Ennue

If you don't understand the key term in this hypothetical, then why are you answering my question? Sharing your ignorance is less valuable than you think.

It is sad that students are so pre-professional that when they hear of dishonesty and bullying in academia their response is to look the other way. This is why Enron and the financial crisis happened. The people who knew something was wrong did nothing.

The author of the article has a point with regard to cultural bias, but the long-winded crowing about "difficult" passages lost me entirely. I'm sorry, but I just did not have any problem with the passages in the article or in the test. I got a very good score on the GRE Verbal, but I do not consider myself to have some kind of unusually strong reading comprehension ability. I am frequently bogged down by literature in my own field.

The author suggests that reading passages come with headings that explain the main idea. Sure, let's do it. But then we can't have questions like "What is the title of this passage?" or at least, few of us on this board will ever run into a question that easy due to the adaptive nature of the test. A question like that does nothing to discriminate between students with poor reading comprehension and those with good reading comprehension. Instead, the test will have to ask about the main idea of untitled sub-passages, which ends up with the same "problem" identified by the author, of test questions being difficult and hurting his grad student friends' feelings or whatever. It's also important to note that in scholarly literature, one will often have to understand the main idea of paragraphs within a text, and not every individual paragraph will come with a helpful title. At a certain point, as a scholar, you have to supply some of your own brain power.

I did have one beef with the reading comprehension portion, but it had nothing to do with the texts themselves. From doing many practice tests and reading answer explanations, I noticed that incorrect answers were frequently described as containing misrepresentations or oversimplifications of the author's intent. In practice, I often found that all five answer choices were guilty of some degree of misrepresentation or oversimplification, leaving me to guess which one the test-maker wanted. Usually, this was not too difficult.



For example, I don't see any grammatical problem with this sentence or, for that matter, any major stylistic problem. All conjoined and compared phrases are in perfect parallel. I guess the problem is supposed to be with the final appositional phrase with two fronted adverbials. The first comma could be replaced with a dash, or "in many cases" could be moved to the end, but otherwise I don't see how this sentence is difficult to understand. It's long. So what? It's a concise and precise statement of the complex relationships between factors bearing on married women's employment. Scholarly writing, by necessity, frequently deals with complex relationships. Writing in simplistic terms as if for a high school audience leads to an oversimplification of the relationships being discussed. That's fine for high schoolers. It's not appropriate for writing aimed at grad students and scholars working in that field, who require detail and accuracy.

For that matter, the level of difficulty of a passage is largely irrelevant to a computer adaptive test that reports percentile scores, like the GRE. The intent is to identify a student's relative ability to comprehend scholarly writing, as compared to the total body of test-takers. As long as the test stratifies test-takers into those that do well and those that don't (which means, ideally, less than 1% of test-takers should receive the maximum score), absolute difficulty is irrelevant. If the test is simply made easier, somehow, then everyone will just get higher scores. Well yay, higher test scores are always good, right? At best, the percentile rankings will be unchanged. At worst, the verbal section becomes like the too-easy quantitative section, where it is impossible to score in the 99th percentile, and the test is therefore unable to identify the top 1% of students in that section.

To be sure, there are flaws in the GRE. Hopefully, the new test will address some of these, but this article hardly identifies any real flaws. The GRE reading comprehension portion tests the ability to read and understand scholarly literature. All scholarly literature is in someone's subfield. By sheer mathematics, it's unlikely to be in your subfield. (I didn't get any readings in my field, broadly speaking.) Likewise, every text is written from someone's cultural context. There are no culturally neutral texts. I wouldn't have any complaints about reading a text on Indian music, and in fact, many texts drawn from the humanities deal with cultures and historical periods that are likely to be unfamiliar to American test-takers. I would advocate there being more such texts. However, no matter what your culture or academic specialty, the odds are overwhelming that the subject matter is going to be unfamiliar to you. That's part of what makes the GRE a test, rather than a four hour self-esteem booster.

I know you're trying to be funny, but this statement is super condescending. Having suffered from severe anxiety myself (which I needed medication for at one point, and still need on some occasions), I understand why msafiri feels the need to defend her/his situation. There is still a tremendous stigma attached to mental illness, and, at least in my own experience, anxiety issues seem to carry more stigma than other mental illnesses. Everyone suffers from at least some anxiety, right? This is part of the reason why it took me years to get help. I was still on my parents' insurance and needed their approval to see a doctor and/or psychologist for help. I tried to talk to my mom about my anxiety and ask for help, but she brushed aside my concerns. Clearly, since I had a nice group of friends and was successful at school (i.e. since I was both more socially and academically successful than she was at my age), I must not have a problem. Despite my misgivings, I tried to believe her. It was only when my anxiety skyrocketed out of control and could no longer function as the high performing individual I used to be that my parents were convinced of my problem. I had to explain to them (through email - a phone call would have been too difficult) how I felt physically ill 24/7, how I couldn't eat or sleep, and how I had panic attacks every time I tried to do school work.

I finally got the help I needed and have my anxiety mostly under control. I guess the point of this story is that anxiety can be a serious issue to deal with, and we should not dismiss the experiences of others. Anxiety can work in some idiosyncratic ways. You can be fine in one situation, but crippled with fear in a seemingly similar one. Maybe the OP needs medication; maybe not. Maybe talking to a therapist about ways to control his/her anxiety would help. I don't know. Every individual's situation is different.

Department politics (or politics in academia in general) kinda comes through quiet observation.... It's different everywhere, you kinda have to test the water yourself within the department. One important thing to remember is that you need to be humble, keep your ears open, and talk less. Students talk amongst each other about things, you will definitely learn a thing or two....

In my program everybody says the first year is the worst in terms of work load but I don't think they're right. It's definitely different than the other years - much more structure, more assignments and readings and less (read: ' almost no') time for research. That all can be very stressful. In subsequent years we're free to build our schedule and do research at our leisure, but I don't think I'm working any less than in I did in my first year. If anything, I'm working more. But the nature of the work is different and the ability to control my time makes it more bearable.

The one important thing to learn in graduate school is time management. With it, it's also important to learn to say 'no'. There are just too many demands on my time and some things I just can't do, or can't do within the original time frame. I've learned to prioritize - some things I decide I won't even try to get done, others I decide to only invest X amount of time in - even if it means the final product is less than perfect (that's especially true for assorted class assignments). I try not to over-invest in my TAship so I keep careful track of how long I spend on my work and try not to overdo it, although sometimes that's difficult. The one thing to remember is that you'll have time for what you decide is important. If you make time for a social life, for breaks, for exercise - then you'll have time for those things. If all you do is work - you'll get tired and depressed and won't be able to keep it up. It's important to actively take time off, have hobbies, do other things. It's all a matter or deciding what's important.

I really have to agree with the competition advice concerning your cohort. As a direct from undergrad, my first year was fairly difficult because I placed a bunch of added stress on my self when I thought about students who had masters or life experience. The former I even took to calling "false first years." A lot of grad school in the first year is learning how to play the game which experienced grad students will simply be better at. This does not reflect poorly on your aptitude if you are playing catch up in this arena...3 years on there is rarely substantial differences between undergrad admits and others.

Taking criticism also resonated with me. It is hard. For many people, grades have been a source of self validation. In grad school, they suddenly become fairly meaningless in a lot of programs. At the same time, the actual critical reflection of your work goes substantially up. I still have to remind my self not be defensive during q/a during a presentation. My advice here is probably of a narrow focus, but I think if you are an externally motivated individual (ie gauge your self worth by the views of others) grad school will be an important place do develop more of an internal focus and it will also be a place of a lot of hard knocks...but they might be good for the soul.

Department politics: I'm still bad at this. My first year I didn't think there was a lot of distention in the department. My second year: I see it everywhere. Be very mindful when Professors ask you about their peers as it is hard to be certain of their motives especially if you do not fully grasp your department's politics.

One last thing...


Research Seminars and Meeting Visitors: My first year none of my cohort regularly attended our department's research seminar in which we invited high profile visitors to present their work. Big mistake. Yes first year is busy (I called it "First Year Grad Hell"), but this is an invaluable forum to network with the academic community you will be joining. If possible, read the paper thoroughly and have trenchant comment. If the department offers an option for informal grad meetings with the visitor, take it up even if the person is only within your broad subfield. You never know who will have an interesting insight on your project. The other advantages of these meetings is that different programs focus on different things in critiquing research and this is a good place to suss out what students at different schools are being told. This can be invaluable knowledge about the field come job talk time. Do be aware that these meetings can be incredibly awkward: it's not your fault. Academics are weird people and sometimes the conversation doesn't go well. I was really stressed about this and worried I had made a terrible impression on a very prominent member of my field. One of my advisers emailed me a few weeks later to tell me that he had actually brought up my research and was rather impressed. So awkward town does not mean that the meeting is a bust.

I concur with a lot of the advice that has been given, so I won't repeat it. Something that hasn't been directly discussed is learning the difference between undergrad and grad school. It is monumental. I didn't go through the whole application process to get into my master's program so you all are probably further ahead than I was straight out of undergrad. I had a vague understanding that graduate school was about research but I didn't really truly get it until I was in my current program for 3/4s of a year. I have been told many times: if there comes a time when you have to choose between anything and research, choose research. While there are of course non-academic exceptions such as family, friends, etc., the main idea here is that graduate school is 98% about research and becoming a competent researcher. If you have a class assignment, a somewhat flexible TA responsibility, a guest lecture, whatever, to do but you really need that time to do something critical to your research, do the research. If making steady progress on your research means doing B work in your courses, do B work. This does not usually jive with the way you are supposed to approach school as an undergrad and it takes time to really figure that out - I heard it many times before I really 'got it.'


Also, read. Read, Read, Read. You are embarking on a career where you trade in ideas and you need to know what ideas are out there. Find ways to connect your seemingly unrelated coursework to your research interests. Choose paper topics that help with understanding your own research better. In researching profs to apply to, you probably already started to build a web of how researchers are networked together - who worked with whom, which researchers collaborate, what the 'camps' are relative to your interests. Keep building that understanding. Know who is at which school. Occasionally take the time to go look at the latest research coming out of labs of researchers you think are cool. Or you think are kind of crazy. Get a feel for the sub-field politics as you are getting a feel for the department politics as IRdreams suggests. Research is about facts and ideas but as with all human pursuits it is heavily influenced by the human relationships of the people doing the research. You quickly want to learn to index ideas to people citation style.

Finally, try to make friends with other graduate students who aren't in your department. Your department peers can be great as colleagues and friends. You will definitely want to pursue that angle, but non-department grad friends can give you something different. They know what grad school is like, they have that understanding, but they are outside your department's politics. You can speak freely with them about the people in your department because they don't have any vested interest in whatever is going on. It can be a huge relief

A lot of good stuff has already been said, so here's my take.

The first year will, almost always, suck. So, find a way to make it suck less. Figure out which work *has* to be done and which work doesn't, then work accordingly. Make friends with your cohort, or at least some of them, so you have someone to talk to during breaks in class. Remember that you don't have to be best buddies with any of them. In fact, it's probably better if you aren't. Either find a new hobby or stick with an existing one. Write it into your schedule so that it happens. I recommend something that incorporates exercise but YMMV. Use the hobby and any other activities you have to start meeting other people, especially if you move to a new city for grad school.

Regarding money: Figure out ASAP whether or not you get paychecks in the summer. If you won't, start planning *now* for how to pay your summer living expenses. If you don't think you'll have enough, plan to take out a small subsidized loan in the spring semester (summer loans require summer enrollment, which could be extra money if your tuition waiver is like mine and doesn't cover summers), put it in a savings account, and don't touch it until late May. If you're having trouble juggling the start-up costs of grad school, take out a subsidized student loan for a few thousand dollars. Your payment after graduation will be under $50/month and you won't be stressed and/or paying criminally high interest rates to a credit card company.

Find a good and capable advisor. Note: this may not be the person you thought you'd work with. Interview potential advisors before deciding, if possible. Before forming a committee, ask other grad students about whether or not those faculty get along. Then, run every single name by your advisor before approaching that person. You do NOT want a committee that has their own issues that they bring into the room when discussing your stuff.

And, given the time and financial constraints, learn to cook either now or once school starts. I could barely cook when I started grad school but I've gotten better. Seek out food blogs and cookbooks that offer simple recipes. Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything is a great resource (though admittedly, years later I'm still unwilling to make some of the stuff in there due to complexity). If you don't already have one, get a slow cooker so that you can toss food into it in the morning and come home to a warm dinner. On days when you're biking/walking home in the dark, cold rain, it will seriously make you not want to give up.

Last but not least, don't date in the department. Just don't do it. It always seems like a good idea at first but, it can get ugly. So just stay away and, if you're having trouble, remember that you'll have to see that person daily for 4+ years after you break up, see them dating other people, hear about their drunken shenanigans and hookups, etc.

1) I definitely have to agree with there being no such thing as a safety school -- apply at schools matching your interests, safety or not, otherwise you probably won't get in. The two schools I was accepted at are, quite frankly, way out of my league of my undergrad university. I am convinced the primary reason I got in was because of my research match.

2) Don't put off industry experience in good companies, internships are a must if you can get them.

3) Get involved in research as soon as possible. If you don't go to a research university, start working on your own. Ask your professors for help and advice during the process as they will probably be behind you all the way and it is a good way to get recommendation letters. If your school doesn't have professors with a background in your area, look at other schools and ask professors there. This can be a great way to network. Also, along the lines of #1, do work in your area of interest if at all possible. If you tell a school that you want to work in area X and you already have some undergrad work in that direction, this will help you application a great deal by showing that you are interested enough to actually do work instead of just "it sounds cool".

4) I was lucky to not need this one, but get to know your professors and use their office hours. Doing well in class isn't enough.

5) Start writing your statement of purpose as early as possible. This will help you clarify your intent in your own mind and will probably make the process of choosing schools easier.

Even if you're a good candidate for admission, have good credentials and experience, know what you want to study, you still might get rejected. It's not uncommon to have to apply multiple times to secure a spot. So don't get discouraged if you're rejected your first time applying. Many have to try again a second (or sometimes third) year. If you really want to go to grad school, it will be worth waiting an additional year.

I'll start with this one. There is no such thing as a safety school. A school is either a good fit or not. A poorly ranked school doing research in everything you're not interested in, will reject you. Before you apply make sure the program is a good fit.


What about everyone else. What do you wish you'd known at the beginning?

I took my GRE in Kuwait. All instructions were totally in English, even the "put your coat here" ones .

Kuwait is an Arabic-speaking country, but since the GRE is in English, all test-takers are expected to understand it. No-one spoke Arabic, neither the people at the test center nor the test-takers themselves, even though they looked Arab!

I agree with Ennue. Sending an e-mail just to make sure will not hurt. It will reassure you and will prevent any surprises.

Good luck!

The Dutch tax system is complicated to say the least... So far I've only had to fill out my tax forms as a student, which equals paying no tax. Or something, I'm not sure. They usually gave me money back, anyway. You can tell how well-versed I am... (before you get your hopes up: a PhD 'student' is not considered a student here).

You could ask the program what your 'netto' pay would be, your net pay (as opposed to your bruto pay). This website (http://www.berekenhet.nl/werk-en-inkomen/nettoloon.html) gives your nettoloon as 1400 euros, that's probably approximately accurate. I'm sorry I can't give you more information even though I live here myself - it's just very complicated! Luckily they make filling out your tax forms easy

Yeah, GradCafe doesn't work for me either on my iPad (but it's the only forum that behaves as such for me)

If you tap on the pdf icon on JSTOR or another site, I would expect it to open in pdf format in safari and give you an "Open in GoodReader" button in the top right hand corner...at least that's how pdfs open for me out of email attachments - I'd have to try one of those sites to be sure.. You can also start from GR and do the "Web browse" and navigate to the articles from there. Often, I do my article "finding" on a real computer, download it into Dropbox, and file it away in GoodReader from there. Dropbox is an awesome tool for the iPad.

I think the biggest thing to remember about the iPad is that it is an entirely different style of computing - there's no cursor, no ability to drag things around, nothing like a "real computer". But, that in and of itself is not a bad thing. It becomes a device, one that is less prone to normal computer errors and hangs, something which I appreciate as compared to my "real" computer. You'll find a good rhythm with it.

For GradCafe, you need to use the mobile version of the site. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of any page here, and then swap from IP.Board to IP.Board Mobile.

As to GoodReader not opening articles, I'm not sure... I've never tried to directly download them off JSTOR though, I always just pull them from my endnote library on dropbox or from e-mails.

Generally, you'll open the PDF with the native viewer (safari, mail, etc), and then there's an icon at the top that's a little arrow out of a box that is the "open in" command that you can use to open it in GoodReader.

The locked down file system isn't Mac vs PC... Macs file system is in many ways more open than PCs are... It's the fact that the iPad runs on a mobile OS, not a desktop OS, and as such just takes some getting used to. It was like the "pocket" version of Windows back in the day- it performed very differently than a desktop version of windows.

Have you downloaded DropBox? Everyone I know uses that as their file structure. You can organize it however you like, have folder tiers, etc. And then you can access any of your PDFs, and sync them back to your computer with annotations when you're done. I also use it to pull up figures in meetings, give powerpoint presentations, etc.

This topic has been discussed multiple times:


There are links to two other past posts on this if you follow the link above.

I would also add the following:
If you're looking at a condo, you need to check the history thoroughly so you'll know whether to expect an increase in the monthly HOA or an assessment to pay for a large project (repaving everything, new roofing, etc.). If you get a bill in the mail for a $10,000 assessment and it comes just after closing, what will you do?

If buying a house, you absolutely need a reserve fund in case anything breaks. timuralp's point above about having to buy a new furnace is a good one. But other things can also go wrong and need replacement (air conditioning, water heater, plumbing, etc.) and not all of those things will be covered by a home warranty or a homeowner's insurance policy. If you can't afford the "Oh s$%*" aspect of home ownership, then maybe renting is better, especially if you will be cash-poor after making the down payment and whatnot.

FWIW, I thought about buying a house/condo in PhD city and would have if I'd stayed in MA town for my PhD. At the moment, I'm probably paying more in rent than I would be for a condo. BUT, I'm also about to spend a year away from here doing fieldwork. If I were a homeowner, I'd have to find a renter or management company, and possibly pay my mortgage plus rent in another location. That would definitely be a headache. That said, given that I've moved 3 times in less than a year, I kinda wish I'd bought for the stability.

Also, I'd look into the housing market more broadly. Are prices going up or down? (In my area, they are definitely going down.) How much work are you willing to put into a place? Will you be able to resell or rent it easily after you finish?

What would go wrong between now and matriculating at your program? If you have the final offers from all the programs, accept the one that you think is best and reject the others. In any case, it is pretty unethical and may cost other people spots in programs. Of course, if you need time to weigh your options, definitely take all the time you need. But once you've made up your mind and accepted a program, there is absolutely every reason to send in your official rejections to the others.

As a child, I cherished what I believed held more value - white skin. However, I've grown to love my dark brown skin along with the issues and genetic benefits of having darker pigment. I neither care nor take interest in "colorism" today as I find it's inherently separatist, and I'm all for unity. To be honest, hard times definitely tries my faith, but I remind myself that negative experiences are more powerful deterrents in my happiness, and I should move on.

I'm lucky to have attended a university that was diverse with the major "racial" (I don't like using this) groups in my city, which are also filled by many ethnicities. Though there's camaraderie between all groups, I see the brown people (including Asians) hang out with each other, whereas the non-Browns had one Brown speckled here or there. This doesn't mean anything to me anymore. I've grown to believe that people are people, and thankfully with this Depression, economical hardships allow more intermingling between the classes, and thus, ethnicities. This is framed specifically in my experience during college.

With this is mind, I have not had a unique .. issue/experience/disadvantage/advantage during my studies. Of course, people are more brazen in vocal statements during class discussions about certain discussed groups, when they are not represented much in the student body (this includes women discussing men, vice versa). In the social realm, at times I feel I have to work harder to convince someone I'm not the "general" brown person they envision, known for crime, etc. etc., but that's the uncontrollable sycophant in me seeking social acceptance.

Well wait, now that I think about it I have an issue. Many people (not of my ethnicity, and of my ethnicity) continually (facetiously? seriously? playfully?) try to de-validate my Browness because of my interests. You're not X because of the way you talk, your interests, blah blah. It used to grate my nerves, but I constantly remind myself that these people are vapid and ignorant, and I hope one day they don't say that to someone's face who will genuinely harm them in an attempt to prove their authenticity. As I'm writing this, it sounds kinda melodramatic. . . definitely not far-fetched! I've met people in my ethnicity and outside of it who believe that individuals are not obligated to fit within the strict perceptual constraints influenced heavily by mainstream TV culture, and have not had to deal with my aforementioned issue in a while.

I don't believe I completely answered your question, but this is what I was thinking about.

Hello folks,

I do believe that racial harmony in academia consists of more than just prejudice reduction or mere tolerance. Such politeness without compassion fails to address the psychological victimization of ethnic minorities, a sort of internalized racism that metastasizes over time. Even in a world bereft of prejudice, the reality of racial difference and phenotypic variation--being the "other"--injects a pervasive sense that one does not belong. Not in government, not in business, medicine, or law. And certainly not in academia.

So this is a thread about the experience of ethnic minorities in this turbocharged and insular place. Non-minorities are of course welcome to join the conversation.

I write from experience. I grew up hating myself for the color of my skin, which is a shade darker than the color of dead leaves. There was a bliss to whiteness that I craved, and I exerted great effort to punish myself for my sordid heritage. I categorize myself as Indo-Trinidadian, the descendant of indentured servants that emigrated from India to Trinidad. I came to the United States from Trinidad as an infant. I have never felt that I belonged anywhere, and I suspect that my conviction that I am different, and that others see me as different, must have contributed to my racial self-aversion. Despite the pleasure and purpose that I derive from working in my field, I feel arrested by the notion that I'm infringing on turf where I am not welcome.

The delusion of isolation, I think, is the price of racial uniqueness, and it's a delusion that I still struggle to vanquish.

Even more, stereotypes about my ethnic group's performance in academic settings don't exist. I can't imagine how exhausting life must be for those of African, Hispanic, and Native American descent, that is, those who hail from groups stigmatized in this line of work.

And even if I were to find myself surrounded by Indo-Trinidadians in the lab, would uncertainty about my belonging subside? I'm not sure. I have grown accustomed to the injection of self-doubt wherever hope might lie.

As a result, I pressure myself to succeed, but achievement awards me neither belonging nor confidence.

There are occasions when I wish I would have professed my affection for certain women who seemed to possess the kindness to quell an anxious heart, who might have viewed my intimate company as something more than an act of contamination. And yet, I feared rejection because of the color of my skin. I am still terrified that the impurities of my race (not just my physical attributes, but my culture, my homeland) foretells only more unrequited love. I have therefore completely avoided initiating any non-platonic contact with women. It wouldn't surprise me if women never reciprocated my affection, anyway, for I know that I have little to offer. In romance, my racial otherness places me at a disadvantage, while White male suitors, still a numerical majority, exercise their privilege of never having to contend with psychological torment like this.

So who out there also lies among those wounded in the war on ourselves? How do you protect yourself, buoy your self-worth in a line of work that is rife with failure? When belonging to an ethnic minority, will the scars ever disappear? Namely, does the perceived lack of fit in high-status occupations dissipate, or will we always feel "out of place"? And how to navigate the treacherous waters of interracial romance?

To women, LGBTs, religious minorities, and working-class folks: What challenges have you faced in academia that are distinctly the burden of minorities? What opportunities?

Many thanks to all of you for reading and for contributing. I would like to think that this sort of discussion pushes this diverse world a little bit closer together.

I think the whole tenor of your comments suggests that you're resigned to your situation: you talk about coping, etc. You have to realize that nothing's going to change if you don't make an effort. I certainly know that feeling: you're absolutely miserable in your situation but you are so accustomed to it that you can't even imagine anything else. I think it's right that you seek psychological support, but there are a few things you could do to create a sense of separation from your mother right now.

For instance, you've talked about being 'forced' to surrender your savings, etc. I'm assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, that means you're somehow dependent on your mother financially, i.e., you have joint accounts or something, such that you can't do anything without her. If that's the case, you should set up your own accounts and make sure your earnings are deposited there. That way you'll have complete and exclusive control over your finances.

Second, do not rely on your mother or her car for transportation, or do so as little as possible. I know that sounds small and kind of trivial, but I'd suggest that depending on her to go anywhere only reinforces your actual and psychological dependence. Take public transportation, walk, get a bike, whatever you need to do to inculcate in yourself a sense of independence.

I know you say you can't move out, but I think it's really a necessary and vital step. Especially from your last post, you whole living environment seems incredibly toxic and damaging. See if you can move in with friends, even for a short time, or look for a roommate to lower the costs.

Going back to my first points, you absolutely must stop thinking of yourself as a victim; it's self-reinforcing and destructive. You are an adult; you are an autonomous human being of independent moral worth, and you cannot be forced to do what you don't want to do. In a real sense, it isn't your mother who is, for instance, forcing you to apply to grad school (what does that even look like?), but you forcing yourself to obey your mother. This you have to break out of.

Hey Just me,
I don't have any advice for you, but I can tell you about my situation... and maybe you can tell me which kind of nagging is worse...

I'm female and asian american. But unlike my other asian american friends, my mom doesn't care much about pursuing higher education. In fact, she was disappointed that I had not found a husband by the end of my undergraduate degree. According to her logic, the reason why I should go to a great university is so that I can have better choices on the man that I should marry. "Doctors are preferred... no lawyers because they're dishonest," she says.

Anyway, long-story-short, she thought it was silly of me to want to pursue grad school and spend all my time in the research lab. I applied anyway and got into a great program at one of the Ivy leagues. When I told her this, she changed her tune. She is now ecstatic because she has convinced herself that I've "saved" myself throughout undergrad so that I can go to grad school at an Ivy league and find me a nice husband there. Can we say "delusional"?? haha The twist is that I do not plan to marry a man because I like women!

Just Me, your mom is living her life through you. She wants her dreams to be your dreams, your successes to be her successes. You probably know that you are fulfilling something in her that she doesn't get elsewhere and this is beyond the scope of what is healthy for her. And it is holding you back as well. It is a vicious cycle, as you can see. She needs, you attempt to meet her needs while ignoring yours, you can't meet her needs, you feel like a failure, she comes up with her idea of a solution and the cycle begins anew.

All parents want their kids to be successful unless their kid's failure perpetuates a sense of being needed. This is not working for you because you are miserable. Some kids honestly don't mind this but your feelings of anxiety are sort of like the feelings you get when you feel pain in some part of your body. That pain is a signal that something is probably not right, something needs to be fixed. Your angst is your signal that some part of your mind needs resolution and that this situation is impeding your forward progress. Breaking away is not going to be easy. These patterns are probably well established and only good advice from a professional will help you to gain some buy-in to your own solution. You would probably find it difficult if not impossible to just tear yourself away from this situation and move on because there would be a void that might just be filled with all sorts of guilt and grief. Have you considered counseling WITH your mom? She needs to find her own strengths and allow others to appreciate her for her merits and not yours. Meanwhile, if you are not happy with the prospects of continuing your education at this time, any movement in that direction might squash your interest and creativity anyway.

Please don't wait any longer to get help. The college you are attending has counseling services and they are well-equipped to deal with these kinds of problems or refer you to just the right people who can help you find some peace.

For most people, PhD programs are year-round jobs - you often get offered only an academic year stipend but often programs find ways to fund you during the summer. Even if they can't pay you, you probably still want to stick around in the summer to get your research done while there aren't that many other distractions going on. So, a 12 month lease is the way to go.

Personally, I like living with other grad students in a house close to campus, but not in the undergrad areas. I can walk to my building in less than 10 minutes. I have close friends to talk to every night who are going through similar hoops in their departments. I currently live with people who are students in other departments but 3 of them are in the same department and don't have a problem with that. I like the variety of people in my day but they can also come home and gossip about the people in their big department with each other which is nice too.

I would say the biggest thing if you are going to live with roommates is to make sure that they can be respectful of a super stressed out grad student when needed. Grad school isn't something that can always be left at the office at the end of the day.

Glasstothearson, first off I just want to commend you for seeking treatment. Though I can understand why you might feel bad about leaving the office for a few hours each week, you are receiving vital medical treatment. If you were a professor, how would you feel if your student, diagnosed with depression and anxiety, felt bad about visiting his or her therapist? Wouldn't you do all you could to reassure them that they deserve treatment, that their lives are precious, too, and that just as the cancer patient receives regular chemotherapy, so must the person suffering from mental illness? If your advisor asks you about your absences, feel free to share only as much as you would like. I like poco_puffs' idea of referencing a "standing appointment."

I've struggled with severe recurring depression ever since I was 13. I resorted to self-harm behaviors and, at my most desperate point at which I lost all hope, I attempted suicide soon after I graduated from college, as a master's student. You are correct in your suspicion that many people experience depression and/or anxiety in grad school. Many more probably go untreated. So again I congratulate you on receiving a combination of medication and psychotherapy to accelerate your recovery. I hope that you have found your medication and biweekly therapy satisfactory. It can take a while for the effects of those treatments to kick in.

If you would like to explore additional therapy, I would recommend dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). It emphasizes letting go of negative self-judgments and practicing self-compassion. Its four themes are mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotion regulation. It is empirically supported for the treatment of depression.

It's a grievous shame that most university health insurance plans only cover psychotherapy for up to 12 or so sessions per academic year, I think. That's how it worked at my undergrad. Please don't be afraid to seek additional treatment (in the form of group therapy, weekly or twice-weekly therapy instead of biweekly therapy, etc.) if you feel your current treatments are not making you feel better.

Feeling Good by David Burns has been recommended to me if you would like to explore bibliotherapy.

I wish you all the best as well as a speedy recovery. Navigating depression's fog can often seem like an endless voyage, as if lost at sea without a compass, or like trudging through waist-deep mud, but the best thing about this illness is that it is 100 percent treatable. In therapy, you can also learn ways to build resilience and cope with stress to ward off depression should it ever threaten to return (let's hope it doesn't).

Take care, and please be ask kind to yourself as you would like others to be.