Was my Master's experience typical, unusual, or a mix of both? (Long, somewhat ranty post)

[zzmondo]

I'm in the 4th year of my Ph.D program right now. My advisor in my current Ph.D program wants me to graduate ASAP due to budget issues with my current program. I previously got a Master's at Appalachian State in Experimental Psychology and have reflected on the experience lately (feel free to see my post history on the App State subreddit if you wish to learn about the fiscal details and why I chose the program. Long story short, they offered assistantships, but they didn't waive tuition at all). Since I got next to nothing out of my Ph.D, I'm trying to reflect on what I could get with just my Master's in Experimental Psychology.

 

I entered the program in Fall 2018 and graduated in December 2020. I will say that graduating later because I had to rewrite my thesis due to COVID won't be something I'll pin on my department at all. No one could predict the outcomes of COVID so it is what is there.

 

Anyway, I enter the program and my advising is minimal to none. My advisor read my drafts and things I sent him, but he wasn't really paying attention to whether I kept up on what I needed to do to gain admission to a Ph.D program in Experimental/Cognitive Psychology. Those topics were only really broached if I asked him. Furthermore, when I asked him if I could reach out to any of his previous students, he told me he was only still in touch with just one of this students. So, my networking opportunities and branching out professionally were next to none. Many others I knew in Experimental programs (or a rough equivalent) had advisors who had connections. The program director and my advisor had no such connections. I also didn't get any relevant work experience over the first summer of my Master's either nor did I bump up my GRE scores to be competitive for a Ph.D program when I should've gone above the 60th percentile for all of them. My GPA was also apparently too low.

 

I also graduated with a low GPA for a Master's (3.48 and I even took one non Psychology course) due to a bad first year I had largely due to untreated dental issues (I had to get two root canals and even took finals at one point with dead teeth). Fortunately, my advisor and program director's letters of recommendation backed me up on that issue. I even got a C+ in core course, which thankfully counted for credit in this case and I still graduated in my case.

 

Furthermore, someone who was a valedictorian in her undergrad and had solid lab experience prior to the program (she even turned down a clinical program for the one at App State) never completed the program due to constant disputes with her advisor and advisor retaliating to an extent by not signing anything. She worked an outside job as well to pay tuition and hid it for a while until she got caught working by faculty and was told to not do so despite working on multiple research projects and was instructor of record for a whole class. She also had all As and one B.

 

I often never learned things were a problem until they were too late as well. For example, I didn't know that working on other research projects was essential to show independent skills a Ph.D program would want. My advisor also openly said he never read those end of semester summaries, which would've helped him steer me accordingly.

 

You may be wondering why I didn't broach topics that may have been a concern. I didn't because I wasn't even sure what was a red flag and what wasn't throughout the program. All I knew is that someone who had low grades in their bachelor's had to get a Master's to be competitive for a Ph.D program. In other words, I thought completing the degree was all it took. I had no idea of how many other things I had to pick up.

 

I will say that I had a feeling something was up when the second year of the program came along and I was the only one with just a 10 hour assistantship. I'll never forget when someone came up to me and went, "Do you have an assistantship with [advisor's name]?" I replied, "Yeah." Their reply, "Well, at least you have that?" There was a 1 credit hour non mandatory TA class that was required for students to become a TA the following academic year. Everyone other than me took it (even the ones who weren't sure if they wanted to TA or not) because I was under the impression I'd have to teach a whole class. Turns out that wasn't the case and many of them did once a week lectures for lab components of a regular course, which I'm confident I could've done in hindsight. Doing so also meant a high enough stipend to where I wouldn't have had to borrow from my parents at the time. I will admit that part of it came from the autistic urge to keep things similar too (I am clinically diagnosed autistic) and not change too much.

 

Towards the end, my advisor was told to give feedback from the committee to me that Ph.D programs are "trial by fire" and that things would change. Especially with advisors and that "sometimes they're a colleague, sometimes they're a co author, other times you don't know." I was also told to have short, concise presentations as well. I should note that I got a B and B+ in both Spring seminars (1 credit hour once a week courses) because I got Cs on presentations both years. I had the lowest grades on those. I wanted to improve on those but I was seemingly marked down for every little thing.

 

For what it's worth, I got a poster for a conference out of the experience in 2019 (even if I could in 2020, those conferences were shut down due to COVID).

 

So, was my program full of red flags? Was it typical for a Master's experience? Also, how much of the diminishing returns I got out of my Master's experience was truly on me?