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The Agony of Grad School

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Re: The Agony of Grad School

#11

Post by [deleted] »

philwelch wrote: post #6
psyklic wrote: post #2

It seems like this author is taking four classes and teaching an additional one. So, he complains that he needs to task switch too often. (How is this different from undergrad?) He should just wait a year or two for classes to be over with so that he can concentrate more on research ...

Actually, as an undergrad I find it troubling too. I usually pick out my hardest class and pretend that's my primary task for the term and regard the others as annoyances. Summer session--where you only take 1 or 2 classes at a time for six weeks at my school--always worked out better for me.

[deleted]

Re: The Agony of Grad School

#12

Post by magus_pwnsen »

Sounds like burnout. (My one-year graduate school foray was strikingly similar.) This is why I think it's generally a bad idea to go into grad school straight out of undergrad.

Students are encouraged to go straight in because of the (false) perception that a mathematician's best work is in his 20s, meaning that a two-year gap between undergrad and graduate school would be a tragic loss, but the reality doesn't line up with this perception.

Re: The Agony of Grad School

#13

Post by bkovitz »

asciilifeform wrote: post #9

Now try the agony of not being in grad school.

Did you find the work world even more time-fragmented than grad school?

Hmm, the post comes down to saying that grad school is run on the manager's schedule rather than the maker's schedule.

http://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Re: The Agony of Grad School

#14

Post by edw519 »

What makes OP think that it's any different anywhere else. Every single thing he complained about, I have experienced in the work place.

If you have a problem with time, space, noise, others, whatever, you need to find a way to solve that problem. With one big difference: there are no "incompletes" at work.

The problem isn't grad school. It's OP. I sure hope he finds a way to solve it. If he can't hack it there, he surely won't be able to hack it here.

Re: The Agony of Grad School

#15

Post by jey »

If you have a lot of trouble with deliberately directing your attention, you should probably ask a mental health doctor to evaluate you for ADD ("Attention Deficit Disorder"). It's possible that you've had ADD all your life and covered for it with your high intelligence, but now that the demands on your attention are much higher in grad school, your deficit in allocating attention is becoming a problem.

Re: The Agony of Grad School

#16

Post by [deleted] »

timr wrote: post #3

I feel bad for the guy, but I think his problem is a bit of a personal issue. He should seek out help from a doctor on how to manage his attention disorder. Lots of people make it through graduate school while teaching and taking multiple classes. It isn't easy, but it certainly isn't impossible.

[deleted]

Re: The Agony of Grad School

#18

Post by zoba »

I have had similar experiences, but only when I didn't have enough to do. The more I have to do, the more crammed my time feels. The more crammed my time feels, the more important tasks seem to me, and therefore the more likely I am to do them.

Taking only one or two classes at a time kills me, because I have so much free time I always think "Oh I can just do that later" and then never actually do it. With a full load of classes I think "Geez, I better do that now so I have time for the work I know I'm going to be getting later."

Lastly, I've heard that meditation is supposed to quiet the noise in one's head. It hasn't worked for me yet, though I probably haven't been practicing it as regularly as I ought to.

Re: The Agony of Grad School

#20

Post by ch101 »

Grad school for me is like this: class, sleep, write, and no social life. I question some of the assignments, but find the content interesting. I just wonder sometimes what other people (ladies) my age are doing. I assume marriage, dating, or having children. I do not think of myself as abnormal for not taking that route, but instead realize I just do not have time for these things at the moment.
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