The Dudester

I received an email that my status had changed, checked it, I was rejected. Then I got a letter shortly thereafter. Today I received another rejection letter from them. Really nice.

Debt for a PhD is a kiss of death.

The other side of this is that if the intangibles mean nothing, then you better ace your GRE. Otherwise, just quit and never try. There is more to people than test scores and GPA.

I'm railing against the genre more than the specific writer. It is quite obvious that school isn't for everyone. And it is for some people, but only to a certain level. And I do agree with StrangeLight that because someone decides that academia isn't for them does not make them deficient or a failure - they just figured out what works for them. But this whole genre of blogs about how awful grad school is just becomes so tedious when they repeat all the problems as if they were the only ones to suffer them, or as though all of us applying are ignorant rubes unaware of the risks. The fact that they are making so many complaints while being so happy with their new life is even more suspect. Every couple of days someone posts a blog telling everyone how it really is, but completely overlooking the fact that most of us applying are aware of the dangers of this path, and we need to find out if it is right for us or not, and the blog cannot be our only information in making that decision. But even those who go to grad school and quit to become happy elsewhere are actually better off for having attended; they discovered it wasn't for them. The people who went and found the whole experience awful and soul-destroying can go on with their lives knowing that academia is not for them, and in fact the trials of a PhD program often makes them realize what really makes them happy and what is truly valuable to them. If nothing else, the attempt helps direct them towards future happiness. The Chef and the girl at the animal shelter both were still improved by the experience, because they were able to figure out what to do with their lives. These kind of blogs overlook this fact. And also want to offer a told-you-so to anyone who fails in grad school, even though the only way to truly know if it fits or if you will be one of the rare successes is to actually try.

I was just like this until I got acceptances. Then my enthusiasm for the future took off and is carrying me though the end here.

Another blog about how horrible grad school is. How wonderful. Did you guys know that the job market is bad? And that some people don't fit in? That you might have a shitty boss? You could feel overwhelmed and overworked? You might be making a mistake? Welcome to life! These are issues everywhere you go. All the bitter ex-grad students want you to believe that grad school is the only place where things are hard like this, or these are the issues. Guess what, they aren't. These are realities in every field. Be aware of the pitfalls, but don't presume that every cranky poster with ablog account has some magical insight because they had a bad experience. Most of us have heard the speeches and been apprised of the risks. Ultimately we are going to give it a shot. I'd rather be an unemployed phd than some dick wondering how things could have been different if I had just given it a shot. Maybe I'll drop out in a year or less. Shit happens. But if we had everyone who had a bad experience in a given field write a blog, no one would want any job ever.

Ah, a gay immigrant. I can feel the Tea Party getting angry at your arrival as we speak. But hey, once you get here you can get divorced as much as you like. That's how we protect marriage.

My point wasn't that those jobs aren't satisfying. It is that the bellyaching about how bad one has it in academia is laughable to most of the population, especially those working these manual labor jobs for 25 years. I would like the "this is so hard!" critique to drop.

FWIW, USC is not in a great neighborhood, and cost of living in LA is awful. But on the flip side, it has everything you could want to do or see.

Polar Bear State?

Reminds me of the Simpsons episode about the big football game. The star player gets injured, and Dr. Hibbert says, "You can fall back on your degree in...Communications!" And the player says, "I know, is phony major! I learn nothing!" I know it isn't true, but I agree that it is one of the disciplines that gets unfairly tagged as being easy.

I think student evals are an awful way to gauge a teacher. There are a number of studies proving that the rating of the teacher can be directly pegged to the grade the student expects. Maybe they can be a component if they include substantive comments, but it sucks to hold it against someone who is working hard.

How many blogs like this are there? We all know it is hard, we all know the pitfalls, we all know the difficulty. Some people need to vent and tell everyone else how big of a mistake their decision is going to be despite being at a different program in a different field and a different person. Some are bitter at their choices. I wish all these people would just man up and quit if they hate it so much. You read and write for a living in an air-conditioned building. You aren't working in a factory or on a construction site or in a nuclear reactor core. You could have it worse.

Get it all done early. I got all of my applications in before the first deadline of all the programs. This way you aren't stringing along your apps over two months, and your letter writers can do it all at once. I felt like I saved a lot of time by getting them out of the way all at once.

On the flip side, Merced hasn't had the time to develop a bad reputation either. If you produce good work with a decent adviser, you should be fine, I think. Then you can help make their rep better for the future students.