refused to load. Then as soon as I saw "Conditional offer of admission" in the subject line, I jumped around in joy. Exhaustion and worry dulled my emotions, though.

Honestly, the best I ever did as a grad student was when I was the busiest. And by busiest, I mean fostering two dogs that had never lived indoors before, writing a MA thesis, working a part-time job off campus, and visiting PhD programs that had accepted me. Treating graduate school like a job, wherein I work pretty diligently for 7-8 hours, in my case 9-12 and 2-6ish, has also served me well. It forces me to avoid surfing the web and focus and then, once that's done, I have time to watch TV or a movie, read a book, cook dinner, and do the activities I enjoy.

Graduate school, just like work, is all about balance. It can consume your life if you let it. But don't let it.