To summer or not to summer?

[rising_star]

I think it's called growing up. If you play your cards right (ie you have a job in the future) you will not get summers off. Summers during grad school are not vacation. Not to say you will never be able to have a vacation during grad school; they are just not the same as those during undergrad. And I'm just going to take this last one for myself.

Agreed with this. We have a 13 week summer vacation and I spend 8-9 of those weeks in the field doing research and another 3 teaching. So, one week left to vacation in the summer. In spite of this, I don't wish that I'd taken off the summer before grad school.

Aside from any money issues, RAships, and how it looks to professors, do you think the actual research done in those summer months is worthwhile?

If I did this it would only be two months, do you think it would still be a huge benefit or get me ahead in my program?

Right now it looks like I could have an opportunity to mentor some college kids on an awesome project if I don't go early (plus some time off), but I do want to take every chance I can to get ahead. Is not going in the summer detrimental to me in the next few years in the program?

I'm not sure what your career goals are but you should maybe ask yourself which opportunity best prepares you for your future career.

To be quite honest, I did a summer program before starting my MA and it was useful for a lot of reasons, though very few of those were research related. Monetarily, it was great because I didn't have any employment lined up and was going to have to live at home since I wouldn't have been able to afford rent. I'm going to list some of them:

- got me a library card, which I used to start perusing books in the field (I switched disciplines so this was useful)

- there were a series of workshops on grad school life and success, including one on how to use EndNote, another general introduction to the campus library services, and opportunities to meet grad students from across campus and learn from them

- gave me a chance to get to work with my advisor early on to see if I wanted to change

- got me first dibs on office space in the grad student carrels (which led to getting a corner one that was quieter and larger)

- gave me a chance to get to know the office staff and get on good terms with them

- opportunity to scope out the coffee shop and bar scenes without thousands of college students around (I moved to a college town and this was a nice, gradual introduction to it)

- better time finding an apartment. I sublet a place initially for the summer, then was able to look locally for a place to live during the year. Since I was already there, it was easier not only to go see places but also to investigate neighborhoods (you know, driving through in the evening and at night to see what kind of people live there), place a deposit, etc.

Hope this helps.

[snarky]

Regarding the work load in grad school, I think it depends very much on your program and your background in the field. I had a lot of catch up to do (especially after being in the work world for three years) so I had to work much harder than other people in my cohort. But even the people who came into the program very well prepared worked their butts off -- maybe 40-70 hr weeks, depending on the time of the semester.

Also, as the posts above mention, the key is to work efficiently... but it's also crucial to ENJOY what you are working on!! If you genuinely love the subject, and aren't just in grad school because you didn't know what else to do for a few years, then you won't mind the workload so much. I love what I am doing, and even though I currently feel like jumping off a building because I have so many papers to write, I still somehow love it. I get to choose what I want to work on, make my own schedule (sort of), and be my own boss. In my opinion, that makes the hard work well worth it, and much better than the corporate world!