margarets

Whew! I heard back from a second prof, so looks like I've got my two letters in the bag. I follow up with the third one in a week or so (still heaps of time till the application deadline). It's weird that this has me so stressed. I'm no spring chicken, have some accomplishments under my belt, but still! What is it about academia that is such a self-esteem smasher?

Just to clarify, are the schools you are applying to looking for this kind of personal history? Where would it fit in to your SoP? Did you finish your studies on a high note? Will you have good LoRs? My two cents is that I would avoid mentioning it, or at least downplaying it, and focusing on your academic and intellectual strengths, your other reasons for pursuing this interest, the research you want to do, your career plans, etc.

You're right. I have to get a grip. But good news! One prof emailed back that it would be his "great pleasure" to write an LoR. Whew!

You may find this article relevant. http://psychology.unl.edu/psichi/Graduate_School_Application_Kisses_of_Death.pdf

This is the advice I got to my first-low-then-high gpa question. I say, take the courses to show that, whatever your past, NOW you are a strong candidate. Most programs want your transcripts from ALL post-secondary education, so they'll see the new grades.

I hit "send" on two more emails requesting recommendation letters and now just have to ride it out until I either get replies or have to follow up. Ugh ugh ugh. I'm going to be a freaking basket-case when I'm waiting on the acceptance/rejection letter. If I get that far. Ahhhh!

Did you come up with this bit "I drink my coffee black, beer stout, and whiskey neat—as a gentleman and a scholar ought to" on your own? Because it sounds familiar. I'm sure I've heard something like it before. It could take you into hack-joke territory, which is risky. Actually I just flashed on James Bond, and the "Most Interesting Man in the World" guy. Beware.

Yes, you are all correct. My emotion and my intellect are at war with each other. It's still not even 24 hours so I need to just chill.

So I just sent my first LoR request by email. I know, in-person is recommended, but I chatted with the admin of the school that is this prof's home base and she said email was fine as profs get these requests all the time, so not to stress about it. But I am stressing anyway! Like TWO HOURS have passed since I hit send and I've heard nothing! It's an absolutely stunning autumn day here, so any sane person who could manage it would be outside, not sitting in their office answering emails, and profs do have the luxury of slipping out early. So that's probably what this prof is doing. Totally logical. But academic anxiety is not logical. I'm pinging with "no answer because the prof secretly hated me the whole time despite giving me As and now wants to sabotage me". Ugh. Imagine the fun times ahead if I actually get into grad school.

OK, thanks

It's something I've reflected on, the combination of confidence and competence. I understand how someone with borderline grades, etc would have doubts and fears, or why someone with excellent grades etc would (imposter syndrome), or how someone with no-chance grades, etc could be over-confident (maybe it's the delusional "believe in yourself" thing). But I'd be interested to hear from someone who is justifiably confident, because they have the accomplishments to back it up. Maybe they had imposter syndrome and overcame it, or maybe they have chosen a path that really is right for them. Or it's something else. I've definitely known people who gave the impression of it all coming easily to them, but it also seemed like they worked very hard at that impression.

OK, but I think such people must actually exist. Just as people with extreme physical beauty or athletic prowess exist, though admittedly there are few. So, are there any such people on this forum?

Are there any posters here who had no doubts or qualms about getting into graduate school, succeeding, and then when they actually did it, did quite well? I.e. people who knew they had the grades, the LORs, a solid SOP, etc, and then had no major problems in their program? If so, could you point them out? Possibly even link to specific threads? I would be interested in the perspective of someone like that.

Let's have some fun. Rationalize this: http://gawker.com/5944240/art-schools-expensive-art-history-textbook-contains-no-actual-art

I know you enjoy slagging me off, and I know I enjoy watching people with (presumably) advanced critical thinking skills resort to ad hominem attacks, but remember that there are a couple dozen other students in this class. Is it acceptable that they must work around the instructor's shortcomings? Would this standard of instruction be acceptable in every class, i.e. if someone's entire university education was like this? If your kid had instructors like this and you were paying for their education, or your kid was going deeply into debt for it, would it be OK? Or if you were an employer paying for your employee to take the course? I know it's funner to play the game of "let's think up all the ways that margarets is a terrible person", but how come all you aspiring professors/people-who-care-about-education care so little about the other students?

Come to think of it, why do you find the instructor's behaviour acceptable? Do you really consider that good teaching? Would you put down your own money to be taught like that? And just say, well maybe he had a bad day or he's overworked or he's new, but that's OK, I'll just work harder to overcome his weaknesses, that's totally fair and a good investment of my time. If so, you are well-primed to be exploited by the academy.

Another example of people reading into posts things that aren't there. Maybe people on this forum are too invested in higher education? Still believe that higher education means higher intelligence, greater competence, more skill? Therefore, anyone who questions it must have something wrong with them. It couldn't possibly be that they are smarter or have more life experience. It's so much easier to cast aspersions rather than consider what they say. (Yes, some people with less, or even NO, education are smarter than people with graduate degrees. Hope you were sitting down for that. And if you concede that degrees do not confer intelligence, competence or skill, then you must concede that it is possible that I am very, very smart. .Smarter than the bad instructor, smarter than the students who wrote those theses. And that's the reason for my questioning what I see. There are a lot of dumb things in the world, and academia is no exception. Doesn't someone have to see it?) Let's face it, many of you are not going to become professors or even get jobs in your field. The oversupply of people with advanced degrees has been well-documented. Yet most if not all of you believe that somehow it'll work out for you. Why? Is it smart to believe that, despite all the evidence? How long till you start your own "don't go to grad school, it's not worth it" blog?

Interesting how many of the replies focus on finding excuses for his behaviour, like it's simply not possible that he's just a bad instructor. We all know they exist, maybe I just happened to find one. The comment that I'm "approaching it from an undergrad perspective" is pretty funny. I'm 44 years old and have two degrees, and trust me, there is NO professional context in which the quality of writing in his teaching materials would pass muster. An undergrad would get a very poor grade if they handed in similar work. Not to mention there are some accessiblity/readability issues with it, i.e. it would be rough going for someone with vision impairment (which is a no-no by law in this jurisdiction). He's not new. I think it's just that no one is reviewing what he's doing.

He isn't listed on ratemyprofessors or anything, and none of my acquaintances have any experience with him, so I have no idea about his reputation. I think one of the issues is that this con-ed dept is turning more and more to online courses, and my sense is that he's approaching the course in a similar fashion, he just happens to be physically present in the room. The whole thing would be more acceptable if he were good at ONE of lecturing, coaching through the workshops, or preparing the materials. But to be bad at all three is just not on. And it really vexes me that he is using class time for his other work. The other two instructors did that if no one needed them, but were always obliging when questions came up. One of the major reasons why I'm taking the classroom version of the course is so that there is a set period of time when the instructor will definitely be available for my questions. I don't want to have to chase them down via email, especially when there are times when showing them the problem works better than describing it. I *may* try meeting with him to find out if this is how he is going to approach the whole course and see if he can take some feedback. (Like at least using paragraph breaks and proofreading his workshops, and treating the classroom time as OUR time, not his extra catch-up time.) If he has an attitude about it, then it's el-dumpo.

Actually the course is supposed to be equivalent to a particular undergraduate course. It's not so much that the instructor is expected to fully lecture for the whole time. The instructors in the previous two courses gave proper lectures though, didn't just race through a bunch of slides, and then were available to answer questions as we worked our way through the workshops. And the workshop materials were MUCH better, because they were actually coherently organized. This guy's stuff is like a stream-of-consciousness ramble that goes on for pages and pages. I've found a couple places where he's obviously cut-and-pasted various bits from previous lectures or whatever, but didn't clean it up, so there are repeated words and awkward sentences. It's all over the place. Just the kind of thing you get slammed for if it was in an assignment that you handed in.

This is for a continuing education course, in a field related to the master's program I plan to apply to later this year. Last night was the first class. Yikes, was this guy ever bad. The class was scheduled from 6pm to 9:45pm. For the first two hours he covered the general course housekeeping stuff, then whipped through a bunch of lecture slides, then we had a fifteen-minute break. At this point he says "the best way for you to learn is to teach yourselves", directs us to a workshop/lecture/assignment document/thing (which is wildly disorganized) and leaves us to it. He got busy working on something on his computer and pretty much ignored us. This was around 8pm. There were 90 freaking minutes left in the class. He could have done something in that time to, you know, teach. His whole vibe, plus a bunch of other comments he made like "if you're having problems, ask your neighbour for help before coming to me", was that of someone who intends to do the absolute bare minimum. And who rationalizes it by saying "teach yourselves". We didn't pay to teach ourselves, we paid to be taught by him. If it's supposed to be a self-taught course, then say so, and give us better materials to work from. I feel like I've been bait-and-switched. I would never sign up for a course where the instructor essentially bails after the first two hours. Is it just me, or does this sound really bad? I've taken two other courses with this school and the other instructors were much more engaged, especially in the first class.

ktel, I think you've dug yourself into a hole here. In your first response, you tried to redefine the issue so that you could congratulate yourself for your past actions, but you inadvertently revealed your unattractive ethical flexibility. I think it's fair to assume that since you advocate lying to professors, and lying about your classmates, you are also OK with lying to your classmates (and, no doubt, lying on internet forums, which calls into question everything you've posted here). I'll bet you don't like it when it happens to you though. And I doubt you would want your current classmates knowing about what you've posted here. That would put an end to your relying on them right quick.

"I focused on making friendships first, rather than just asking for help right off the bat, so it didn't look like I was only interested in talking to them to get help with my assignments." So basically, cultivate friendships with the ultimate aim of getting something for yourself. Ah, true friendship. That, plus lying to lecturers. Got it.

So it's OK to use people, just as long as they don't catch on? And it's OK for others to protect themselves from being used by me, but it's wrong for me to protect myself from being used by them?

"You are speaking with them only if you want something from them." That's purely your assumption, because nothing in my posts indicates that either way. You really have no idea what my interactions have been with these students re: sharing help or any other topic. Re: my comment about who the "stars" are, you assumed I meant specifically who *I* should ask for help, but actually I was speaking in general terms. Once that emerges, the help-seekers will naturally gravitate towards the more accomplished students. It might turn out that I'm one of the stars. If so, I guess I'll have the option to judge the intentions of my classmates when they ask me for help. (In fact I'll have an opportunity at the next class. There is a student who ALWAYS asks me for help. But she might be a user, so I better watch out. If it's OK for others to rebuff me, then it's OK for me to rebuff them, right?) I think it's interesting that you mention it's all about how they "perceive my intentions" (i.e. act like I'm not looking for help when really I am) and then you recommend lying to the prof. So basically your advice is: prevarication. Which I suppose is how you managed to "rely heavily" on your classmates. Hm.