The PhD Lifestyle

[Silabus]

I hope I don't come off as melodramatic but I was sitting in the back of a car, going with my friends to the grocery store for no other reason than to get away from the computer, when a thought hit me about this whole PhD thing: I've already spent 6 consecutive years of my life on the higher education merry-go-round, with my PhD it's 5 more years. I'll be 28 when I get my PhD if I complete it in 5 years.

28. Meanwhile, already, it feels like I'm lagging behind my peers who just got their Bachelor's and went to get jobs. They're forging careers, getting married, getting engaged, and I've been so busy trying to keep a 4.0 GPA, go to conferences, read novels all the time, write papers, work in the summer to kind of make a dent in my student loans, that I've done nothing else but get degrees. I mean this isn't to say that I dislike what I'm doing, I love it, but at the same time some part of me keeps saying: You're going to be lonely for as long as you do this.

Again, maybe melodramatic, but at 28 who exactly is going to be left in the dating pool? At 30 I'm going to be washed up in the looks department right? I just worry I'm going to be some unhappy professor somewhere, lonely, with my dog, teaching British Literature, and kicking myself for all the time I spent chasing degrees and not love. Yup...I'm being dramatic. But it's how I really feel!

[orphic_mel528]

Please don't take this as being condescending, but I have to giggle at this a little.

I'm 31 years old and I'm about to start my PhD. I got married when I was 27. It may be that in your community, people get married much younger, but virtually none of my Master's cohort was married or even in a serious relationship, and most were your age or a bit older (I was 26 when I started). The age at first marriage in the United States has been steadily increasing for a couple of decades or more. 

There will be plenty of people left in the dating pool, and what's better: they will likely be academics like yourself. That's the circle you're going to be moving in for the next five years. There will be plenty of opportunities to meet someone. Within your cohort, at the library, at conferences, special interest groups, in the community. 

You can decide for yourself whether I'm washed-up in the looks department. hahahaha

[positivitize]

57 minutes ago, Silabus said:

At 30 I'm going to be washed up in the looks department right?

 

yeah. you're basically a corpse by 30. You can put Silabus, PhD, RIP "(s)he loved books" and a picture of a gravestone as your dating site profile picture.

 

Sarcasm aside, while grad school is time-consuming and puts a ton of pressure on relationships, it can be done. I've been with my fiancee for 7 years--2 for her Masters and 5 for her PhD which she'll earn this August. It is possible to earn a Doctorate and find love at the same time. Also--I dropped out of undergrad at age 20 and didn't go back til I was 27. Now I am just STARTING my Masters at 30. I'll be lucky to be almost 40 by the time I earn my PhD. Point is, you are not nearly as old as you feel. A PhD by 30 is an amazing accomplishment and downright speedy.

That's not to say that earning a Doctorate isn't a long and difficult process that sets you up to earn far less than your friends with BA's in other fields. It is. But just because we sacrifice our 20s and financial security doesn't mean we have to sacrifice love too.

Edited February 17, 2017 by positivitize

[positivitize]

6 minutes ago, orphic_mel528 said:

Please don't take this as being condescending, but I have to giggle at this a little.

I'm 31 years old and I'm about to start my PhD. I got married when I was 27. It may be that in your community, people get married much younger, but virtually none of my Master's cohort was married or even in a serious relationship, and most were your age or a bit older (I was 26 when I started). The age at first marriage in the United States has been steadily increasing for a couple of decades or more. 

There will be plenty of people left in the dating pool, and what's better: they will likely be academics like yourself. That's the circle you're going to be moving in for the next five years. There will be plenty of opportunities to meet someone. Within your cohort, at the library, at conferences, special interest groups, in the community. 

You can decide for yourself whether I'm washed-up in the looks department. hahahaha

 

2

Washed up like a fox!

Edited February 17, 2017 by positivitize

[orphic_mel528]

1 minute ago, positivitize said:

Washed up like a fox!

Hahaha! All right! Thanks! 

[Caien]

I'm also young and clueless and single, but I think @orphic_mel528 is right (upvote for the marrying later thing). And anyway, I've been in the so-called 'real-world' for two years (chained to a cubicle making money for my boss - as far as I'm concerned there's nothing particularly real about it), and remain single; I don't see how its easier or more difficult to find and maintain a relationship whether your spending all day at an office or all day at a campus. I think academics tend to be a bit introverted and single-minded - those are qualities we need to succeed in this path, and those qualities will remain even if one takes a job outside of academia.

Then again, I am the same age as the OP and perpetually single

[Silabus]

Ha ha ha! Oh you two put it in perspective for me!

I hadn't thought about it that way either. I'll be moving into a pool of academics, a whole different pool.

Okay, yeah, and I guess you're not exactly dead at 30. xD

@Caien I'm also perpetually single! *high five* Edited

Edited February 17, 2017 by Silabus

[positivitize]

1 minute ago, Silabus said:

Ha ha ha! Oh you two put it in perspective for me!

I hadn't thought about it that way either. I'll be moving into a pool of academics, a whole different pool.

Okay, yeah, and I guess you're not exactly dead at 30. xD

 

 

Hahah I'm glad to hear it. I changed my picture just for you as a kind of Memento Mori.

Edited February 17, 2017 by positivitize

[Silabus]

8 minutes ago, positivitize said:

Hahah I'm glad to hear it. I changed my picture just for you as a kind of Memento Mori.

Ha ha! I love the solidarity! I tried to do the same but no matter how small I make the photo it's still too big a file.

[yanicus]

I was going to think @Silabus that you'd been reading too many novels of manners to think that one loses one's bloom so early. I think all the time spent away from the sun in the library helps with skin health or something...

[Silabus]

Just now, yanicus said:

I was going to think @Silabus that you'd been reading too many novels of manners to think that one loses one's bloom so early. I think all the time spent away from the sun in the library helps with skin health or something...

These girls all get themselves married off in their 20's or sooner sometimes, it's definitely making it worse! xD

And if being out of the sun helps with skin health then...I definitely have that going for me! Ha ha!

[Abyss21]

@Silabus If it makes you feel better, I know plenty of professors who actually met their significant other while doing a PhD. They are now happily married and working at the same universities (this is true for more than one professor couple that I know). Also, one of my friends is currently doing a PhD and met someone a few months into her first year there. They have now moved in together and are very happy. So, who knows? Maybe you'll meet the love of your life during your PhD too.

[Silabus]

Just now, ThePomoHipster said:

@Silabus If it makes you feel better, I know plenty of professors who actually met their significant other while doing a PhD. They are now happily married and working at the same universities (this is true for more than one professor couple that I know). Also, one of my friends is currently doing a PhD and met someone a few months into her first year there. They have now moved in together and are very happy. So, who knows? Maybe you'll meet the love of your life during your PhD too.

I know two couples here at my MA who met during their PhD's as well. I figured that was just an anomaly but it sounds like it happens pretty regularly!

Maybe so! Maybe so! And hopefully doing a PhD won't just make me some kind of crazy deranged person! xD

[Abyss21]

1 minute ago, Silabus said:

And hopefully doing a PhD won't just make me some kind of crazy deranged person! xD

Haha well I think it does that to everyone so you can just find the right crazy deranged person for you! 

[Silabus]

1 minute ago, ThePomoHipster said:

Haha well I think it does that to everyone so you can just find the right crazy deranged person for you! 

Our crazy-deranged-ness will be on the same wavelength! xD

[orphic_mel528]

36 minutes ago, positivitize said:

Hahah I'm glad to hear it. I changed my picture just for you as a kind of Memento Mori.

Bunch of foxes over here in the English department. We should put a calendar together.

[Silabus]

1 minute ago, orphic_mel528 said:

Bunch of foxes over here in the English department. We should put a calendar together.

Plan. Make a calendar and split up the proceeds of what we sale to pay back our loans or fund our research trips.

[orphic_mel528]

1 minute ago, Silabus said:

Plan. Make a calendar and split up the proceeds of what we sale to pay back our loans or fund our research trips.

I love this.

[positivitize]

I'm just in it for the Hot Pepper from ratemyprofessors.com...

...I suppose I can be a part of a calendar if I'm Mr. May. It's for a good cause after all.

[Silabus]

Only if you're Mr. May. All other months are beneath you.

[silenus_thescribe]

You get at the answer to your question in your original post, when you say that despite seeing friends of yours who are "forging careers and getting married," you're still happy with what you do in academia. That lets you know that you're on the right path. There is no universal prescription that getting married and having a "real job" (whatever that means) by X age is the signpost for maturity or adulthood. I know that if I had chosen to look for a "real job" out of undergrad, I'd be pretty miserable, whereas now -- despite paltry pay and a heavy workload -- I feel fulfilled by being a PhD student. (My department also does a really good job of not treating us PhD students like "students" but more like "colleagues in training," which helps.) I have plenty of friends who moved to big cities to pursue jobs in competitive markets who are making lots more than me in pure dollar amount, but are struggling to get by because they're making like 30k in cities like San Francisco or NYC, which might as well be a grad student stipend in those locations.

And though this is anecdotal, I met my girlfriend over long distance during my first year in grad school, and not only have we made it work out but she's also moving to where I live. I won't tell you long distance is easy, but we managed to make it work. For that reason and many others, I don't think you should worry about grad school being a kind of martyrdom. It's as fulfilling, in fact even more so, than I imagined it would be. 

[Silabus]

@silenus_thescribe

First, I want you to know I sooooo wanted to go to UT for my PhD! You're living the dream already!

And you know, I guess you're right. I don't have any regrets about what I've done so far.

Also it seems like a lot of folks meet people in their PhD too.

[silenus_thescribe]

1 minute ago, Silabus said:

@silenus_thescribe

First, I want you to know I sooooo wanted to go to UT for my PhD! You're living the dream already!

And you know, I guess you're right. I don't have any regrets about what I've done so far.

Also it seems like a lot of folks meet people in their PhD too.

It really is the dream here at UT! it was my one outright PhD acceptance back in the '14 cycle (I ended up off the waitlist at Iowa), and I think it's precisely because the fit is unbeatable here for me. I'm sorry that you didn't get admitted, though I'm glad to see you have one acceptance and the potential for several more coming in! I got rejected from Brandeis during my app cycle; it looks like a great school. 

You aren't kidding about the people who meet significant others during their PhD. Coming into grad school I was expecting to be around more single people, but I would say the overwhelming majority of English grads at UT are in relationships. 

[Silabus]

1 minute ago, silenus_thescribe said:

It really is the dream here at UT! it was my one outright PhD acceptance back in the '14 cycle (I ended up off the waitlist at Iowa), and I think it's precisely because the fit is unbeatable here for me. I'm sorry that you didn't get admitted, though I'm glad to see you have one acceptance and the potential for several more coming in! I got rejected from Brandeis during my app cycle; it looks like a great school. 

You aren't kidding about the people who meet significant others during their PhD. Coming into grad school I was expecting to be around more single people, but I would say the overwhelming majority of English grads at UT are in relationships. 

I sure am sorry about it too. Then I get accepted by A&M a week later! It was too funny! I'm really hoping to get an acceptance from Brandeis. John Plotz and his work with Thing Theory is my go-to for literary criticism. I would LOVE to work with him.

Ha ha ha! I would think everyone to be single too! I know here in my MA everyone is single, minus one person who was in a relationship before she started her MA.

[Yanaka]

Also perpetually single and also worried I'll become a weirdo after staying in academia too long