GradHooting

I have a question for you guys: Suppose you are TAing for a science-related lab. What would you recommend for encouraging class participation? I realize that much of the interest of the students I am taching is not in my control. Though, it would be nice to manage to get at least one or two answers to open-ended question, maybe to encourage discussion.

Yep. Even double checking I would consistently transpose the numbers. It was the environment which threw off my thinking. Also to GradSecretary, I plan on getting off AD's with time. They were only meant as a temporary solution. But, they might indeed be having a negative effect. It's crossed my mind in the past. Anyway, good news! I passed the Ph.D. qualifying exams! So, after all that work and struggle, I am shocked that I managed to pass. Apparently, "with flying colors" as my advisor said. I also had to remind him to inform me. He had completely forgotten to tell me because, to him, it was not surprising news. This is definitely the best moment I've had in my life for the past 10 years or so. I am so glad I opted to go for this. It's taught me so much about myself, and how I need to improve and cope with challenges. I just hope I can be there for future years of students coming in with their own confusing struggles. I managed to pull through despite the challenges. I am kind of bummed that a few friends of mine with whom I studied did not pass the exams, but am more surprised at their emotional maturity about it. They have made peace beforehand in ways that I still need to work to achieve.

To put it simply: You work hard and you play hard. If you just work hard without the leisure, you will do worse. Your emotions will be completely in the toilet, and you won't be living life in the present, which is an absolute necessity in grad school. Even worse, your grades will suffer as you lose perspective. I do far, far better in my studies when I take time off to socialize, relax, enjoy my surroundings, and meet other students. The brain simply will not absorb what you learn as well if you're constantly stuffing more information into it. You need to back away from studies periodically to allow the brain to absorb the knowledge into a compact form. For instance, I was in the shower when I finally came to a realization about Lagrange multipliers. I was walking to and from an appointment when the fundamental theorem of Linear Algebra, which I had used constantly, collapsed down into a small nugget of knowledge that made perfect sense to me. I no longer had to memorize any equations for it. These "ah ha!" moments happen away from my studies.

That's a fascinating and very apt comparison. My adviser is keen on keeping me involved in research the moment qualifying exams are over. Perhaps he anticipates a sort of "drop" in mood after the intense deadlines and adrenaline stop. OP, perhaps you could find some fun in the topics you are researching, maybe not necessarily immediately related to what you are doing? I know that when my final exams were completely over, I did not feel like preparing for the next phase of work. So, I sat down and wrote a wave equation solver where you could hear the sounds of different-shaped things as they were bonked. Completely unrelated to what I was doing, but it was some output for the high strung feelings, like writing it down in a journal or something. In a sense, writing that program was a journal entry to me, to put my feelings about the work I've done into some tangible form. Otherwise, I would have crashed too fast from intense study to nothing. That project served as a sort of cushion to ease me into a different direction. Do you think you could turn the feelings you have into a fun project of some sort?

Your encouragement made my day, star! I am especially driven to push through this because I anticipate incoming students might face similar difficulties, and I'd like to be in a place where I can encourage them.

I am not sure how such grades are interpreted in literature, but I've found that in many engineering schools, maintaining a 3.5 (B+/A-) maintains scholarship funding. A 3.0 maintains other types of funding. My school is not known for grade inflation. Some graduate professors even hand out C's and D's

I agree with the diminishing returns thing. There is not a linear relationship between time spent on studies and performance on studies. In fact, I would say the relationship isn't even monotonic. After a certain point, you spend so much time on studies, and get so burnt out working on studies, that you end up producing less work at 1.5x hours per week than you would have been able to do at only x hours per week. The human mind is a fickle beast, highly emotional and able to internalize what's been learned simply by being away from studies for periods of time. When people say "burn out" I view it in a different way, being a car enthusiast. Imagine a car with 600 horsepower and you want to maximize your speed at the end of a quarter mile. In most cases, you cannot simply floor the car the whole way and expect good results. Going "all out" just spins the wheels, makes lots of smoke, goes far slower, and might even crash into a wall. The tires literally burn out until you can no longer see what is ahead of you due to all the smoke. If you throw maximum effort at your studies 100% of the time, you will find that your vision is obscured by minutiae. I've found that I learn quite a lot by simply stepping away from the work for a little bit and doing something else. I come back a few hours later (or the next day) and the work is suddenly easier.

Based on personal experience (which I'm sure you'll find in other threads here), I offer advice similar to the above posters: Keep in tune with your emotional well-being. You will be very motivated going directly into graduate school and you might feel compelled to jump into your studies full force, wanting to, perhaps, stay ahead, to understand the topics early on. Be careful with this method. As the above poster said: take baby steps, pace yourself. Keep any budding obsession with classes and grades in check. You want to do well in classes, but they are absolutely secondary in graduate school. Meet colleagues, get to know them, find ways you can help them with their own studies. You'll help yourself through helping them. Also, they will find you to be a helpful person and will exchange their own time and assistance if they're decent people.

Well, I got my grades back, and I have achieved the goal I was looking for. It's not a great goal, but, basically, I get to keep all of my financial aid! Now, just to study for the qualifying exams. Right now I am mathematically precisely at the minimum GPA to keep all my funding. I do not like where my GPA is at whatsoever, but at least I am still getting funding. Given the constant emotional turmoil and doctor's visits half the time trying to figure out what was being triggered in my head, I think things turned out alright. I nailed two out of my last 3 exams, so the treatment seems to be working slowly. One exam faltered a bit, though, I know what I need to do to fix the problem in the future. I really hope grades don't matter beyond this point (beyond maintaining them and doing research) because I certainly would like to produce some excellent research, or at least get to the point where I am not known for good/bad grades.

Of course he is. He joined to troll these boards, making up stories the whole way. He's trying to get a rise out of people (seriously, look at his comment history). Read the second part of my previous post in this thread. It answers your question.

^^^^ This guy is a well-known troll among these forums. It's a surprise he hasn't been banned yet. Just look at his comment history. Anyway, to the original poster: It sounds like you are having a particularly difficult time getting your adviser to interact with you. That is not necessarily the norm for sure. Every MS student (not sure how it varies for MA), in my department is very well looked after. Most of them are involved in lab work, and some professors have it as a requirement that all of their master's students get published at the end of their two years. The very fact that you're interested in pursuing a Ph.D. should get some interest from some people, hopefully. Don't give up! Sometimes it just takes persistence, finding them when they're in their office, etc. Most of the meetings I've had with my own adviser have been quite impromptu, not that regularly scheduled.

This is a very helpful thread reading through some of these replies. I sent a request to my professor to take an incomplete or to drop the class. It is also not essential to my progress towards my Ph.D., but it has been eating up my time like no other. fuzzy's description put some of my worried thoughts into order quite a bit. Thanks!

I have an option to take a medical withdrawal of a class, which I might do. I have legitimate reasons to lighten the course load, and the disability office would back it up fully. I'd rather not drop out of that class, though. I'd rather take an incomplete and do the final exam and required work once I'm finished with the quals. It's strange. It's the undergraduate class that is an easy concept, but very tedious, that is by far the hardest class for me. My adviser told me that it would be a breeze. That's great, but I think I have stumbled upon the perfect class that attacks my worst way of learning. It's a class that forces me to browse through a sea of disparate equations in order to find the right one. The intense quals-preparation classes that are deep in theory and abstract concepts? Those are the relatively easy ones for me. I feel as if I have a much stronger grasp of those classes. *EDIT* As an aside, while I appreciate that my adviser believes in my abilities and competence, I feel that his confidence in me has resulted in dragging me through a bed of hot coals. I had wanted to drop this particular course since before the first test, because I was deeply concerned about my emotional health. Half the time has been seeing doctors and trying to prevent the anxiety attacks from occurring. His confidence in me and encouragement to keep going resulted in me failing the first test and doing mediocre on the second one. Every step of the way, I had wanted to drop. It has been an absolute roller coaster between thinking I've finally "cracked the code" to performing in this class, and getting beaten down by another bad homework or test grade. Other students (undergraduates) seem to have no issues with this class. This makes it even worse, because whenever I have doubts and confusions in this class, I get told, over and over, that, because I'm a graduate student, that I should already know the fundamentals for this course. But, it's so darned tedious! It's the scattering of hundreds of bits of minutiae that you have to keep track of in each problem that I'm stumbling on. It's a simple process but the breadth of raw brute force algebra is beating me down. Other students seem to have mastered this, but this is precisely my biggest weakness. I have slight animosity towards my adviser for leading me down this path of destruction. It has been so trying that I've been reduced to screaming at the top of my lungs in my car because I can't take the storm of feelings of inferiority, being inadequate, not living up to expectations, and overall performing the worst I ever have in my life. This "simple" class is a huge, huge thorn in my side and I want to pluck it out, like I wanted to do from the very beginning. I feel as if he didn't listen to my concerns. I almost wonder whether my skills are so abstract theory-lopsided that I've no idea how to scrawl out quick-draw algebra. I can go into great detail over how to minimize a path through configuration space using calculus of variations for a graduate course, or the many uses of green's functions, but keeping track of all the matrix algebra for a non-essential engineering undergraduate course? Forget it. I've filled stacks of pages to the brim with practice and I've made no headway in my abilities here.

The medication is doing wonders with helping me stay focused during homework and getting tasks done outside the test environment. Unfortunately, it seems to have not helped whatsoever in assisting my performance during an actual test. I must have some form of test anxiety, with each subsequent lackluster test performance building up a negative history which just fuels the fire. I just want some single good grade to feel good about. I'm not asking for much at this point. I want the stupid mistakes to stop. This has never happened to me before. Ever since last November, it's like I have completely forgotten ol how to take tests. I was able to pull off perfect GRE math scores, getting A's on all my initial grad school class tests, and now I just walk into exams hoping that "finally, now's the time I can break this streak of shockingly bad test performance." Something deeply mechanical is wrong with my brain. It's like something got activated and is just spiraling out of control. Everything I've been doing has been trying to fix this problem, and I'm getting worn out. I'm an uneasy combination of pissed off, sad, tired, defeated. Why can't I pull off the simple 98-100%s my colleagues with whom I study can pull off without even attending class? I used to be able to do that.

Well, unfortunately there is still no good news. Recent test grades showed that I am still messing up on the simple things. Even on the most recent test, the first problem was identical to a homework problem which I correctly evaluated with zero assistance, albeit with a simpler setup. But, during the test, for some inexplicable reason, I did the problem differently. It's like my brain just short circuits during an actual exam. If I had just copied the way I did it during the homework, it would have been fine. This is profoundly frustrating to me. I have never struggled so hard trying to get decent test grades in my life. I will be submitting the paperwork that I've been compiling with doctors to the disability office tomorrow. Something is definitely going on. It might just be my emotional resolve that has been so thoroughly eroded and I simply have had no time to step back from it all and reach some sort of stable mental equilibrium. I clearly know the material, but my ability to perform in a test environment is horrible right now. Even more, I have the qualifying exam coming up. This should be interesting.

I have multiple doctors assisting me with getting sufficient (current) documentation ready to present to the scholarship committee and the disability office. Everyone around me is telling me the same thing: that I know the material but something else is going on. All the doctors are telling me unequivocally that I have some form of ADD. I am concerned since now I am actually on medication and this work is suddenly easy for me to do. I have no problem completing assignments in a day that once took me a week with multiple office visits. However, the damage has been done, and now it is vigorous damage control. I do not know whether it would be possible to take an incomplete and finish the exams at a later date, or what.

Well, my performance seemed to start taking a nosedive without any medications for assistance. So, I am already talking to a psychiatrist and a psychologist in attempts to resolve the problem. It's frustrating because this entire semester has been attempting to fix the problem from all sides: vigorous studying, seeking external assistance to try to find different study techniques or see if anything else is wrong. I wish I could stop this train wreck from happening.

I was calm going into the test. I felt like I was going to do fine. I was not worried about it whatsoever. I had completely studied for it and the professor told me that I clearly know enough to do well. It wasn't an issue of whether I didn't understand the underlying concepts. It was more an issue that the type of question was a special class of problem whereby I had to recall pre-derived equations to apply. I didn't know it was that class of problem, so I derived it from scratch and was able to get about 60% through the test before running out of time. If someone said "Oh, antisymmetric cross-ply with uneven thickness, that's been solved for already, use these equations on this slide and plug it in." I knew all the other classes of materials, but the entire test was on this particular thing. Even without knowing that the equations were pre-derived in the notes, I knew exactly what to do to approach the problem manually, but obviously it would have taken a very long time to solve. Maybe it was just bad luck. But, this is a systematic problem as well. Hearing the ADD comments are a bit of a relief. It seems that everyone is on the same page. My adviser brought up that very thing to me, as well as other professors. They have also recommended to me that I go to the office of disabilities to see what can be done. I was diagnosed with ADD as a young child, but I opted to stop having treatment for it on my own accord when I was an early teen. I developed coping strategies to get me this far. Apparently, grad school is that breaking point where my coping strategies are falling apart. I was getting A's on all my tests in my much more difficult pure-graduate classes last semester, until the very end when things started breaking down. I haven't recovered from that. Is it possible that suddenly I am not studying right, after studying right for so long?

As an addendum: I like doing this material. This stuff is fascinating to me. I love to learn it. I love to go out of my way to teach people it and show them some cool real world applications of it. I am truly passionate about these concepts and I belong here. My adviser repeated this mantra to me over and over. "You belong here. You are on a fellowship for a reason. This is a very prestigious program and I saw your application. I know what you are capable of. I never question whether or not you belong here at all."

Well, at this stage, I simply do not know what to do. For the whole first part of this semester, I was battling some crippling depression, spawned by the many years of being rejected from schools everywhere, and feeling inferior. Half the time was seeking therapists who my insurance could take. When I finally locked that down, and sought cognitive behavioral therapy + lexapro, I thought that I would be good. Throughout this time, my test grades were also falling. Now, this is the part where I do not understand. I do all the work, all the assignments, attend all the study sessions, and visit the office frequently for help. I also do the practice tests in a timed environment, until I know the equations so well that I don't even need to use the "cheat sheet" that I am allowed to have with me during the test. So far, my grades have been... A, C, F, C, (probably a D or F, most recently). I simply do not understand it. I am not only doing bad, but, one of the classes, where I got the F on the first test, is an undergraduate class! My adviser told me that it would be a breeze. I've been doing all the assignments in that class, attending all the lectures, taking notes rigorously, covering the material and doing all the practice tests. Most recently, I went through 35 pages of practice tests and solutions studying for the most recent test in this undergraduate class, and picked out critical errors in the solutions and presented them to the professor. He said that I was indeed right, and also said that I clearly understand the material and am ready for the test. During the test, a problem was presented that none of the practice tests had and none of the homeworks had, but was a specific type of class of problem that was in the notes that I neglected to study for. Because the test was 1 problem long, I was not able to hunt and peck for magic set of equations that simplify the whole process for that specific case. Thus, I was only able to even get half the test done. In another test, regarding complex analysis, I got one of the lowest grades in the class, and 100% of my errors consisted of transposing digits ( (z-4)^3 became (z-4)^4 ), misreading the problem (drawing a semicircle instead of the stated "circle), transposing the variables of differentiation (e^(st) differentiated via S instead of via t for an inverse Laplace transform). I am so unbelievably pissed off with myself at this point, because I feel like the amount that I know the material and vigorously study for it is completely independent of my test performance. All my professors that I have shown my tests to tell me that I clearly understand this material completely and fully, and that something mechanical is going on. At this rate, I am going to lose my fellowship and I question whether I can justify taking out copious amounts of loans to continue this downward spiral. What is going on with my head? I don't get it. I am at a loss. I attend every class, take all the notes, visit the office for questions, spend hours and hours studying and nailing down all the concepts, and performing exceedingly well on practice tests. I lead discussion sessions where I assist people who are behind on their assignments, showing them easy ways to remember the material and learn the equations. I can recall perfectly the copious amounts of equations written out in my test study sheets and I understand how to derive them all, and the implications and applications of the theories. But, when it gets right down to it, when presented with a test in a test environment, I either get incredibly nervous, fidgety, or feel calm and simply transpose numbers and misread questions. These aren't careless errors! I take great care to address these when studying ahead of time. I keep questioning my adviser whether I am simply being lazy and not studying enough, but he continues to correct me and say "nope, you understand this. Something else is going on." Well, what is going on?? This has never happened before.

Hey, the last grade was really, really late. It ended up just coming in. Turns out I got the highest grade possible in that class, so, my best grade by default. Hurrah! I have been spending the past few weeks seeking therapy and arranging appointments. I'll figure out the bug that made it such a struggle the first time around. So, in conclusion, no losing of fellowship! I made the necessary GPA to continue with a decent margin. The story definitely isn't over, though. I can't go around just hoping that this doesn't happen again. I'm making a plan to avoid it in the future. Loric: I also ended up seeing Gattaca. That was a pretty inspirational movie and I hope it rings true. I'm hoping I can train myself into a better way of thinking.

I was rejected from every school, fellowship, internship for two years. My best advice (and advice that I keep telling myself every day) is to keep going. If you are genuinely interested in the subject and you want to understand it on a deeper level, then simply reapply next year. Do everything you can to find out how to improve your application and gain experience. For me, my failures became a sort of focused anger which drove me to keep going. I finally got admitted to a school (and a few others) with a fellowship.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. Yeah, after my first bad grade, I immediately sought counseling. Unfortunately, they were in such high demand that I was only able to get one appointment, and their policy has it that I cannot schedule any more until next semester. I am definitely keeping my adviser well aware of the situation, though I do not want to unload too much on him, since he is going through some issues of his own. He does have all the facts, though. Right now, I am doing everything I can to seek as much assistance as I can get. I've found that counseling does not come easy, and appointments are in such high demand here. I will be seeking counseling out of town ASAP. *edit* sorry about the sudden edit, but who should know about what is going on? So far, only my adviser and the professors know. Should I also contact the grad program coordinator?

So, my entire school decision came from the financial aid package. This is my first semester. This place was offering full funding, so I went here. My grades were great in all of my classes until a frightful day in November, where my midterm grades just plummeted after not getting enough sleep (two midterms that day). The rest of the semester was being hunkered down doing not much beyond working my butt off studying and trying to recover my grade, as well as fighting with the ensuing depression and self-confidence mental death spiral I was in. I immediately sought therapy that day, but no appointment was able to be made until a month later, during finals week. So, the one appointment I had wasn't able to help much. I studied hard for finals, putting up timers and simulating a test taking environment, making and cross-referencing notes. But, it wasn't enough. Right now, my GPA stands at a precise 3.5, and I need an A or an A- in the remaining class to be able to keep the fellowship. Unfortunately, the professor had other commitments so the final class grade has been delayed. Until then, I am utterly terrified, because I do not know what I will do if the funding is gone. Granted, it is the test I studied the hardest for, and felt the best about walking out of it. But, I'm just afraid that my test was littered with the same arithmatic mistakes that littered my second round of midterms. I just don't know what to do with myself, how to improve my study habits, or how to just live. There is so much money on the line, and people keep telling me "it's no big deal" but I certainly don't feel that way. This is patently a big deal. My graduate school experience has been humbling. It has given strength and validity to the voice in my head yelling at me, "You were just not born with the mental hardware capable of keeping up with everyone else. There is nothing you can ever do to perform as well as your peers." Fighting with these demons as well as keeping my studies in track has been a nightmare. Putting on top of that my emotional tailspin after the bad midterm grades in November, and it's been unbearable. It's putting a strain on all the relationships with my friends and I'm even questioning driving back for Christmas. What's the point if there's just a depressed person occupying their household?

In a sense, you'll be a more recognizable name to that professor, now. When viewing your application, he might think "Oh, I vaguely recall this name." If I were a professor and saw that, it, honestly, could work to that student's advantage. An anonymous student presented to me through numbers and paragraphs vs. a student with a name I recall, who is friends of one of my students? How private is your Facebook? Any embarrassing pictures that you wouldn't want a professor to see? If he recognizes your name, and he isn't swamped with a million other things to do, maybe he would take that extra step to see evidence of your character. He most likely will vaguely recall your name and that will be as far as this ever goes.