Grad school is slowly crushing my soul, and I wonder if I'm not cut out for it???

Parents Forum
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I think it’s too early to tell if you’re cut out for grad school, but there are a few things to consider.

Graduate school is really not like college. It’s quite stressful and competitive even if you have always “loved school.” Once you give up the idea that it should be fun and intellectually rewarding, like college, it becomes paradoxically a lot easier. Treat it like a job, with parts you like and parts you don’t like. The process really isn’t about enrichment and finding yourself. It’s essentially trade school for professors. Remember Sayre’s law: l"Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."

I think you are correct to be concerned about your grades. In our grad program, a B as a course grade is considered a warning sign that someone might not be cut out for the program. However, a B on an individual assignment during the semester is not disastrous. The grading scale is more compressed than undergrad. As @apprenticeprof pointed out, context matters. What does a B mean in your particular program?

How rigorous were the standards of admission to your MA program? Is it a full-time program? Do you have funding?How many people from your program actually go on to get PhDs? Most of our job candidates in English skipped the MA and went directly into funded full-time doctoral programs after undergrad. The MA only qualifies you for adjunct positions, which are unstable and pay close to nothing. The good institutional funding at universities with PhD programs in English generally goes to students who started their graduate work there, not on those coming in with MAs from elsewhere.

I would love to say, “follow your dreams and don’t give up,” but I also feel responsible as a member of the profession to point out that there are very few jobs, placement failure is exceptionally high, and an MA is not a particularly valuable degree in the profession. You will also need to be willing to move around. Searches for full-time positions are national in scope. If this MA is costing you money or requiring you to take out loans, I would think long and hard at the end of the semester about whether it’s worth it. It probably isn’t, at least not from an ROI point of view.

If your class is like most grad classes, your course grade will be based primarily on your research paper, which you After that is done and you’ve received the course grade, you can reevaluate whether the MA program is for you.

If it’s not, that is okay. I have known several graduate students who made the decision to change course and ended up relieved and at peace with their decision. Make sure that your goals (what you want out of the program) are realistic and attainable. Look hard at your program’s placement record. Good luck to you.

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Also read about “Imposter Syndrome”…females are more susceptible in our culture.

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Wow bringing back memories of “Impostor Syndrome.” Funny enough, nearly 30 years ago as I was finishing my PhD Stanford had a “support group” for graduate school women in STEM and we talked a lot about that. I was on my way to that support group when the big earthquake hit in 1989. Memories! But yes, women tend to be susceptible to this syndrome.

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It’s perfectly possible to have a misogynistic culture in a graduate program where the students are mostly women. You might also have individual professors (including female professors) who are biased toward men. That lasted way past the 1950s. Sheesh.

As I observed my first semester of law school, misery does not raise your grades. If you have gone to your professors for help and you are doing the best you can academically, try to let the chips fall where they may. You don’t know if the B is coming or how big a problem it will be if it does. Right now, focus on doing YOUR best work and making it through the semester with your peace of mind intact. Try not to worry about big questions that aren’t in front of you yet, and may not even be in your control.

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I get you. I had a very similar experience last year in my first year of my PhD program. I am not in English but I am in a very closely related field and my experience was with an English professor. She tore my writing to shreds but my advisor disagreed with her suggestions. I did what I needed to do to get through her class and squeaked by with an A-.

A year later, I realize that it was a minimal issue. I never have to take another course with her. I wish I knew at the time that you don’t need every professor to like your work or agree with your decisions.

I understand your concern about getting into PhD programs but a B or two, even in your MA program, will not be the deal breaker.

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I can’t comment on the A-B+ thing, but as to the professor tearing apart your writing, isn’t that what you are paying for? Word choice matters. Details matter.

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Harvestmoon - I earned a PhD back in the day and my daughter is currently in her second year of an MA program, so I know all about grad school stress. The only real problem I see is that it looks like you jumped straight into the main separate-the-sheep-from-the-goats grad class right off the bat, in your first semester. I would have advised taking that big macho class after you already had your feet wet in the program for a term or two. But that’s water under the bridge at this point.

So to begin with my advice is keep working closely with the prof and, most importantly of all, stop stressing over the possibility of getting a B and focus your mind and effort on the material and on your work. With that focus the higher grades will follow on their own.

And my motto in life there is always a Plan B, another way to get where you want to be. So even if you end up with a B that doesn’t mean you’re doomed. It just means you’re a little off the routine path. And thus you need to think about how best to adjust your path to still get where you want to go.

I dimly recall that every little setback in grad school seemed at the time the be a Cosmic Issue. But now, decades later, I can see that they amounted to practically nothing in the long run.

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Thank you all so much! Your replies and advice are grounding and comforting at a time when I need both of those very much.

I’ve been working closely with this professor on my writing, and I feel like I have a better idea of what kind of writing is expected of me. Also, since I posted this, I got feedback on a paper for another class. That professor gave me an A, didn’t go through my paper line-by-line at all, and had good things to say, so I think I’m realizing that a lot of “success” in my program seems to depend on which professor you have (and when!). These two are pretty much polar opposites as far as teaching style and personality goes, so it’s quite an interesting semester.

And, to address some other questions/points, I’m in a competitive program with full funding. My degree will be in English but I’m studying composition and rhetoric, not literature. There’s not too many direct admit to PhDs in rhet/comp, so most people I know of have gotten their MAs first and then apply for the PhD (usually at a different institution, too). I’m actually pretty grateful for this because this gives me more time to really think about what I want and if this is for me (which, as you all have said, is something I probably can’t determine right now at ~3 months in).

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@harvestmoon, if you want to apply with an MA to another institution as a PhD candidate and get funding, you are going to have to be a topnotch candidate. Do not get defensive when professors in your current program rip your writing apart. That is their job. Use it as a learning experience. It is also something you need to accept if you ever submit work to peer-reviewed journals in your field. Your reviewers are going to also rip your writing apart, even if you are tenured. It is a long-term part of of the job that you will need to learn to accept and not get upset about. A good reviewer is a tough reviewer. Someone who tells you everything’s fine and great is not doing you any favors. You want that “line-by-line” critique. Don’t try to avoid professors who provide it.

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I’m a lawyer and critique law students’ work frequently. I am very focused on word choice, being concise, and active voice etc. Your goal should not to be perfect but to have less red every time. If so you are making progress and putting the advice you have gotten to good use. It’s an evolution and evolution can be difficult in the moment.

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It’s not inflation, it’s a different scale. In some programs if you don’t have at least a B average, you are out. The minimum acceptable grade average to avoid expulsion in our program is 3.0. That’s not the case in undergrad.

The grading scale and grade distribution are flatter. That makes sense because what really matters, ultimately, is your PhD dissertation and getting it (or parts of it) published, so you can get or keep a job. The MA is not a terminal degree in English.

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Don’t have time to read all the other comments, but here is my take. Don’t you want critical assessment of your work? Forget about the professor “tearing up your work”. They are trying to make you a better writer. It is a learning process, and hopefully the professor is a good evaluator and you learn from their comments. Do NOT take them personally. Good Luck!

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Thanks again, everyone! I know this experience is really valuable for my writing and my abilities as a learner and an educator myself, so I really am trying to make the most of the feedback and work hard to improve. I still feel overwhelmed a lot (which of course is completely normal), but I know that I shouldn’t let one paper in one class of one semester of one year discourage me too badly.

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I work at a graduate studio-based art school. The program revolves around critique … from faculty, peers, and visiting artists/critics. Talk about a couple years of feeling like your work is being torn up!! Everyone understands what they are in for, but it’s tough on a lot of students when they are actually in the thick of it. In the end, though, the structure yields big gains in individual art practices. Be open to the criticism & use it to better your craft.

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WOW! WOW! WOW! Thank you to all the posters who have opened my eyes to what a masters program is like. I had no idea one needed to maintain B+ averages. Holy cow. I think of all the people who got MBA’s from a local college and they did not seem to come out much brighter than when they went in. None of them seemed particularly stressed either. They made it sound as if it was just a continuation of college. They were pretty sick of studying and wanted to just concentrate on working and making money finally. I did not hear anyone even once mention the course work was too much. It was more of an indication that it was a “drag” to still be going to school.

This raises a whole new point for my son who is considering being a CPA. In order to even sit for the CPA exam, one needs to basically obtain a masters degree. I guess I never realized that such a requirement would create such an intense weeder program.

Thanks again for all this insight. You guys rock!

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The concerns about receiving too many Bs because they’re the equivalent of Cs in undergrad or the compressed grading scale only applies to most academic graduate programs(MA/MS/PhD).

It doesn’t apply to most MBA or pre-professional programs though you should still check with each MBA/pre-CPA graduate program to be sure. And with the pre-CPA program, the most important priority is to pick up the sufficient credits and preparation to pass the CPA exam once one has met the prereq requirements to sit for that exam.

Also, like undergrad programs, MBA and pre-professional graduate programs can vary quite widely in terms of academic expectations, rigor, and intensity. While there are many MBA programs which are as you described, there are others which will weed out students who aren’t sufficiently motivated though the grading scales may not be as compressed.

For instance, I know an acquaintance who was invited to leave an elite MBA program because she happened to fall into the academic bottom 10%* of first-year MBA students and her program had a policy of inviting those who fell into that group to not bother returning for the second and final year. However, keep in mind this tends to be an exception rather than the rule for most MBA/pre-professional graduate programs.

  • Ranking in relation to the rest of her entering first-year MBA class.
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OP–you need to be open-minded, learn from mistakes, and develop a thick skin. If you can’t do that, you may not be cut-out for graduate school/academia. Critiques of your work never stop. It continues all through grad school and beyond. Are you required to write a thesis for your MA? If so, you will be subject to more critiques of your work. Same thing with a dissertation. Even faculty members who submit their work to academic journals receive criticism from academic reviewers who make recommendations on whether to publish. Nothing wrong with thinking this isn’t how you want to spend your life. With strong writing skills there are other paths that you can follow.

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Thanks again. It is indeed a critique-heavy path that requires quite the thick set of skin, and I’m still trying to figure out if this is what I want/can do. I’m already an anxious, insecure person and grad school has made me even more so, but I do value and believe in my field and the work scholars have been doing to further refine and enhance it.

I think I’ll be in a better position to judge my “fit” for an academic lifestyle after I complete the first year. So far, it’s been quite the adjustment with the reading load, writing expectations, teaching demands, presenting at and traveling to a conference, etc, and I don’t know if I’ve developed the right level of stamina yet!