Graduate School Confusion - Normal???

Parent Cafe
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<p>So, D has her list of schools, GRE is done, professor recs are lined up, gpa is solid, and applications are started - and she’s certain, based on her total application plus reassurances from professors that she will receive acceptances from one or more Ph.D. programs. </p>

<p>But she’s expressing some confusion, or ambiguity, and most of it seems to revolve around the personal statement. She cannot figure out how to write it, mostly, based on what she tells me, because she cannot figure out how to put into interesting text what the combination of degrees, sports, work, and ECs means in terms of continuing education and career. She also made comments to me along the lines of “I’m not totally sold on this” and “if I am in a Ph.D. program and decide I don’t like it, I can always default out with a masters” and “everyone tells me I should apply in the quantitative field vs. qualitative because that’s where I’m stronger” etc. </p>

<p>She’s also applying to a federal agency in the intelligence community; the application requires a personal statement and objective; the recruiter told her to take her time and be very, very careful about what she writes, and she’s having great difficulty with that as well. </p>

<p>I told her - take a year off from school, work for a while, get some distance from it. In my mind, it sounds like perhaps she’s not quite ready for graduate school. But she insists that she does NOT want to take a year off from her education. </p>

<p>She said she feels “enormous pressure” to articulate exactly what she is going to do with her career - not from me, but from “everyone else”, meaning professors, the IC community, etc. </p>

<p>Is this normal? Do most people approach grad school with some degree of ambiguity? Or is it more the norm that grad school applicants tend to be strongly committed and extremely certain of their path? </p>

<p>She keeps coming to me and talking to me about it, and I’d LOVE to be able to give her some useful advice, but, the only sensible suggestion I had - take a year off school - wasn’t well received, so, I don’t know how to help.</p>

<p>Is it likely that once she gets past writing the personal statement she’ll be more comfortable in her choices?</p>

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<p>

I certainly can agree with your daughter there. I was (and am :)) quite sure that I wanted to enter a PhD program, but I’m not about to set my career in stone at this point in my schooling – there’s still a lot to do before I decide if I want to take path X or path Y! But it’s all anybody wants to know during grad school apps. I basically ended up choosing a path to discuss during interviews; it’s not necessarily what I want to do with my life, but it’s something I could do.</p>

<p>I think it’s not good to approach a PhD program with ambiguity (ie “do I want to be here or not?”), but it sounds to me like your daughter is mostly ambiguous about the next steps, which seems okay to me. I do think things will feel a little better once she’s done with the applications. I know I felt like a huge weight had been taken off my chest.</p>

<p>I think going to graduate school is a little bit like getting married – it’s okay to be a little anxious, but there should be a certain amount of “this program is the one.” :D</p>

<p>Best of luck to your daughter – I hope that writing the personal statement and getting those essays sent off will make her feel better.</p>

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<p>Molliebatmit, thank you for that - after sleeping on it, I do agree that maybe - hopefully - it’s just these next steps that she has to get past.</p>

<p>She is getting very annoyed with the constant requirement to explain her vision of her career path, which, when you listen to her articulate it, it’s very easy to get lost in where she’s going with it. I can only imagine that she must be tired of explaining it over and over. </p>

<p>We’ll see what happens as she progresses through these applications and personal statements…thank you for your post, it allows me to worry a bit less :)</p>

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<p>“Or is it more the norm that grad school applicants tend to be strongly committed and extremely certain of their path?”</p>

<p>Heck yeah, at least if you follow your professors’ advice. The reason I abandoned my PhD plans was that I was expected to pick not just a field but a subfield – as narrow as a particular molecule or a single text – and express my complete devotion to that molecule/text and its secrets for the next 8-10 years, if not the rest of my life. I couldn’t do that honestly, and I figured that if I had to do it dishonestly, I wouldn’t be happy in the program even if I got in.</p>

<p>I agree with you that she’s better off waiting a year. IMHO, she should get a research job in the proposed field and see whether she envies the PhD candidates around her or not. I didn’t. If she still wants to apply after that, the research position will likely help her.</p>

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<p>I personally found my niche during my MS tenure. At least in my field, many students opt for the MS first either because they only want to go into industry (and thus don’t need the PhD) or they don’t have a fully formulated research interest. </p>

<p>I got interested in my research during my MS while developing my thesis. Reading lots and lots of journal articles helped me formulate a probably research plan for my PhD. However, now that I’m in my PhD program, my research focus is shifting a tad bit (which is quite normal).</p>

<p>I don’t think she should give up graduate school right now just because she doesn’t know what she wants to research. However, I’m not going to lie, graduate school is a roller coaster! One moment you are on cloud nine and then the next you are in the dumps. If she isn’t ready for this environment yet, she may want to take some time off before pursuing graduate school.</p>