First Generation Academics

[roving99]

So, just wondering how you all deal with this as the holidays brought it up in droves for me!

I'm the first person in my family to go a route that is even remotely academic.  My siblings and I are first-generation college students, and only one of my four siblings has a bachelor's degree and is using it for her job.  How do you explain the prospect of a PhD and general academia to those who are way outside of it?  I'm currently in the application process, and it feels like everyone assumes I'm just a bookworm who doesn't want a 'real job.'

I'm very aware that the confusion is out of a lack of understanding and not out of malice.  Have any of you come up with ways to explain it that get the idea across without sounding too babbled or stuck up?

[Eigen]

I explain it as a job, rather than school, and focus on the apprenticeship aspect. You can also make the doctor analogy with the PhD being like a combination of medical school and residency. 

But for most of my family I find coughing it first as a job helps a lot. It makes them more respectful of my schedule, and you are getting paid. 

[Imenol]

2 hours ago, Eigen said:

I explain it as a job, rather than school, and focus on the apprenticeship aspect. You can also make the doctor analogy with the PhD being like a combination of medical school and residency. 

But for most of my family I find coughing it first as a job helps a lot. It makes them more respectful of my schedule, and you are getting paid. 

This has also been very useful to me, marketing it as a job where you teach etc in addition to research. It also helps that I come from a country (Spain) where the average salary falls well below the stipend of a top PhD program. 

[roving99]

9 hours ago, Eigen said:

I explain it as a job, rather than school, and focus on the apprenticeship aspect. You can also make the doctor analogy with the PhD being like a combination of medical school and residency. 

 

 

7 hours ago, Imenol said:

This has also been very useful to me, marketing it as a job where you teach etc in addition to research. It also helps that I come from a country (Spain) where the average salary falls well below the stipend of a top PhD program. 

1

That's an interesting take, I hadn't thought of that! Thanks for the advice - I definitely think a lot of it comes down to a lack of understanding of what graduate school is. I'll have to try that approach next time the topic comes up, seems like its a good springboard to get them onto the right page.

[Pius Aeneas]

On 12/30/2017 at 12:36 PM, Imenol said:

This has also been very useful to me, marketing it as a job where you teach etc in addition to research. It also helps that I come from a country (Spain) where the average salary falls well below the stipend of a top PhD program. 

This is what I've taken to doing. I've gotten tired of people asking what exactly it is that I'm doing so I just tell them that I'm teaching while doing research to earn a PhD. 

[EarlyModernElle]

My mother and sibling didn't go to college, so to be in a PhD program is a whole different world for them. I agree that treating it as a job helps. I get paid more than most of my friends with "real jobs," plus free health insurance, and I've managed to consistently receive external grants to fund my travels to Europe for research. Thankfully, my boyfriend is also a doctoral student (Physics) so he understands the trials and tribulations of grad life.