Grad student RANT

[Writer]

So I discover now that my committee won't be prepared in time to read my thesis by its defense date, so I am going to have to defend AFTER the f'ing deadline which means my frickin' degree will be dated for AUGUST which doesn't matter anyway because regardless I won't be able to find any decent work in my area after completion of the damned thing.

So fuck it all. Why did we spend the money on this thing, anyway? HUH? HUH?!?? HUHHHHH?!??

Convince me somehow that I'm wrong.

[MissB]

1. Because education is a worthwhile endeavor

and if you're in it just for the money, it'll never be worth it.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

23. Actually college is a huge money maker...

And with the exception of a few majors, like sciences, education, maybe a few others, college is just paying someone a ton of money for a piece of paper that is worth nothing. Take Criminal Justice for instance. I learned very little for my major that I couldn't have learned working in that field, in fact, I learned more working at the detention center than I learned in 6 years of college. AND I'm not working in my field. Apparently, my degree is worthless. Would have been nice if someone had told me BEFORE I wasted an extra 4 years in college. :grr:
I guess if I could work for the state, that would be one thing, and I do want to work for them, it's just that the test you have to take has NOTHING to do with the job. They're completely ridiculous, stylistic questions that have nothing to do with the job.
Anyway, back on track: College is a rip off unless you're going into medical or nursing school, majoring in education, or very few other things. Most everything can be taught while working on the job. And yes, I'm bitter because I wasted $25,000 on a worthless piece of paper apparently no one wants.
Duckie

[MissB]

28. I'm sorry.

And you're probably right too. I have an engineering degree, so I can see a direct correlation between my degree and how much money I can make.

[ZombieNixon]

2. Undergrad student RANT

Oh, wait, I didn't have to go to class today. Never mind. :hide:

[Writer]

6. What are you tryin' to say?

I have but one class a week. And I just wrote a 150 page paper that weighs about 1/3 lb. per square inch. What are YOU complaining about????? ;) ;) ;)

[entanglement]

44. Gr4d 5tud3nts pwn u, suckaz!

:P

[EstimatedProphet]

3. Been there, done that too

I couldn't get my doctorate finished and through the grad school editing monkeys in time to graduate, so I had to do another semester-with all the appropriate fees, of course, INCLUDING AN EXTRA GRADUATION FEE...

[petronius]

11. That's pretty miserly of them

I pushed mine back a semester, and got the graduation fee refunded. Even better, as long as we were completely finished by some early deadline, we only had to pay the graduation fee in the semester when we actually walked...

[EstimatedProphet]

16. Yeah, they had a fee for everything

Even the cheerleaders-we had to pay part of our student fees to pay for the cheerleaders, and the FASHION CLUB! I wish I was kidding!

[Writer]

22. Wow. May I ask where you earned your degree? n/t

[EstimatedProphet]

26. Mississippi State

[Writer]

29. Let it be known to everyone on DU that Mississippi State...

is an inhospitable place to complete a graduate degree.

[EstimatedProphet]

31. Hear hear!

[realisticphish]

30. well yeah

part of the fees also went to football, and the debate club, and the campus dems, and the ACLU... :shrug:

[EstimatedProphet]

32. There was no Campus Dems, or a debate club

and you damn can well bet there was no campus ACLU!

But there was a cheerleading squad, and the greek system, and the FASHION CLUB, all funded at least in part from student fees.

[realisticphish]

33. well

I'm just saying, student fees do indeed go to pay for student activities. Here, at least, every group gets an equal budget, be they the ACLU or an anti-abortion group.

Though, I will admit, here the Cheerleading squad is funding through the department of athletics, which is a seperate financial entity from the university.

[EstimatedProphet]

34. See, here's the thing...

I wouldn't have minded as much if there were balance, but a lot of the organizations didn't get campus funding. the greek-connected ones dominated it all, and they already have their own funding anyway. And, because MSState was so gung-ho to be a Big Dick Football School, everything with athletics was done on the backs of the students.

[realisticphish]

35. i see

at Ohio State, Greek life stuff funds themselves. As I said, ditto with athletic. They recieve no monies from the University; everything comes from ticket/merchendise/donations.

Here, if you register as a group, and are approved, you are given at least a $600 per quarter budget. You can petition for more money if you show need, but usually that's enough for the smaller activist groups.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

24. You do realize that did it on purpose, right?

[EstimatedProphet]

25. Of course they did-captive audience

[Kerrytravelers]

4. Yep. haven't used any skills from my MA... not once.

God, I must just looOOOOoooove learning.

[Writer]

7. Did it at least help you find decent work/better pay? n/t

[Kerrytravelers]

17. Oh, I don't regret getting my MA at all.

So far, it really hasn't increased my public school teacher's pay. I get a whopping $250 more PER YEAR. My next goal is to teach at the JC level.

[Droopy]

5. More education = more opportunity

I learned that in elementary school.

I flunked out of college as an undergrad. I'm 33 and I've never made more than 40k a year. This year will be alright if things keep going the way they are going. I will make about 50k.

[hfojvt]

46. most of what I learned in the lower grades

was unlearned (found to be false) in college. I am 44 with an MA and have never made more than 25 K a year. Some of that is inflation though, since the job I quit in 1986 now pays $38,171 a year although at the time it only paid $10.45 an hour. And, if I had stuck with that job I would be making at least $71,959 a year, but I should have had more options than working directly for the military industrial complex.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. When I finished my PhD I was so broke I couldn't afford

the library microfilming fee. I deliberately wrote a bad check for it & then eventually made the check good. If I had waited til I had the bux, my grad date would have been prolonged by a semester. By doing it this way they just held up the diploma itself.

[ChoralScholar]

13. but now, you're Dr. Jackpine Radical

It's all worth it, see?!?

Working on a Doctor of Musical Arts degree myself. I will be done within 18 months.

I intend to eventually complete a PhD. in music cognition.

[Kellanved]

9. Seems to be SOP

Exactly the same thing is happening to me.

[Writer]

10. Oh man, I'm sorry.

So what are you doing about it? Luckily they're letting me walk in the spring, but I'm going to have a f'ing asterisk next to my name.

[Kellanved]

12. well, not much

Tuition isn't as much of an issue over here. I'll have my official defense in ten days (about a month late) and have another - ungraded, but public - defense later. And then it's either finding a good postgrad program, or a job ;-) .


I hope you find a quicker solution; waiting sucks.

[Writer]

14. Yeah if I defend by a particular date, there's no additional expense...

what I find annoying is that I'm completing the damn thing in the spring so my degree should reflect my hard work.

[Kellanved]

15. Yes, that's the part that irked me

It was a frigging year of work, written in in the context of an internationally acclaimed research project. Yet nobody seems to to be interested in reading the thing.

[tigereye]

37. become a bureaucrat of some sort, KV?

or come over here - the market for software folks is improving, so quoth my husband...

:hi:

[Maddy McCall]

18. I had wondered how your committee would have time to read and prepare...

if you just gave it to them Friday. Your thesis is, what, three chapters and roughly 150 pages?

One week isn't enough time for them to prepare, really.

I hate it for ya. :(

[Writer]

19. Information that would have been much more helpful to me...

two weeks ago! If I had known I would have worked like hell to make sure they had enough time!

[Maddy McCall]

20. Here's the process:

After you finish your thesis, you give it to your committee. Expect them to take a couple of weeks reading over it and making edits, revisions, or notating that you need to fill in with more research here or there. Some revisions can be minute; others can be sweeping.

Each committee member gives his or her copy back to you, with edits and revisions they expect you to make.

It will take you anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks to edit and revise.

Back to them it goes--they give it another perusal. Hopefully, no more edits or revisions, and word comes down that you are ready to defend.

The defense date is set, and that's usually a date that is convenient for them--so it could be days or weeks later.

Your thesis advisor (committee chair) didn't work closely with you on your thesis? You certainly should have been told about the above process as you were finishing your work.

[Writer]

21. Thank you for that. I was told when I should ...

approximately have my final draft available. I was told no additional information than that. I have a very good advisor who has helped me shape my work. However, this is technical crap that I wasn't told.

[6000eliot]

27. What is your area?

The chair of my committee had her face eaten off by her dog and couldn't read my diss., so I was put behind an entire year.

[Writer]

36. My area is...

communication. Mass communication.

[tigereye]

38. I actually use my degree

well, the second one I received....;)


I wish I had a better answer for you. I suspect that it will all work out and the stressful part will be over at some point! Most people I know feel like that when they are at the point that you are... they are so tired and stressed and sick of it all.

If it makes you feel any better, one of my friends got his PhD in a very sci. field, did a post-doc and then decided to go to law school! I can still remember my stunned expression when he told me this.

[Orangepeel]

39. sorry, Writer

and after you were so optimistic! Well, at least you'll be sure that when you DO get to defend it, it will be something they're happy with

[Writer]

40. No big deal.

I scheduled the time with them more than a month ago. I suppose I made the terrible error of assuming that they would have let me know if their work schedules would get to tight. Oh POLLYANNA me. :eyes:

[entanglement]

41. Consider the fact that you're going to be an 'expert' after your Phd

That counts for something, doesn't it? :)

OTOH, the idea of actually spending money to get a PhD sounds odd to me, it's quite unusual in engineering / sciences where most PhD students have a Research Assistantship / Teaching Assistantship with a tuition waiver.

[Writer]

42. Actually it's just a Master's.

Which makes it all the more depressing. What next, I ask myself.

[entanglement]

43. Sorry, Writer

:hug:

In some fields, a Master's degree actually makes it more difficult to get a job. Employers prefer BS holders since they don't have to pay them as much and they're quite adequate for most jobs. OTOH, for a lot of cutting-edge R&D work (consider also the increasing specialization these days), a PhD is needed, so MS degree holders are at a relative disadvantage in a tight job market.

Thankfully enough, this isn't true across the board and I hope something really good comes your way.
:toast:

[wickerwoman]

45. I've got that beat...

When I started grad school we had three professors in my speciality. In the two years it took me to finish my coursework, all three of them transfered to other universities and were not replaced- the last one told me the week before I was supposed to get my orals committee approved. Cue major panic. It took me six more months to ask *14* people to be on my orals committee and to get 3 yeses (it took so long because many of the professors blew off appointments with me) and I had to completely change my focus. Then when I went to prep meetings the professors gave me shit for not knowing what I wanted to do. One of them told me "your thesis is supposed to come out of your coursework" and I wanted to scream at him "Well all of my coursework was about something else asshole!"

It's majorly frustrating- but it sounds like you're through the worst of it. Congrats on finishing your thesis and good luck!