I'm Eating Crow

Joann,

I am with all you in the struggle wagon. I am working two jobs and going to school. I am so tired at times. I have three more years of this. It is indeed a struggle. I made a B+ in my class and read over 20 books. I look at this as a learning process. Many times I have felt as you Joann. I have wanted to just chuck it in. Then somehow a feeling kicks in. It is a fire in the belly. I have yelled at it and cursed at it, but it still drives me to go to class. It is not the want of the letters of PhD beside my name. It is to finish the job. To tell the story of the people that my research involves. For those who gave all they can during the depression and World War II, my work gives them a lasting sense of purpose. That and the need to finish what I dreamed about since I was 13 continues my journey onward. It is something so strong that keeps me going on. You will do it. I just know it. You work harder than I could ever dream.

 

Tireman44:

YOU will succeed, that's clear. I know the feeling, actually; I want to know WHY we do the things we do to people who behave in ways we don't like. I imagine JoAnn has an equivalent need to pursue her subject.

Because BOY, the workload is far too much to be justified by a few letters, however prestigious!

 

JoAnn,

Your post sent shivers. I had a similar experience many years ago. I got my first taste of graduate math while an undergradate at Berkeley. The word was that taking a grad class while an undergrad was a good idea for improving chances of getting into a good graduate program. Well, maybe.

I naively signed up for a class for which I had the prerequisites in terms of courses, but nowhere near the sophistication mathematically. Like you, I spent an ungodly number of hours on the weekly problems sets - for which I got about half of the points. The Grad Asst. was uncommonly nice, and wrote long, detailed explanations about subtle points that I had missed, glossed over, or assumed away.

There were only about 10 or 12 people in the class, and all the rest were third and fourth year grad students, who seemed to be toying with the material. It was very humbling. When I visited my advisor with thoughts of dropping, he asked me why I signed up for that particualr course. I told him, "I had the prerequisites." He smiled and shook his head, and said " no no no, this is a course you take after a few years of graduate school; don't pay attention to the prerequisites, they don't mean anything." Well, maybe I was in the wrong class, but it doesn't sound like you are. However, any prof can make the class about as difficult as he/she wants.

Have no doubt about your intellectual abilities. That's not an issue. Doubt is normal, as is panic, but you'll be fine. You are probably learning much more than you know, and I'm sure you are not the only one. Graduate school, as a whole, will NOT be like this experience. I think the advice to focus on your strengths and what you ARE learning is good. The more you can relax, the more you will be able to learn - though I know it's a little like the doctor telling you if you don't learn to relax and reduce stress it will kill you. Yeah right, now I can relax.

Hang in there. You'll make it.

 

Tom: You are probably learning much more than you know.

nosborne: It really IS true. I started on Jurisprudence last January, meaning five months ago.

Looking back, I can see that I didn't even know how to frame QUESTIONS let alone understand the issues with any sort of subtlety. I was entirely in the dark.

Now, however, I see growing within me a basic understanding of the fundamental approaches of three of the five or six major scholars in the field. It will take me at least six months to digest the works of the remaining "big boys" and begin to see how they interact with each other. That's where the "action" really is, of course.

Since that interaction continues today, I will then begin to follow, and even possibly participate, in this ongoing conversation. THAT'S an exciting prospect!

But in the meantime, I've got a mountain of material to climb. You have to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run.

 

My wife went through it when studying for a Math PhD. She entered grad school with Magna credentials and a gleaming Phi Beta Kappa key. But when she got there, she flunked her first exam in her first grad class (but still pulled a "B" and finished with a 3.5+ G.P.A.--though it was her lowest G.P.A. in her entire academic career). She took classes where she said she never understood a thing on any more than a surface level--and sometimes not even that! Yet she got through all but about three credits of her PhD coursework and got her MS before she finally cashed her chips in and went to work as a systems analyst for an insurance company.

What you're experiencing is common to most grad students. My own personal "huh?" experience was in law school. Not the law classes, they were challenging and stressful, but fairly straightforward. It was in a course I took for law school credit from the College of Arts & Sciences. It was a graduate philosophy seminar entitled "The Study of the Theory of Law and Ethics" or something like that. I smugly thought I might be able to add something to the discussion, enlighten these graduate philosophy students--and perhaps even the professor--so to speak. But the class had NOTHING to do with the law. Nothing at all. All of the students were PhD students with their coursework years underway, and the professor had obtained her PhD from Harvard and expected a lot from her students. This was philosophy unlike anything I'd ever seen. Plato's Republic? Hobbes' Leviathan? Pieces of cake by comparison. Nothing compared with the incredible complexity and difficulty of the books for this class. The readings were so dense and self-referential and full of philosophy-specific nomenclature that I had no chance of understanding a thing. The professor tried to warn silly me and the other fool law student friend of mine who thought we'd go "slumming" and take a class off from law in the "mere" grad school. She told us before the class that this was an advanced seminar, for students with years of philosophy under their belt. No kidding!

It's unbelievable how mind-boggling certain fields can get at the highest levels. I was happy to limp away with a "gift" B.

 

The Graduate Chairman of the history department at UH told me of his three B's at LSU in his first two semesters while working on his PhD. He is now an accomplished writer and one of the best professors I have ever met. Amazing gift for teaching. He was telling me to keep my head up and plow through. Sometimes during the class I felt sooo lost. To make up for it, I would take notes furiously. I was going to get this down no matter what. All the scrutiny that I went through, I just knew( Hopefully) it will help me during comps and my defense. They ( The Professors) are there to train us. Get us ready for that next level. That is what Dr Walther told me. You will have bumps along the way. When I saw that B+ I was devastated. Life does go on. It still hurts, but it will give me something to grow on in the fall.

 

little fauss:

So how could a Harvard-once-removed philosphy of law graduate student with a solid "B" average possibly agree with Justice Scalia?? Didn't you read Dworkin??

One of my undergard concentrations was Philosophy. I admit that knowing what phenominology means (well, no, but at least I know where to look. Well, no, but I know what it is supposed to deal with. Well, maybe not, but I've HEARD THE TERM BEFORE... ) has helped.

My LL.M. Jurisprudence study guide (the right one, this time) just arrived. I am delighted and relieved to find that it follows the same general path that I'd been following myself which the first (LL.B.) guide they sent me did NOT.

 

"Didn't you read Dworkin??"

Ooh! Ooh!

How wonderfully SMUG I feel! I LIKE this gradiate eddykashun stuph.

Ooh! Ooh!

 

Update

I just received my returned homework (the one I spent 50+ hours on) and it turns out I got a score of 28 (out of 30). The average score was 23.5 so now I feel a little better. Of course, while I did very well I still feel like the homework was REALLY hard and I certainly didn't expect this grade. I also don't think its realistic for me to continue spending the kind of time that I spent on this past assignment. Well at least that is over. Now, I'm soooo nervous about the exam I take next Wednesday, but my score on this will be a much better indication of where I stand. If it turns out that I do well on the exam, I will have another apology to make for overreacting. But it doesn't feel that way at the present.

Graduate school is going to be one long, hard SLOG.

 

If it's prepared correctly, it can be quite palitable.

 

Hang in there, Joanne, this is all part of the wonder of grad school, whether B&M or DL. I started my masters in health administration slightly mathphobic, and by my last class I was praying for any type of quantitative question that did not require me to know anything about human anatomy, because the medical classes were so hard!

 

Hang in there, JoAnne. Grad school is a bit different from undergrad. You already know what you need to know. In grad school you just need to go deeper into those areas you already know. In undergrad you learn to find an answer, in grad school you learn there could be more than one optimum answer.

One of my undergrad classmates convinced me to go to grad school with her. In her undergrad she barely cracked a book and got straight A's. In her first grad school course she struggled. She found grad school studies required a slightly different approach. When she found what worked for her, she did mah-velous.

If I could get through it, any one can.

 

Thanks to everyone for the kinds words. I just took my first exam this morning and based on how I felt I performed, I believe I'm going to be okay. Yes, I had to study very hard -- but when I took the exam I was able to address each problem in turn. Of course, I only had 50 minutes to complete the exam and had to hurry. My time ran out as I completed the last problem (no time to look things over).

I think part of my stress is derived from the mindset I took over the past three years. To get my grade point up to the 3.3 minimum required by the CS department at UF, I had to ace out 70+ hours of undergrad work (I went back to school having a 2.64 GPA.) I was able to do this and my FSU GPA is a 4.0. However, over the weekend (while I was studying) I had the realization that I don't really need to put that sort of pressure on myself anymore. I'm IN!!! So if I do the work (which will be plenty) I will be okay. So now I can relax and just enjoy the learning!

Thanks everyone for sharing your wisdom and experience.

 

Good for you. My first experience with a really challenging grad course (came in the Fall. I found that 20 hours weekly on homework was typical, and occasionally I would spend 6 or more hours on a single problem. The good news on homework like this is that the tests have to be easier. So if you actually do put in the time on the homework, you generally will do better than most of the other students on the class. Lots of students will take shortcuts on homework, which ultimately cost them on tests.

 

Congrats! I'm sure you did well. After all, you are in the program!

I found if I focused more on the learning than on the grade, I did better. There were classes where I forgot that approach and I just made my life miserable (like my capstone course). When I did my dissertation, I kept going for an "A", and then I realized, "There's no grade on this puppy!" Once I realized it was simplya matter of pass/no pass, I calmed down and enjoyed the remainder of the process (which wasn't too much, I'm not a fast learner).

 

Exam Results

Just got my exam results and I scored 37 out of 50. The average was 32.5 and the high score was a 47. So it looks like I'm positioned at somewhere slightly above average in my class. Its humbling, but I'm okay with that. If I can keep up with the assigned work and based on the grading scales of previous semesters, this will probably earn me a B or B+. Either a perfectly respectable grade.

 

I have to take my second exam tomorrow morning and based off the material covered, this exam is going to be harder than the first exam. I've spent about 16-20 hours over the past 4 days studying for this exam and I've still had to make decisions of what to study and what not to study. I hope I do well enough on the exam but for now all I can do is keep my fingers crossed. Believe me -- I feel very humble at this moment.

On another note -- I registered for TWO graduate courses in the fall. Of course I'm taking two courses now! Its just that one of the courses is a work-intensive but otherwise really easy undergrad course. In preparation I've already scheduled vacation for every other Friday next semester. Hopefully, with the longer semester (not the shortened summer semester) and my vacation time I'll be able to handle two graduate courses. Time (and my GPA) will tell.

 

Yeah, UF courses seem to be like a roller coaster ride. First you're excited at the beginning, then terrified, then screaming to get the hell off during the middle, then the ride ends and you're happy again. Then you get in line again for a ride on the next semester and the cycle repeats.

I'm registered for 4 graduate courses in the fall. Reading this message board will be about the only "vacation" I have.