grad school surprises

rabbitstew
Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:45:30 +0000

It 100% depends on your program and the attitude of the people in it. For instance, my program is very small but in a much larger university, so we have the resources of a big school with the feeling of a small program. There’s zero competition for labs among students, because there are so many labs and so few of us.
Our classes are also very small, usually 4-8ish, so there’s no such thing as a curve and we all help each other. We study together and help each other out when someone is having trouble. We did have a series of courses for all biomedical 1st years which was ~40, and things were slightly more competitive there, but again, no one was trying to sabotage anyone else or anything.

This is one of the hard parts about grad school - Everyone is so worried about just getting into school in the first place that it’s hard to adequately assess the fit of the program. I originally came from an enormous school which worked really well for me, and I came here in SPITE of the small program size because it had so many labs in my odd interest area, but I completely lucked out and really enjoy it. It could have easily gone the way yours has.

If you are really, genuinely unhappy there and think that it will interfere with your ability to learn and get a proper phd level education, then you should cut your losses and get out with an MS (since you’ve already missed this year’s cycle). Last year I was roomed with another applicant who was leaving her school after her first year because she was so unhappy. She ended up in another perfectly fine program and seems much better. Sometimes you really do just have to leave a bad situation, even if you feel like you’ve wasted time.