Have I been played?

[witheringtudorrose]

I know this is probably a topic that gets put on here a lot, but I feel like I need to get it out:

So far, if I had to compare my PhD experience to anything, it would be an abusive relationship. I got accepted to a school, told everything I wanted to hear, and was dropped like a sucker as soon as I got here.

When I was researching the school, they had a lot of wonderful people in my chosen area of study (Rennasance Lit), but that has changed. So far since I've been here: one professor took a fellowship in Ireland (they can't be replaced because this person "hasn't officially resigned"), one is retiring at the end of the year, and one just started a 3 year term as our department chair (which means this person will not teach classes.) Now I'm in my second year and have had exactly one class specifically in my field of interest. My options for a dissertation chair are now more limited that I ever anticipated and I've never even met most of them. I reached out to one faculty member, asking politely for a DIS (but only doing the course work for their class with something) because the two classes I needed this semester met at exactly the same time and I'm not sure what the future course offerings will be. This person told me he could not justify it because he did not know me. Now, every time I think about trying to meet someone new in my field, I hear that email in my head and it paralyzes me cold.

I've talked to my advisor and the chair of the department and they all talk about my situation, my worries that I will be unable to be done with coursework and the like and all they do is act like it's not a big deal. I get the "hurry up and wait" reassuring talk so much I can feel it coming on every time I open my mouth. Meanwhile, I'm watching people that came in the program with me get chairs easily, get advice, publish together, and get so far ahead of my it feels impossible I'll catch up at this point.

So here I am: 10 hours away from any family or friends, living in poverty on my assistantship salary, medicated for anxiety, and too far in debt to just leave and start fresh at a new program. Not a single person in this school is invested in me or my success in the program, and barely knows I exist. At this point, I feel like the giving tree and have no idea how much longer I can mentally justify staying in here. This degree is something I want, what I've planned my future upon, and now I have no idea what I should do.

[Sigaba]

2 hours ago, witheringtudorrose said:

Meanwhile, I'm watching people that came in the program with me get chairs easily, get advice, publish together, and get so far ahead of my it feels impossible I'll catch up at this point.

Compare the above to the below...

2 hours ago, witheringtudorrose said:

Not a single person in this school is invested in me or my success in the program, and barely knows I exist. At this point, I feel like the giving tree and have no idea how much longer I can mentally justify staying in here. This degree is something I want, what I've planned my future upon, and now I have no idea what I should do.

...And ask how members of your cohort are achieving their goals. Are they doing exactly what you're doing or are they doing something more / less / different? Are your circumstances specific to your field of interest? Are your expectations of graduate school in general and your program in particular realistic?

My broader point is that it can be easy to assume that The Way Things Should Be is better than The Way Things Are. Similarly, it can be easy to hold to one's assumptions than to step outside one's comfort zone to make the adjustments, big and small, that will get one where one wants to go.

[Hope.for.the.best]

On 10/15/2017 at 2:56 AM, witheringtudorrose said:

So far, if I had to compare my PhD experience to anything, it would be an abusive relationship. I got accepted to a school, told everything I wanted to hear, and was dropped like a sucker as soon as I got here.

When I was researching the school, they had a lot of wonderful people in my chosen area of study (Rennasance Lit), but that has changed. So far since I've been here: one professor took a fellowship in Ireland (they can't be replaced because this person "hasn't officially resigned"), one is retiring at the end of the year, and one just started a 3 year term as our department chair (which means this person will not teach classes.) Now I'm in my second year and have had exactly one class specifically in my field of interest. My options for a dissertation chair are now more limited that I ever anticipated and I've never even met most of them. I reached out to one faculty member, asking politely for a DIS (but only doing the course work for their class with something) because the two classes I needed this semester met at exactly the same time and I'm not sure what the future course offerings will be. This person told me he could not justify it because he did not know me. Now, every time I think about trying to meet someone new in my field, I hear that email in my head and it paralyzes me cold.

I've talked to my advisor and the chair of the department and they all talk about my situation, my worries that I will be unable to be done with coursework and the like and all they do is act like it's not a big deal. I get the "hurry up and wait" reassuring talk so much I can feel it coming on every time I open my mouth. Meanwhile, I'm watching people that came in the program with me get chairs easily, get advice, publish together, and get so far ahead of my it feels impossible I'll catch up at this point.

So here I am: 10 hours away from any family or friends, living in poverty on my assistantship salary, medicated for anxiety, and too far in debt to just leave and start fresh at a new program. Not a single person in this school is invested in me or my success in the program, and barely knows I exist. At this point, I feel like the giving tree and have no idea how much longer I can mentally justify staying in here. This degree is something I want, what I've planned my future upon, and now I have no idea what I should do.

I would not say you have been played. Though I am not from your field, it is the norm that academic staff move around. It is definitely frustrating when you want help from someone but then he/she leaves. It happened during my second year of PhD too. I needed the help of a postdoc to teach me some experimental techniques, but then the funding of my group ran out and he had to leave. It was a very stressful time to me as he is the only person who knows the techniques well. No one else could help me if I struggled. I was glad that I managed to learn everything right before he left, so I could complete my project. To me, it is a good sign that your advisor and department chair all talk about your situation. It means they care about you and they are trying to help you. Just because they don't act like a big deal doesn't necessarily mean they won't help you. On top of that, do you have anyone else whom may help you, say staff from graduate student centre?  

It is never a good thing to compare yourself with other graduate students, as everyone has different projects and circumstances. I used to be jealous of PhD students who worked as research assistants for years before doing their PhDs, because they struggled less with lab work. Obviously, they got more papers published than me. On the other hand, those PhD students are jealous of me doing my degree at a younger age than them, because I don't get distracted by family commitments. Simply say, there is no absolute good or bad!

I totally understand the stress and loneliness of being away from friends and family, as I am doing my PhD 9 hours away from them. One thing that helps is to maintain regular contact with them. I know it is less than ideal without having them around you, but it is way better to have someone to talk to. Yes, they may not understand, but you often feel better after talking things through. It is also a good idea to talk to your school counsellor. 

[cowgirlsdontcry]

On ‎10‎/‎14‎/‎2017 at 10:56 AM, witheringtudorrose said:

I know this is probably a topic that gets put on here a lot, but I feel like I need to get it out:

So far, if I had to compare my PhD experience to anything, it would be an abusive relationship. I got accepted to a school, told everything I wanted to hear, and was dropped like a sucker as soon as I got here.

When I was researching the school, they had a lot of wonderful people in my chosen area of study (Rennasance Lit), but that has changed. So far since I've been here: one professor took a fellowship in Ireland (they can't be replaced because this person "hasn't officially resigned"), one is retiring at the end of the year, and one just started a 3 year term as our department chair (which means this person will not teach classes.) Now I'm in my second year and have had exactly one class specifically in my field of interest. My options for a dissertation chair are now more limited that I ever anticipated and I've never even met most of them. I reached out to one faculty member, asking politely for a DIS (but only doing the course work for their class with something) because the two classes I needed this semester met at exactly the same time and I'm not sure what the future course offerings will be. This person told me he could not justify it because he did not know me. Now, every time I think about trying to meet someone new in my field, I hear that email in my head and it paralyzes me cold.

I've talked to my advisor and the chair of the department and they all talk about my situation, my worries that I will be unable to be done with coursework and the like and all they do is act like it's not a big deal. I get the "hurry up and wait" reassuring talk so much I can feel it coming on every time I open my mouth. Meanwhile, I'm watching people that came in the program with me get chairs easily, get advice, publish together, and get so far ahead of my it feels impossible I'll catch up at this point.

So here I am: 10 hours away from any family or friends, living in poverty on my assistantship salary, medicated for anxiety, and too far in debt to just leave and start fresh at a new program. Not a single person in this school is invested in me or my success in the program, and barely knows I exist. At this point, I feel like the giving tree and have no idea how much longer I can mentally justify staying in here. This degree is something I want, what I've planned my future upon, and now I have no idea what I should do.

I agree that once we are rejected for something, we have more difficulty reaching out. Don't allow the one rejection that's occurred to do you in. I sent out an email last week asking a professor if he would be interested in chairing or being on my committee, but haven't hard back. He is the director of a scholars program within A&S so he may be very busy and although he is a POI, and in exactly the right spot to be the chair of my committee, his other responsibilities may not allow him to accept. All sorts of things happen that are outside of our control. It's easy to perceive that everyone else is having it easier, but even if they are, you can still get out of this what you need.

I'm also a literary scholar, except my area is 20th century American. I absolutely do not expect or even want to publish as a secondary person under a professor. My university offers a publisher in residence program that I am taking advantage of to give me the leg up I need, in order to get started working on pieces of my thesis for publication. I suspect that when you hear others talking about working with a professor for publication in the literary field, it may not be all that you have heard. It takes months to get something published, after the months it takes to write and get peer review. This is your first semester as a second year. Logically, when have other students had the time to meet professors and get to know them well enough to be asked to participate in publishing together, much less write it, take it through peer review, then have it accepted for publication? Remember that some insecure students must make everything they do appear greater or better than everyone else's. In the meantime, when the rest of us hear such stories, we wonder what we are doing wrong. We are doing nothing wrong--they are just tooting their horn for attention.

Grad students take 2 classes per semester at my university because we have a 2/2 teaching load and are expected to make efforts to attend conferences and publish. This semester, I'm taking both a British modernist lit and an American modernist poetry class. While the British is not my area, it is still modernism and I'm finding that the professors teaching either class are well-versed in the other. In the Spring of 2018, I'm taking a class that, as best as I can tell, is a pairing of an African-American author with a white author (second class is literary theory). That's not exactly my area either (at least as defined in my mind), but it contributes to my overall understanding of American literature. I've talked to others in the PhD lit program and they are having the same difficulty getting classes that are in their field. Availability of classes may not be an unusual thing at any university. I complained throughout my undergrad and MA about availability of classes. Now I'm finding that my literary education is very well-rounded, and I have gained applicable knowledge that supersedes those whose education actually focused on the area they want to work in. I tell my students that writers do not live in a vacuum. Neither do literary scholars. Our education is way more comprehensive within the overall field of literature than we imagine it to be. We contribute to actual area knowledge with our independent research, reading and writing.

Although departments have advisors, etc. to assist us, we must be very proactive in getting promoting ourselves. You can do this!