Notwithstanding the fact that intellectual expectations are falling, graduate school is still very difficult. In many graduate programs, half of the students who begin
never finish. Courses require time and effort. Comprehensive exams require time and effort. Theses and/or dissertations require time and effort. After each hill that you climb, there is a bigger one waiting for you. Relationships with advisers and other faculty members must be negotiated and tended over a long period of time. All of this must be done while making ends meet. There are grants and fellowships, but most graduate students have to earn their living by working, either as teaching assistants, research assistants, or in a job not directly related to their studies.
The academic demands of graduate school require a certain level of competence, but stamina is even more important. The work is often tedious and lonely, and it is subject to constant scrutiny. That is not a condition unique to graduate school, but many of the difficult, tedious, and lonely pursuits in life come with a salary. Graduate school does not.
It's hard but not necessarily because it's intellectually stimulating. I think a lot of the work the first couple years is designed to weed out the ones who aren't truly committed...
ReplyDelete...the ones who remain should BE committed.
If you ever have to ask yourself if it is worth the trouble, you do not have what it takes to persevere through the pure torture, which is grad school. Only a mature, serious and devoted individual who does not doubt himself when the going gets tough can earn a Ph.D.
DeleteI have an MA and an MLIS. Sure, it was a lot of work, but it was worth it.
ReplyDeleteI would describe grad school as more exhausting than hard. I took 1 grad class a semester while working full time; I quickly found that what I was learning was interesting but not worth the massive time commitment of time (also I felt as though I could pick some of it up on my own).
ReplyDeletePerhaps that graduate program was unusual. In my first master's program (where I was full time) I found almost every hour of it vital and interesting... Also I suspect that when you get to the stage where you're actively submitting articles/applying for fellowships, it could become extremely time-consuming.
I think grad school is perceived as hard because of weed out classes that tend to be dry and theoretical.
Sorry, 1:48. Neither an MA nor an MLIS is a Ph.D. As someone who has all three of these degrees, I know. I think this is something a lot of people don't understand about the Ph.D. It's *not* "like a master's degree, only more so" -- there's an order of magnitude of difference, especially in the humanities.
ReplyDeleteIn my program in the 70's less than half the people entering got PhD's, and the program only admitted people they thought could graduate (so some years they took 10 people and some years 25, depending on the quality of applicants). And I looked at the numbers for the previous 20 years, and discovered the same thing had been true - about 1/3 didn't get admitted to candidacy, and 1/3 of those didn't finish a thesis, and that was fairly consistent even by year.
ReplyDeleteAlso, even though they claimed that it was supposed to take 4 years to get a PhD, the average was really 5, and it was that low because every year or so they'd admit a super-star that got done in 2 or 3 years.
And because there is now a lot more math to learn, that same program now says that it take 5 years (and I doubt that anyone gets out in 2 these days, no matter how stellar they are). So while graduation is likely getting harder in all fields, I suspect that the "4 years to a doctorate" has been a fiction for at least half a century.
At least Sisyphus got ripped.
ReplyDeleteI started in a PhD program only to find out that since it was started (1964), only 8 percent of their matriculated students actually got one. Part of this was the difficulty, part was lack of university resources, and part was just because there were a fair number of faculty that just enjoyed torture. Needless to say I was in the 92% that left, and none too soon!
ReplyDeleteI wonder what field the blog author is in...
ReplyDeleteThis doctorate is the hardest thing I've ever done! I will be six years working on it, when I graduate in less than a year! What a sense of accomplishment I already feel. Still, I have a LOT of work yet to do, so off I go. For those still in a doctoral program, hang on. For those contemplating such an experience, go for it! Good luck, all!
ReplyDeleteWhen I finished my doctorate I thought: wow, this was really hard! But then I began publishing articles...and looking for jobs, and then teaching while publishing articles, and then teaching while conducting research and writing articles and writing a book manuscript...and now that I have just finished revising my book manuscript with a contract and a tenure track job and teaching full time and conducting research, I can say that graduate school was a breeze.
DeleteI dropped after first class..COMP SCI M.S. soo hard compared to undergrad OMG
ReplyDeleteI think that learning to play Scruggs-style five string banjo was harder than making it through graduate school, but I'd still rather be teaching than spending 300+ days in a van on the road playing "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" for the 600th time.
ReplyDelete"but many of the difficult, tedious, and lonely pursuits in life come with a salary. Graduate school does not."
ReplyDeleteSpeak for yourself. I made a $15000 investment into grad school for an 18 month M.A. program. I immediately got a low-paying but amazing 6 month internship in the exact field I wanted. A year later, I was on contract doing something similar making $10 000 more a year than I was with just an undergrad. Now, just under 2 years from finishing, I have a permanent gig where I make $20 000 a year more than I did with a B.A. in a related field, with excellent job security and benefits and it's only going to go up from here.
I should also add that I've always worked my a$$ off at everything and I think that if you really, I mean really, apply yourself, you can make it happen.
Also, high-five to the above banjo player. Yes, banjo is harder than grad school, but again I think anyone can learn banjo if they really apply themselves.