Summer for grad students?

[Arty K.]

Hi all,
This is my first post and I am a first-year Master's student in Plant Pathology. As summer is approaching, I asked my advisor if I could spend my summer in my home country (Thailand). He said I could only go home for 2 weeks! I can't say I'm shocked, but I was hoping for something like a month or so.  So I am curious. Is it typical for international grad students to spend so little time at home during the summer? Or it was just my advisor being mean? Thank you for the response!

[ejpril88]

I'm surprised your advisor didn't give you an option to organize your own schedule. I'm curios how other international students will reply.

[Neurotic_Jay]

Some master programs - because of their packed schedule - allows little free time in summer (at least that's what happened in my undergrad school). They either give you lab internships or encourage you to find a summer internship. I'm not sure about plant pathology specifically though. 

[Need Coffee in an IV]

Not an international student but I'm in a terminal masters program! We are basically free to do whatever we want in the summer, take classes, work, take internships, have a vacation, etc. However, to graduate in two years we have to take summer courses or overload during traditional semesters. But the vacation time (2 weeks) seem typical in science masters programs or at least thats what I got from my friends

[TakeruK]

Are you being paid a stipend / research assistantship during the summer? If so, then this is basically like a job. So you can only take time off in the summer if you have vacation time. Usually, this is about 2 weeks of vacation time, so what your advisor is saying sounds reasonable.

However, if you want more time off, maybe you can talk to your advisor and work something out. Maybe you can take a leave of absence, suspend your pay and student status and take time off. Or maybe you can come to an agreement to make up the extra 2 weeks of work hours in order to take the whole month off (especially since you are traveling so far away). In my field, the norm is 40 hours per week, so if you work one extra weekend day every week for 10 weeks, you would make up the equivalent of 2 extra weeks off. Sometimes my friends from far away countries will work during the Christmas break for example, to earn an extra week of vacation in the summer. But a lot of this depends on  your advisor too---some advisors don't really care how much time you take off as long as you get your work done. Some advisors expect you to work 10-12 hours per day but are more generous with vacation time etc. 

Of course, the above doesn't really apply if you aren't being paid or granted credit for research work in the summer in any way. In that case, your advisor might not have any good reason to limit you so you might want to tell your advisor that you insist on taking a month off. But be careful with this and make sure that you are actually in the right. And remember that even if you are right, it could affect how your letter of reference turns out. However, since you are asking your advisor about time off, it sounds like there is perhaps some obligation for you to stay (funding, research credit, etc.)

[fuzzylogician]

I'm not sure about MAs but in my PhD program there were some international students who took off the last week of classes in May and returned right before the first day of classes in September. (Usually they would have a significant other in their home country, but some just wanted to be home.) Since we were only paid for 9 months of the year, there were no obligations for where we had to be over the summer. You were expected to make some progress but that didn't have to happen on campus. 

[TMP]

For a two-year master's program, it's not unusual.  You have to do something over the summer, whether researching for your thesis, working in labs, taking classes, etc.  What is typical for the students in your program who want to finish in two years?  Go with what they did.  While 3-4 months is a long time but can often feel too short when jammed with to-dos before school year starts up again.  September will be here before you know it.

Your adviser or anyone here is not trying to be mean-- this isn't undergrad where students are completely free to do as they please.  Graduate School is your "job."