Academia is like an abusive relationship

[waxing_academic]

So, we all know that grad school demands so much of our time and energy that it is impossible to get everything done. You have to balance course work, research, writing, and TA responsibilities like an olympic juggler, continually shift your focus from one thing to another (something always suffers), and try to keep your sanity in the process. It's a constant strain on your self-confidence and spirit. So, when you get those compliments or small victories, it means so much. You savor them. You write the compliments on a post-it note, save the nice e-mails, and relish the positive feedback. This is the honeymoon phase of the relationship; the calm before the storm.

Then, just when you start to actually feel good about yourself for a moment, when you think, 'Yeah, I can do this... I do have something to contribute... I deserve to be here," academia bitch slaps you. And, you're back to feeling like something your professors stepped in. Academia won't allow you to start feeling good about yourself. Academia puts you in your place. Academia is an abusive relationship.

Sorry to vent. I thought it was better to do it here than on Facebook, where I might regret it later.

Feel free to vent, too!

[fuzzylogician]

I am reading this while sitting in my office, working on a paper*. It is Friday, 11:30 PM.

Need I say more?

*more accurately, procrastinating while supposed to be working a paper. Details, details.

[UnlikelyGrad]

Then, just when you start to actually feel good about yourself for a moment, when you think, 'Yeah, I can do this... I do have something to contribute... I deserve to be here," academia bitch slaps you. And, you're back to feeling like something your professors stepped in. Academia won't allow you to start feeling good about yourself. Academia puts you in your place. Academia is an abusive relationship.

I feel compelled to write something, but I don't know what to say. You already said it all.

[ColorlessGreen]

I am reading this while sitting in my office, working on a paper*. It is Friday, 11:30 PM.

Need I say more?

*more accurately, procrastinating while supposed to be working a paper. Details, details.

Are there other things one can do on Friday night? *shock*

[rising_star]

Are there other things one can do on Friday night? *shock*

Yes. Department happy hour starting at 5pm on Fridays, followed by dinner with friends.

[Medievalmaniac]

Well, you're absolutely right, and right about it all.....but, there's nothing in the world I would rather do than read, research, write and give papers and publish and teach what I'm reading and writing about....so, I'll take that heaping abuse, with the time-honored response of one who relishes the work regardless:

"Thank you, Sir (Madam), may I have another?"

[mudlark]

At the risk of sounding like a huge asshole, it doesn't have to be like that.

After suffering through the first year of my MA, I made a concerted effort to fix my mood, my time management, and my organization skills. Sure, I still have the occasional rough patch when a major project or application is due, but overall I'm much calmer and happier now.

I get everything done. Ahead of time. Without working 16 hour days or pulling all nighters. Every evening, I spend time with my husband and relax, and every night I get 8 hours of sleep. At first, I was super worried that if I wasn't going crazy, I wasn't working hard enough. Now I'm finally getting confident enough to know that if my supervisor is happy and I'm happy, it's enough. I was so in love with the drama of being stressed out all the time that I tortured myself for years. Letting go of the need to feel overwhelmed in order to feel good enough was the best thing I ever did.

[liszt85]

Sure, I still have the occasional rough patch when a major project or application is due, but overall I'm much calmer and happier now.

I get everything done. Ahead of time. Without working 16 hour days or pulling all nighters. Every evening, I spend time with my husband and relax, and every night I get 8 hours of sleep. At first, I was super worried that if I wasn't going crazy, I wasn't working hard enough. Now I'm finally getting confident enough to know that if my supervisor is happy and I'm happy, it's enough.

I used to be the guy who would submit assignments late (in undergrad)or never. I now do as mudlark says she does.. I get time to spend with my wife. We go out to ballet performances, go out to dinner, celebrate every other occasion (the most recent was of course V-day and the Chinese New Yr just preceding that). The occasional movie..so its all good. I work from 9am-6pm or so everyday. When an assignment is due the next week, I do it little by little and finish it over the weekend prior. So instead of getting -ve points for late submission which I used to, I'm getting bonus points for extra effort on math modeling assignments these days because I enjoy doing stuff that says much more than what the questions ask for. So this doesn't have to be all torturous.. I have 300 exams to grade this week, I have to review a paper for a conference, I have to write my own for a journal, and I also have to handle my own research..I'll soon start a second project with a professor at a different dept. My adviser thinks its a good idea to try and produce a paper each (with my own adviser and the other guy) every year. So yes, you guys are right..there's too much going on but isn't it fun trying to balance all of that? Well, unless you have trouble at home and such.. The downside to this is that I don't get time to exercise which I would very much like to do, I also don't get to play the piano as often as I would have liked to but I'm trying to somehow figure things out so that I can incorporate those into my schedule as well.. So yes, its crazy but its also fun, at least for now I'm only in my first year. So we'll see if I think the same after 4 years.

[fuzzylogician]

Yep, time management is key. Until the past month I've always been able to go home around 6pm and not come in at all during the weekend. I always hand my assignments in on time and I try to at least skim all of the readings. I hate not to be prepared and I hate even more to be late and scrambling to catch up with things. This month is extra-crazy: I am presenting at a conference on Saturday, I have a proceedings paper due next Monday (hoping for a 7-10 day extension or I am toast) and I have to submit revisions on another paper in 1-2 weeks (no set date but the editor has already emailed me to ask whats up). Once the craziness subsides I can go back to enjoying life, not just as it is seen from the bus on the way to- and from the office.

[UnlikelyGrad]

At the risk of sounding like a huge asshole, it doesn't have to be like that.

After suffering through the first year of my MA, I made a concerted effort to fix my mood, my time management, and my organization skills. Sure, I still have the occasional rough patch when a major project or application is due, but overall I'm much calmer and happier now.

I, too, try to keep everything under control--my weekends and (for the most part) evenings free. I usually succeed, though there are, of course, big deadlines which crop up from time to time that screw everything up.

[liszt85]

Yep, time management is key. Until the past month I've always been able to go home around 6pm and not come in at all during the weekend. I always hand my assignments in on time and I try to at least skim all of the readings. I hate not to be prepared and I hate even more to be late and scrambling to catch up with things. This month is extra-crazy: I am presenting at a conference on Saturday, I have a proceedings paper due next Monday (hoping for a 7-10 day extension or I am toast) and I have to submit revisions on another paper in 1-2 weeks (no set date but the editor has already emailed me to ask whats up). Once the craziness subsides I can go back to enjoying life, not just as it is seen from the bus on the way to- and from the office.

Wow, that sounds way more than what I'm doing! Also 2 papers and a conference talk already?! Its been just one semester..I was thinking I was doing better than most with one conference paper submitted and having started putting it together for a decent journal (cog sci), and 2 other abstracts submitted for conferences but they have all been on the same topic with minor modifications. I've been here only 4 months now and I felt like I'd achieved quite a bit until I saw your post

[fuzzylogician]

Wow, that sounds way more than what I'm doing! Also 2 papers and a conference talk already?! Its been just one semester..I was thinking I was doing better than most with one conference paper submitted and having started putting it together for a decent journal (cog sci), and 2 other abstracts submitted for conferences but they have all been on the same topic with minor modifications. I've been here only 4 months now and I felt like I'd achieved quite a bit until I saw your post

That's all remnants of work I brought with me to MIT. With the crazy course workload I don't really have time to develop new ideas, so I only expect to submit abstracts to 1-2 conferences next year (with the same basic idea in mind, a continuation of the work I am publishing now). I hope I can start working on turning the paper/talk in to a journal article, but I don't have time to even think about that before the summer. It sounds like you've actually gotten research done this semester, as opposed to just homework. I am so jealous!

[liszt85]

That's all remnants of work I brought with me to MIT. With the crazy course workload I don't really have time to develop new ideas, so I only expect to submit abstracts to 1-2 conferences next year (with the same basic idea in mind, a continuation of the work I am publishing now). I hope I can start working on turning the paper/talk in to a journal article, but I don't have time to even think about that before the summer. It sounds like you've actually gotten research done this semester, as opposed to just homework. I am so jealous!

Well, yea it was maybe 3 weeks worth of research that turned into a conference paper (hoping it gets accepted). However, we're collaborating with some computer science guys on this one. So there's that paper that I wrote and another paper on the same topic (but different line of attack) written by the computer science guy. My task is to combine the two to produce a good journal paper..they agreed that I should be first author on this one because this one's going to cog sci. The next one will be by the CS guy and that's going to some CS journal.. so its working out well.

Other than that, its just homework.. lots of modeling assignments, so the coding keeps me busy. There's not a lot of time to do research but I'm learning to find some time for that as well since that's what we're here to do.

[Genomic Repairman]

I've been working 60+ hour six day work weeks for almost a year now. I see the public safety officer more than I see my fiancee but my project is not going to move forward all by itself. Its a pain in the ass but nothing worth having comes easy.

[Roll Right]

LOL! Time management! Whos got time to manage! Sadly, my bedroom is also my office. So once I wake up, I'm already at work. My biggest vice is probably sleeping too much. Im told adults only need 6 hours of sleep. I usually steal 8 hours and then work straight until bed...well I'll take a break for video games. Shhh.

I've noticed that I suck at eating well. I'll buy lunch, eat half of it and forget to eat the rest as I do lit reviews or mess with data sets. Then I'll realize I'm still hungry, and my food has been sitting out so long its all cold and nasty.

I also noticed I drink more than I did during my undergrad! I don't know any grad student (or young professor) who doesn't. Takes the edge off a bit. Not healthy at all. LMAO.

Also, I haven't really had a decent conversation or a solid night off in quite a while. With the research assistantship and then coursework and my own research, I really do have a 40+ hour a week job. I feel everyones stress. I've got two presentations coming up and a paper to revise and hopefully edit for publication. But I wouldn't do anything else. I love sociology.

This is just a masters. Yeesh.

[StrangeLight]

i also suck at time management. for example, a draft of my thesis (well, half my thesis) is due "some time" today (11:59 p.m.) and i'm "taking a break" from working on it to post here. i have three more sections that i "need" to do, and one big, whopping section that i should do but won't.

i work best before noon but can rarely force myself to crawl out of bed before 9, which means i only get 3 really productive hours in the day. the rest of the time i just produce garbage.

the worst part of the MA, in my mind, is the fact that they make you take so many courses while you're also expected to move on your research. my seminars give me more than enough work to do each week and yet i've got to cram in grant proposals, conference papers, and *gasp* actual thesis research in there as well.