Questions for grad students

StrangeLight
Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:25:03 +0000

Do you think education is essential to living well?



no. plenty of people enter the trades and will make twice as much money as i, as an academic, could ever dream of, and they’re also really interesting, well-read people who get to have fun after 5 pm. so definitely no.



What benefits are you expecting to get out of your continued education? E.g. job security? Higher pay? Emotional rewards? Etc…



benefits? i study something i think is important. i would be working on/towards similar issues outside of graduate school (as a journalist, my first “career,” or in an NGO), so this is merely a different way to do a lot of the same stuff. the individual research is very rewarding. the rest sucks. higher pay and job security do not exist in the social sciences.



Are you happy with your decision to go to grad school?



yes, but. yes, but i wish i could pick my program up and plunk it down on the west coast somewhere. yes, but i wish i wasn’t so far from my friends. yes, but i miss having a life.



If you are not happy now, do expect your decision to bring you happiness at some later point?



in two years i can move and finish my dissertation from anywhere. in two years i’ll be done the time-consuming coursework and get my life back (a little). so yes, the things i dislike right now will hopefully be gone soon, and then i’ll just have the good parts.



What are the downsides of continuing your education?



i left a pretty exciting job to enter grad school. it definitely feels worth it when i’m working on my research. it definitely doesn’t feel worth it when i’m doing coursework. the job i left pays better than my graduate stipend does, and i was in an exciting city close to my friends, who are my surrogate family. i’ve lost my social life and i now have to count pennies to get by (the end of the month is tough). i don’t really care about money overall, but i’d like to have enough of it that i didn’t worry about my rent check bouncing each month. my stress levels have gone way up here, even though/especially knowing that so few people will read what i write here anyway.