How's the first year of your PhD going?

[SANDIEGO]

I wanted to get fellow experiences on the first year of your CS PhD. How is it going? Is it more or less work than you thought it was? How is your adviser treating you? Are you already doing a lot of research? Kind of like a poll across the board to see how others are faring.

Mine is actually more work than I expected, and I'm getting pushed harder than I expected as well. But I'm learning tons and being quite productive. Research takes up a lot of time and I have to remember to keep up in my coursework which is imperative to the degree requirements. Overall I'm surviving but it is more work than I'm used to, and I have little time for doing things outside of academics.

[fdhkjal]

Mine has been a fairly negative experience thusfar. I have an order of magnitude less work than I expected I would have (I expected to have at least as much as I did in undergrad), and am generally bored, although courses are generally what I expected. I've started research, but I was thrown on a project that already has more than enough people and I don't have anything of value to do or contribute (nor do older graduate students want me to; I think they see me more as a burden than an asset). I like my advisor a lot, but I don't work with him directly (he meets primarily with the older graduate students on a project, who then delegate tasks to the younger graduate students).

It also doesn't help that I don't have much to do outside of academics. I left to go to the other side of the country, and left behind hundreds of friends I'd made back in my hometown/undergrad, and haven't really met any people here (I didn't realize how much of a minority I would be as an American in a PhD program).

I guess in general, grad school isn't at all what I expected it to be.

Edited November 29, 2012 by fdhkjal