mandarin.orange

Is there a way posts like jullietmercredi's can be featured as an article, or indexed prominently for later reference, in these fora? I agree, that was one of the most useful posts I've read in my 1+ year on Grad Cafe! Kudos for taking the time to write it!

I think this is just common for many in their 20s...doubly so if you've just had a breakup, and the loneliness in your day-to-day life that you describe up-thread. I used to have this love for deep conversation as well and deconstructing what makes people tick, but ten years later, it's completely evaporated. Continually absorbing others' drama and problems as they talk/work them out sounds exhausting, but that's just me. The people that do it best and can sustain it long-term seem to be either 1) VERY skilled at compartmentalizing work/personal life, or 2) completely selfless (overly so), often at the expense of their own health and well-being. If an inclination towards psychiatry is your true path, it will manifest/evolve in your life naturally, and over the long-term. I wouldn't completely and suddenly switch programs at this point...I wouldn't make any life-altering decisions like this, so soon after a breakup. Take time for life to equilibrate to some sort of "normal" and then see if the interest is still there.

I had a sense of deja vu reading the OP of this thread...some digging with the "search" function revealed why, with Not only are there 5 more pages of advice on exactly this topic, but there must be some consolation in the fact that you're not alone, right?

Sounds like you have a lot of time to spend in your head, and just by shear luck, have a cohort where most have chosen a vastly different lifestyle. Time to add something new to the mix! What resources are in your community, outside of your department? Are there beer brewing/tasting clubs? Slow Food? Hiking groups? Backpacking meetups? Martial arts? Running groups? Ultimate frisbee? Intramural sports? Volunteerism? Disc golf? Anything with fitness, in particular, I think will help with mood and tends to attract like-minded, positive individuals. I joined a hiking/wilderness club in my area, and while most are quite a bit older than me, they're fun, upbeat, and full of ideas about what's new to see and do in the area.

But can you go SURFING after that Tuesday class??

On what basis do you make this claim? I find the funding/amenities more than reasonable.

An interesting article from last spring: Higher Education the Next Bubble to Burst? Financially, my institution and department seem to be doing just fine...on the surface. No grads are accepted without a guarantee of support for 4 years, and the number of recent full faculty hires/offers has been a whopping 6-7 in the past 2 years. However, tuition is obscenely high and getting higher (as the article discusses) and they accept increasing #s of students each year to continue the cash flow...we are definitely lacking the infrastructure, if rumors are true about the sheer increase in # of bodies that's going to happen next year. I agree with TropicalCharlie that the issues surrounding higher education here are very, very complex, and often department and PI-specific. I'm more saddened to see State Parks absolutely hammered. I had very positive experiences working for them seasonally, and considered this as a career for a long time. That plan's been scrapped. On a more general note, this is my home state as well, and after years of living in the Midwest and south, I am SO happy to be back. The climate, people, mountains and recreation opportunities are the best!

I've seen this thread around for some time, and finally opened for the first time a couple days ago. I ran out of up-votes for the day by the end of page 1. This is my rescue muted tortie, Olivia. She came home with me on Superbowl weekend of 2007 as a 4-month old kitten. My BF has a rescue boxer-lab that I adore as well: Sadly, both live far away right now. I found out at the last minute that the apt I was signing a lease for didn't allow pets, so Olivia went to my parents' place for the year...I didn't want to show up for the start of grad school without a place, and have to re-start my whole apt. search. I will say that while having BF and family far away is hard, I miss having animals around everyday so much more!

EPIC. I have not laughed like that about something online for awhile. Well, at least not since I read the reviews for this product. I am sending this to everyone in my lab group life. For my part, I usually anticipate weekends...but then have a moment like this:

No glasses yet - almost done with year 1 of PhD and no changes in my vision. Last I was tested, it was 20/15. I have not, however, started the microscope work that will be part of my lab analysis. I fully anticipate that ruining my eyes. 19 posts on this thread so far, and I notice no one has yet mentioned the dark circles. I spot it now universally on every student in my program. I've always had some dark circles, but now this is like some serious hollow-eye going on. No one warned me! Do I have to start buying products that have "age-defying" on the front?

Hard to say. More data is needed. I.e., what do you envision for "social life?" What are the demands of your specific field? What do current students in your program have to say, or what does their quality of life seem to be?

When you say no access to library, do you mean on your new campus? I actually got in touch with the research librarian at my institution-to-be over the summer (like 2 months before orientation and classes officially started), and they set me up with a proxy server that I could use to start accessing all of the online journals remotely.

lydibird - see about financing through a credit union, rather than the dealership. I got a 3.5% APR from a local credit union. You'll have to do a lot of the prelim paperwork with them before settling on a car, and it helps to know the name of the credit union + rate, and to have really thought-out your monthly expenses and what you can/can't afford, when you negotiate the price of the new car. I too had a car (97 Golf) that was becoming cost-prohibitive last spring. I really wanted it to last, but...faced with driving it cross-country...and wanting a vehicle long-term...I bit the bullet and got a 2007 car, with a large down payment and 3 years financing. It was more than I hoped to spend, but it had a 1-year warranty, and I worked hard to make up for it with housing choice. I searched high and low and negotiated, and finally got a bedroom/bathroom in an already-furnished place with roommates, walking distance to campus. A few months before I started my program, I did scope around for credit cards that offered extended periods of 0% APR as a financial "buffer." Perhaps not the best financial back-up plan, but so many are now offering $100 sign-up bonuses, cash back, 10,000s of airline miles, etc. I knew I would make the payments on time. I loaded a lot of my moving and initial expenses onto one that I have been gradually paying off. To the poster who mentioned MI expenses being astronomical for cars...keep in mind I was moving to CA. I continue to pay the highest insurance premiums and gas prices of my life. I've still managed to save money, invest, make my car and credit card payments, eat well, and make retirement contributions. And, I could probably make do without a car...LA is actually easier for that than other places I've lived. But like you, I don't want to! I want the option and flexibility to make the 400 mi drive to see my BF and family...I LOVE driving. And, for the first time in my life, I drive a car that isn't persistently leaking something, from somewhere.

I could not have articulated this better. Indeed, this has been my cohort's (rather bewildered) observation. We had a core class where a each week, a different prof from the dept led the seminar...many saw it is an opportunity to discuss, advise, or (in one case) lay into us about what we needed to do NOW to prep for the TT job market. One finally revealed that the university tracks how many grads in each dept head off to TT jobs, and this is a big factor (if not THE biggest) in resources the dept gets from the college.

lydibird - thanks for the insight with recent grads, and good points. My initial reaction to their interviewees was a bit similar, but I didn't want to assume right off the bat, and entertained the possibility that this was an artifact of the journalist's viewpoint. But the quote from the Bio major suggested that degree = job (no mention of internships, research, networking, good or poor grades, etc.), and the Creative Writing major seemed rather out-of-touch with what skills are needed or marketable. I would say that this isn't a guarantee, either. Many career trajectories are becoming, at best, very uncertain, and at worst, obsolete. Incrementally increasing salaries aren't necessarily the norm; pay freezes, furloughs, cutting bonuses, etc. have grown more commonplace.

Read this article today and it made me think of a few current themes I've seen around here (Slate article thread, for example) lately. I just keep thinking that the economic climate for college grads is so different from when I finished undergrad over a decade ago. No wonder grad school appeals to an ever-increasing body of applicants, either as a way to avoid menial jobs/unemployment, or gain further experience and knowledge just to compete for jobs. I know my own dept had an increase in this year's application cycle of about 15%, compared to last year. Thoughts?

I will also add "Foul Bachelor Frog's" advice to this thread:

Actually, when I started my M.S., I was fascinated and obsessed with accounts of long-distance backpacking (think Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, etc.) I viewed this undertaking as my eventual saving and redemption from the grind of publish-or-perish academia. Perhaps that's more in line with the type of low-rent, no-job, insulating lifestyle this author is looking for.

"The escape I dreamed of is only an illusion. Airy academia will not save me from the grind of being an adult. Rather than magic citadels where you can weather the recession and mute its related stresses, Grad School is now part of a larger calculation—one in which love of learning defers to crummy real-world concerns, just like in the rest of post-college life." What does her definition of "crummy real-world concerns" entail, exactly? My examples of that would include plenty of things my cohort and I still cope with - classmates who are parents of small children, friends struggling with extreme medical conditions, the uniquely academic issue of long-distance relationships (4 in my cohort). And my windshield got cracked last week. Is academia supposed to insulate you from all that? If Grad Cafe is responsible for dispelling her naive illusions about academia, I say that is a win!

I would also recommend a comprehensive tour through the PhD Comic archives.

Here are a few: Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning an M.A. or Ph.D. by Robert Peters If you want to take a longer view and get a sense of what a career in academia now entails, then I recommend: The Academic's Handbook by A. Leigh DeNeef and Craufurd D. Goodwin

Did you somehow sneak into my classroom and view my life last spring? This was totally me. We even had a paper chain. As the year ended, I became extremely motivated with the task of gutting the storage closets, binders, and file cabinets I was in charge of, and clearing the years of detritus. Once admin and counseling staff got wind of my admit to grad school, they immediately decided to axe the curriculum I taught (the earth sciences get no respect, man). They'd been after me for years to switch to teaching bio or physics, so not surprising. This added to my overall feeling of "f--- it." Everyday, I would clean something or throw out entire boxes of stuff...it got my mind off the kids that were acting out, and kept me excited about my new life in scientific research. Half of my students were seniors; seniors tended to get "phased out" faster at my old school - their last day of class was a week prior to underclassmen, and many could get exam exemptions. I still had about 5-6 juniors to keep occupied, and used the opportunity to do a few labs with them that only work in small groups. Having more time during the school day allowed me to keep school work at school, and use more of my free time to see friends, do sports, beer tastings, plan my move to California, etc. The biggest thing that got me out of bed in the morning, though, were the colleagues and kids I knew I would miss. You interact with 100+ people everyday as a teacher. While this type of environment was a bit much for me to sustain for an entire career, I'd enjoyed the craziness - at times - and was still a bit mixed about returning to the solitude of a research lab. The moment I turned in my keys, wonky work-issued laptop and Employee Policies Handbook was the best. Look forward to that!

I saw this today at Urban Outfitters! Product description at amazon. Edited to add: My favorite application of Ramen is to break the uncooked noodle block into chunks and add it to slaw. The oils/sauce you use to make the slaw will soften them in a couple hours. I got the idea from various Asian/Chinese cabbage cole slaw recipes.

Oh my God, I meant to +1 this. Sorry! Stupid iPad...