Anyone else here in graduate school? Wanna vent?

[yearofthehorse]

TL;DR I know that being a graduate student isn't the hardest thing in the world, but I feel like people don't get how much pressure you're under unless they've done it themselves.

I was chatting today to a fellow PhD student who was about to submit her thesis and was seriously doubting herself. She is a part time student who mostly works from home, so the only contacts she had at the university were her supervisors. We bumped into each other by chance and got to talking... and it was the first time in 3+ years that she'd realised that she wasn't the only one struggling!

She had just assumed that she was somehow not as capable as other grad students and that she wasn't really worthy of doing a PhD. Then little old me came along, proudly nattering on about what a pile of.. *ahem*.. nonsense my work currently is and she was so delighted that we'd spoken. I'm so glad that she didn't submit/go to viva thinking that she was somehow worse than the average student!

Let's face it, most grad students have been pretty high achievers through their school days and then suddenly they find themselves surrounded by equally intelligent and dedicated people. I think it's the combination of that, the pressure, the long hours and, usually, the frustration that you don't have time to do everything that leads us all into so many breakdowns.

I'm also eternally angry that we only get funded for 3 years (in my country) when the average completion time for a PhD is like 10 years and most people need at least 4. HOW CAN I GO TO MULTIPLE CONFERENCES AND PUBLISH AS MUCH AS YOU WANT ME TO WHEN I SPEND THE FIRST YEAR CLUELESS AND THE LAST YEAR IN A WRITING FRENZY *shakes fist*

*Breathes* so...anyone else in the same boat and fancy a rant? If you don't need to rant, what are you studying? Despite what you might think, I actually love doing what I do...and that's why I get so worked up about it! XD

[suzanoberle]

So, I'm a Ph.D. and one thing I realized (later than I probably should have) is that once you get past the qualifying exam and begin your research, then your professors and your committee are committed to your success.  If you were to fail out of the program, it would make THEM look bad.  So they are invested in getting you through the program more than you realize, if only for their own careers.  They all want you to succeed.

Good luck, and I'm sure you'll get through this successfully.

[suzanoberle]

I forgot to ask; what are you studying?

[balloongal247]

The graduate school is also committed because they have to meet numbers.  Especially for certain types of accreditation, they have to meet criteria, and I think one of them is an advanced degree completion rate. Also, make sure you turn in your paper for the format review early, because they get a lot of people who wait until the last minute.  I think they are also more likely to give you a break if absolutely necessary if they've seen you earlier and you've shown you are putting in the effort, rather than just emailing the day before the due date and asking for extensions in order to be able to graduate.  My sister works as the clearance advisor in a university grad school.  She is has the power to keep people from graduating.  Even if another office says you can get extensions or waivers of criteria to force graduation through, if she doesn't approve the ones for her office, it doesn't happen, so be nice to them!

[sylvia_wsc]

I'm about to enter graduate school next year, and I am already nervous now... Been talking to a lot of graduate students before I decided to enroll, and most of them (if not all) complained about how hectic their lives are, even tho they do love what they're doing/achieving. Hopefully my passion will be enough to fuel my next few years to come! 

[yearofthehorse]

On 9/1/2017 at 9:18 AM, suzanoberle said:

I forgot to ask; what are you studying?

I'm studying Psychology! My focus is on bilingualism and whether it has cognitive benefits :)

[yearofthehorse]

On 9/1/2017 at 8:33 PM, sylvia_wsc said:

I'm about to enter graduate school next year, and I am already nervous now... Been talking to a lot of graduate students before I decided to enroll, and most of them (if not all) complained about how hectic their lives are, even tho they do love what they're doing/achieving. Hopefully my passion will be enough to fuel my next few years to come! 

It's honestly not something to be nervous about! Depending on what type of course you're starting, it can be a bit of a leap from undergrad but as long as you have an interest in what you're doing, it's so fulfilling. What are you going to be studying?

[yearofthehorse]

Edit: Sorry guys, I realised immediately after posting this that I shouldn't post multiple times in a row! I have absolutely no clue how to delete this and add it to a previous post! #newbie #idiot #PhDstudent?

On 9/1/2017 at 9:10 AM, suzanoberle said:

So, I'm a Ph.D. and one thing I realized (later than I probably should have) is that once you get past the qualifying exam and begin your research, then your professors and your committee are committed to your success.  If you were to fail out of the program, it would make THEM look bad.  So they are invested in getting you through the program more than you realize, if only for their own careers.  They all want you to succeed.

Good luck, and I'm sure you'll get through this successfully.

 

I forgot to say thank you for this! Yeah, my supervisor in particular is lovely. She's super sweet and is really dedicated to helping me out, so I lucked out. The colleague I mentioned in my first post wasn't so lucky, apparently. She'd told her supervisors how worried she was and they shrugged it off, telling her that it was weird to think that way! I don't think I've met a single PhD student who hasn't questioned themselves at one point or another!

 

On 9/1/2017 at 1:40 PM, balloongal247 said:

The graduate school is also committed because they have to meet numbers.  Especially for certain types of accreditation, they have to meet criteria, and I think one of them is an advanced degree completion rate. Also, make sure you turn in your paper for the format review early, because they get a lot of people who wait until the last minute.  I think they are also more likely to give you a break if absolutely necessary if they've seen you earlier and you've shown you are putting in the effort, rather than just emailing the day before the due date and asking for extensions in order to be able to graduate.  My sister works as the clearance advisor in a university grad school.  She is has the power to keep people from graduating.  Even if another office says you can get extensions or waivers of criteria to force graduation through, if she doesn't approve the ones for her office, it doesn't happen, so be nice to them!

That's a really good point. Unfortunately my university/department is SO focused on results and publications that it puts us under far more pressure than necessary *headdesk*. In our first month, there was a mandatory day-long "training" course for new PhD students in which a guy basically told us that we *had* to finish on time and that we were already running out of time. He made us do calculations for how much time we'd lose through weekends, holidays and even sleeping and eating. Then we had to take that away from our total 3 years, decrease it again with some *highly scientific formula* that represented the time we're actually productive at our desks and we were left with some tiny number. "That's how long you REALLY have to finish your degrees before you LOSE YOUR FUNDING and have to WORK FOR FREE so GET TO IT".

That's the work of the higher-ups though. Generally the lecturers and admin team are wonderful. I always make sure to be super nice to the admin team because a) they get blamed for everything that goes wrong b ) they don't get credit for the things that go well and c) they have the power XD

Edited September 2, 2017 by yearofthehorse
I'm a silly donkey who posted 3 times in a row