Grad School and the World

[JS13]

I am a grad student since September 2012. I have had a love/hate relationship with higher education since I started my undergrad, but now I feel like the hate component of the relationship is taking over.

I am trying to figure out if there is any purpose to higher education apart from getting a good job (and even that is becoming less and less likely). I always looked at higher education as a place where people could gather and work on problems plaguing society. Instead, I find academics that are isolated from the real word, socially awkward, and not very helpful (or even concerned) in guiding graduate students in their intellectual development.

Not to mention the fact that grads have to beg to get measly scholarships or grants to ensure a minimal standard of living. It is very hard to perfect your craft and become a real expert if you have to constantly deal with financial handicaps.

The amount of work thrown at us grads prevents us from really learning anything or thinking about the social implications of our work; we're too busy just trying to keep our heads above water. How many bright minds have been crushed by this system? How many people have left in disgust to take their talents elsewhere?

Am I crazy, thinking of all this?

[ZacharyObama]

"Am I crazy, thinking of all this?"

I don't think you've reached that point:

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

I'm a bit of a pessimist myself. I like your style.

[iowaguy]

IMHO, higher education is what you make of it. I think Aristotle would strongly disagree with your point of view... Be careful that you don't create a self-fulfilling prophecy for yourself as a result of a negative attitude towards higher education. Better, IMHO, to keep your head up & view everything as a learning opportunity, even the grant/scholarship applications and RA/TA "work." YMMV.

[TeaGirl]

Am I crazy, thinking of all this?

Nope.

But, you should try figure out some concrete reasons for pursuing higher education and goals you want to accomplish from it. Write them down. Take it as a real opportunity and don't put on blinders with respect to the real world going on outside.

It's also best to let go of any assumptions when going in to grad school and face it head on. Grad school is not an end goal, it's a stepping stone. It's not gonna be the intellectual paradise of your dreams where things magically work out after you graduate. On a few rare occasions, you do encounter that bit of inspiring intellectual work/debate/accomplishment/guidance, but mostly you have to guide yourself and be self reliant. It's just a place where professors are trying to handle publications/teaching load/students, and grad students are trying to cope with course and thesis work, TA/RA load, and financially scraping by to get a degree that will hopefully allow them to pursue the career of their choice.

[juilletmercredi]

I think that there are some academics that are socially awkward and isolated from the real world, but I've mostly found that myth to be untrue in my neck of the woods. My professors are amazingly complex people with real lives and real interests outside of their jobs. They do love their research and their work, but they often use it to improve the world around them (but then again, I am in public health. That's the point). I also have a kind and caring advisor and lots of professors who care about me. They're the ones, ironically, who kept me sticking around after I decided multiple times that I wanted to leave forever.

Honestly, I think these things (the fact that academics are regular people, or reflecting on where your work stands in the larger conversation) are all harder to see and do when you first begin. You're so busy trying to balance coursework, research, the paranoid buzzings of the advanced students on the market looking for jobs (OMG, you mean the market SUCKS?) - and you're possibly stressed out and terrified and wondering if you made a terrible mistake. I remember feeling that way my second year after the newness wore off. You also can't really gauge the social implications of your work yet because you aren't really familiar with the entire body of it and the conversation between scholars that has been going on in your field. I remember feeling like a huge lightbulb came on after comps.

It gets easier to take time to reflect and realize the value of what you are learning after you finish your coursework and really dig in. Now - after coursework, and especially since I am on external funding - I feel like I have the luxury of only taking on what I think is important to my personal development instead of jumping through hoops, and I do have more time to reflect upon what I want my mark to be and how I want to make it. Studying for my comprehensive exams was actually a deeply enjoyable experience for me, which I know sounds crazy! but I had months on end to read seminal works in my field and think about how a few players changed the game for everyone and attempted to decrease human suffering, and where my own work and interests lie in that field. Doing the study helped me learn and understand more in my field but also helped me solidify my own research interests.

I do think that sometimes, students imagine grad school to be this odd mythical paradise where they will sit around and read important books, discourse with learned scholars about abstract theories, and never worry about money and food and all those banal things. The reality is VERY VERY different. I mentor students and I do my best to disabuse them of that notion (I hope the very presence of seeing me doing something besides reading and toting a crate full of books around does that). We're normal people with normal lives and desires, including eating and sleeping. Sometimes it absolutely sucks. But other times it's really nice, and surviving it is an exercise in holding onto the really nice feelings while slogging through the increasingly long "really sucks" parts.

Edited November 4, 2012 by juilletmercredi

[mad-geo]

If you have never thought "OMG, what am I doing here?" in grad school, then you probably won't succeed there. It can a tough place and really makes you think about your priorities and who/where you want to be.