Who loves their graduate program?

[psycholinguist]

I'm probably going to be the buzzkill here, but I honestly hate being in grad school. This is mostly due to the fact that I am not only here against my will,but also because I cannot afford to be here.

I've been worrying about you and your home situation! Any luck with getting yourself some help towards finding an escape-route? Have the campus/town police been of any assistance?

[Just me]

The situation with employers might just be me, then. On the other hand, my employer also used some very shady business practices and treated me like crap anyway, so take what I said about work and school with a grain of salt, I guess. I just love how my program is called a "program for working people," but with all the crap they load you with for homework, I don't know how they expect someone to have a job/career AND do all this nonsense. I don't even have a job and I can barely make the deadlines.

And unfortunately, I cannot address UnlikelyGrad's comments without sounding too snarky, and I don't want to derail the topic. psycholinguist, I've been so bloody busy with not only school work (hello six projects due for July), but also two clients who want work done and a family friend who needed their site updated. Gah, I'm surprised I even have time to use the bathroom! But sadly, no progress being made...mostly because there's even more drama in the house as of late (not my doing) and it's making things even more difficult.

[StrangeLight]

i love that probably 1/4 to 1/3 of the "i love my grad program" posts are from people who haven't started grad school yet. grad school is fine. the first year is always very busy, and an adjustment to the work schedule, but the type of work isn't particularly stressful (or at least it shouldn't be). hopefully everyone loves their program after their first year. if you don't, you should get out before your torture yourself with 4-5 more years.

the real pressure points come during your program's milestones: the MA/MS defense (if you have one), the comps defense, the overview defense. these are the points where your program keeps you or boots you (and many get booted... that's what these evaluations are for). those are the moments that should be and are incredibly stressful. fortunately, they don't last forever.

but the rest of the time, it's not bad. you'll have colleagues with the emotional maturity of a 15 year old or advisors that are never satisfied with work that other professors think is outstanding, but you can find that sort of bullshit in any office or retail job too. it's not merely a symptom of academia. grad school is like any other workplace. anyone who "loves" their workplace that much is either really lucky or really new.

[ScreamingHairyArmadillo]

I love my program. I love my advisor, my project, my lab mates, and most of my departmental faculty. I love that we have beer night as a department (granted there are only about a solid 6 or so that go). I love some of the other grad students here, and have made some of the better friends in my life thus far. I love that I have most of the control over my project.

Classes are kind of hit or miss. But otherwise I looooove my program

[far_to_go]

I've just finished my first year, so I haven't hit any of the major milestones that Strangelight mentioned. But so far, I would say that I love my program. By and large, my colleagues and professors are smart, interesting, and personable people, and our department has a very active social life. For the most part, I have a great deal of control over my research and my schedule (although, as I sometimes tell people, "grad school is great! you get to choose which 60 or 70 hours a week you're going to work!") I still can't quite believe that I'm getting paid to read and write and talk with interesting people. I even like TAing.

[juilletmercredi]

Honestly, even though it is 60-70 hours, it IS nice to be able to choose which 60-70 hours you want to work as far_to_go says. If I wake up feeling like crap on Wednesday morning, I can sleep in until 10 am, and read some articles and make some notes and that's work. I can sit in bed with my laptop on my lap and blow my nose and take DayQuil. There aren't many jobs out there that will let me do that! The flexibility is one of the reasons I stayed.

I'm going to disagree with csychology's mom though. Most of the grad school forums I've seen are accurate representations of real life. Grad school stress is real life, grad school related depression is also real life, and not everyone here is here to seek help - some are here to give it. And the problems I've seen people have with their programs here are typical problems that a lot of graduate students have. And no matter how much you love your program, there will be something about it that you hate enough to ruminate and rant about.

I'm also going to disagree with whoever said that you can't hold down a job while in a grad program. The problem isn't graduate school; it's expecting to be able to take off for weeks to complete your dissertation or a graduate project. If you're going to get a part-time job in the later stages of your grad work, you either need to be able to blend it to work with your dissertation writing, or arrange it so that you can quit a few weeks before your defense. Any job is going to want to fire you for taking three consecutive weeks off, regardless of the reason. But there's no reason that you'd have to take off four times a year: the idea is to manage your time so you can work the job AND complete the program, or just don't get a job.

[M. Swann]

Still loving it here. The most enjoyable component of my research has fast become actually getting unexpected experimental results, because whilst it might mean I have to revisit my theoretical understanding of things, it also means I learn more than if everything goes according to plan. (It took a while to get to this place though; at first I was very disconcerted whenever something didn't "work out".)

[abc123xtc]

I'm happy to see threads like this. I've yet to start my M.A. program, but I was worried it would be all doom and gloom. I'm excited, and I hope that feeling stays!