Mechanical Engineering PhD - Student Personality and the Stress Level

RacinReaver
Sat, 07 Mar 2015 05:46:47 +0000

There are a lot of reasons graduate school can be very stressful. I’ll try to write some out chronologically that you might experience!

Adjusting to a new school. You're no longer an undergrad, and the school doesn't treat you like one. As a PhD student you're more of an employee of the school than student, and it can get rough seeing all the students having fun while you're slogging away in the lab every day.

Difficult classes. People are coming from schools and programs all over the world, and they all have different backgrounds. You'll be well prepared for some classes, but likely not others.

Quals/Prelims/orals/whatever. Huge exam where either in one, two, or three parts need to demonstrate your ability to answer *any* question, and your ability to generate original research. The exam part can be extremely stressful depending on the program, as some fail out a number of students, while others just make it the most miserable three months of your life leading up to it with studying all day.

TAing. Some classes are alright, but you'll feel like an indentured servant. Grade grubbing students, professors shifting off too much work onto you, massive stacks of illegible homeworks to grade weekly, and then you have your own classes and research to worry about. Honestly I liked TAing grad classes a lot more. Students were way more interested in the material, and I got a lot more out of it.

Having to TA way too much. I had to TA 8 times as a grad student. My group was poor, and it was how my tuition got paid most terms.

A poor lab. No money to buy equipment. For a while we didn't even have money to buy kimwipes, so we were using coffee filters from the dollar store :rolleyes:

A demanding advisor. Expects results no matter what, unreasonable hours, treats students poorly, or any other list of things.

An advisor that doesn't know you exist. At times this is worse. Nothing like working for a year on a project only to have your boss come in and go, "Oh, hey, what have you been up to?"

Research not working out. Machines break. You need to fix it. Data doesn't seem quite right, oh crud, there was a systematic error I couldn't detect until I aggregated everything. Time to rerun my last 6 months of experiments. Synthesis won't work right. Watching friends breeze through because they managed to get lucky with projects and timing (or realizing they're just that much better than you).

Realizing after around year 3 you've just gotta stick it out. Any other job you could quit. As a grad student if you leave after 3 years, you'll be lucky if somewhere else will take you in. And if they do, odds are you'll have to repeat your MS (so add 2 years to that degree). Start hunting around for a new advisor, and hope it works out. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

Work on a project for a year, see someone else published exactly what you did as you're writing up your results to submit it to a journal. Die a little bit on the inside because you just got a year added to your degree.

Go on facebook and see your classmate from undergrad just bought a house. You're renting a 2 BR apartment with 3 people in it. And barely breaking even.

Start to see your friends graduate while your thesis isn't even being dreamt about yet.

Get that e-mail from the graduate office saying, "Hey, you've been here 6 years and almost everyone from your year has graduated. Please write a justification as to why we shouldn't kick you out."

With all of that said, graduate school can still be a fantastic experience. While there I was surrounded by smart people. I’m now at a place people would consider a dream employer, but it’s still not even close to what I had there.

By the way, there is NO WAY he should commit to a graduate school without meeting the professor first (provided it’s for a PhD). His visit should be paid for by the school, he should be getting a stipend and tuition covered. While he’s there, he should also interview with a number of other professors and make sure there’s another person he’d be willing to work with. There’s no guarantee this professor will be around for 6 years. Funding situations change, professors can be jerks, professors change schools, etc. Heck, it might sound morbid, but occasionally professors will be in a random accident and pass away.

Years ago on here someone said graduate school is a marathon, not a sprint. I really think this is the best analogy I’ve heard. You’ll have ups and downs, but if you have persistence, you’ll make it.