guys i need some lol college advice

definitely don't apply straight out of undergrad. the students in my program who've done that tend to burn out something awful. the anxiety/procrastination thing is a serious problem, but it's also very common among academics (flakiest people in the world, I swear.) also, you will almost certainly be better about deadlines in grad school than you are now, because it's just a lot different than college. (read: less fun, less distractions.)

honestly, it's good that you recognize the anxiety-procrastination loop now. maybe you could work on it after you graduate and be super-ready to apply? my caution is that there are no jobs and also, you seem like a nice kid and ph.d. programs make people insane, but if you love the stuff, you love the stuff. lots of people warned me, but fuck if I listened.

yeah i mean id love to not go to grad school and potentially have no job and go crazy and stuff but i have yet to find something i like doing nearly as much as, well, learning & teaching stuff.

on the "no one ever judges my work" tip, one thing I wish I had been more comfortable with before grad school is not being immediately good at stuff. because you have to be willing to risk being less than brilliant to get the hang of academic work.

i also wouldnt mind being a farmer

one thing to keep in mind is that when you're in college and you love school your only immediate role models are professors. but I have to believe there are other things you can do with your life where you learn and teach...or fields that reward you for thinking. I obviously don't know what those are otherwise I'd not be in a ph.d. program, but they have to exist.

and to stop being totally eeyore for a second, it is pretty amazing to be training to do something as fun and frivolous as studying + teaching English lit. there's a lot of pleasure in the day to day of it.

yeah i know i shouldnt be complaining, i guess i just wish it came easier or something. mostly i just need to hear that its not impossible.

but thx for the advice horseshoe u did make me feel better :D

I'm glad! it's not impossible!

Judging by your posts, I bet you'd be an AMAZING high school teacher (not much $, though, and you'd be surrounded by assholes*).

*see Music Journalism

thanks tape store! honestly, id love to be a HS teacher except that 1) i like research and paper-writing as much as i like teaching and 2) the stuff im really passionate about is the sort of crit-theory/contintental philosophy stuff that would likely get me drummed out by students AND parents (altho maybe im being small-minded abt the openness of hs kids to nietzsche)

max you'd probably like teaching AP classes at a high school.

altho i think teaching @ a college>teaching @ high school (i have no personal experience to back this up obv)

yeah i dunno i probably also hell of romanticize college teaching over high school teaching cause it seems so much less stressful & the kids are (supposed to be) interested & intelligent and not, yknow, being forced to be there, and you have more freedom over yr syllabus &c &c

AP classes= kids that are interested & intelligent.

the difference in hours between teaching college v. high school is what would probably do it for me.

times like this i wish my future self could send letters to my past self

if they even HAVE letters in the future that is

i also wouldnt mind being a farmer

-- max, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 5:10 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

yeah, me too :-/

ps horseshoe why aren't we friends

just to bring everybody down I am going to mention my grad advisor who was talking to me once about how crazy all these kids are who go and work straight on through eight to nine years, get their Ph.D in english literature, and then somehow think some small college in a nice town is going to have an opening with tenure possibilities ;_;

because there is apparently a glut of that in this country

yeah i mean i know that im entering a field that has 1-2 openings a year and as a white guy im not what most departments are looking for but i still really like it... plus im hoping/praying that in 10-12 years when im getting my doctor8 a lot of the tenured boomer profs will be retiring and leaving options open for me (also maybe since most of my grad skool peers will be female my being male might work for me?)

but god who the fuck knows. there arent really jobs anywhere for the shit that im good at (at least is my understanding), its just even worse in academia.

pros:
- i like my topic ("violence in the thought of nietzsche and hobbes") & my advisor a lot

i also wouldnt mind being a farmer

http://www.deepsprings.edu/

max, are you a phil. undergrad?

xpost deep springs rears its head agane

also, where?

english & comp lit, at 0ccidental college in LA

oh ok, i was going to let you know that phil. grad school is basically gagging for grad students if you're willing to TA, but that isn't quite as true for the lit side of things.

yeah id most likely being for a lit degree but i havent necessarily ruled out philosophy or maybe a program like history of consciousness @ ucsc or rhetoric @ berkeley

being = be going

that or buying a farm in the dominican and playing dominoes

let's be friends, rw!

Tombot's grad advisor otm. ;_;

have a keg party and pull a prank on the dean with some nerds.

where is the job where i can read things i find really interesting and talk about them with fantastically smart people and maybe even write about them but i can do it all at my own pace with no pressure and no one ever judges my work?

it's called college, lol.

choose between the honors project and the radio station.

get a job

Lots of great advice on this thread, I'll go through some of what was said. I think I might have some things to offer as I was in a similar situation and was thinking long and hard about the academic route. I studied philosophy (mostly continental/crit theory stuff as well as a lot of ethics, some logic, general history of phil.) and was very seriously considering doing a Phd. Actually, "was very seriously considering" = "ruling out pretty much all other options and thinking that I was definitely going to become a professor." I ultimately decided to take a few years off, thinking I would later apply to programs. I am beyond happy that I looked into other options. Most of my advice centers around "but, dude, think seriously about whether you want to apply to Ph.D. programs!"

Here goes:
one thing to keep in mind is that when you're in college and you love school your only immediate role models are professors. but I have to believe there are other things you can do with your life where you learn and teach...or fields that reward you for thinking.

this is completely, completely OTM. So many smart undergrads who really excel in their majors (especially humanities students) look to the first immediate lifestyle in sight -- their professors, and just think "oh that's what I'll do" without really understanding a.)that there are loads of other options that aren't immediately visible but offer the same intellectual engagement with a lot less of the hassle and b.)that a Phd-->tenured professor dream is a hellish, hellish, hellish process that is extraordinarily difficult to achieve for most humanities students. Some students hear this, but then think "oh, I'll definitely be the lucky one, the student who gets a tenure position, I'm the smartest, most motivated, etc." But every Phd hopeful thinks they will be the lucky one, and the majority of them will not be.

the stuff im really passionate about is the sort of crit-theory/contintental philosophy stuff

This is an awesome field and there is some really engaging stuff in it, but unfortunately the job market is utter crap for this kind of stuff.

just to bring everybody down I am going to mention my grad advisor who was talking to me once about how crazy all these kids are who go and work straight on through eight to nine years, get their Ph.D in english literature, and then somehow think some small college in a nice town is going to have an opening with tenure possibilities ;_;

OTM. Nobody likes a downer, but unfortunately there aren't enough downers giving advice on students who are hoping to be academics. Most of my undergrad professors built up my self-confidence, and I thought "yea I got mostly As and good remarks from my profs" and my academic self-confidence was big and bloated, but none of them really gave me a realistic perspective on graduate study. Looking into it made me realize that I'd get my ass kicked in academia and I'd be miserable to boot.

a lot of the tenured boomer profs will be retiring and leaving options open for me

This might be true, but fewer and fewer of the retiring tenured profs are being replaced with other tenured positions. Adjuncts and other part-time crap jobs with lousy pay and no benefits are replacing the tenured professor who had his/her awesome job for 35 years.

Ultimately, you are wise for not wanting to go straight to grad school. Unless one is a complete crit theory diehard (or any other subject) who reads this stuff constantly even when his/her classes don't require it, he/she would probably benefit from taking some time off. Even that person might benefit. If you find you truly can't live without reading/discussing/researching/ Foucault, et al., then you can always go back to school. I took some time off and haven't read a work of philosophy since graduation, and it feels effin' great. I've had so much more time to find out what really, really interests me and I often think how miserable I would be if I was in a grad program right now.

As for the honors project -- I'd say go ahead and do it! (whether or not you plan to apply for Phd programs.) Things like that can be a blast, even if they are a lot of work. You'd probably be happy you did it in the end. It gives you a decent sense of what long-term, intensive research entails, which is precisely what grad school/academic life is. The only caveat is the one you mentioned about your advisor -- projects like that definitely benefit from frequent meetings with an advisor and if they aren't really there most of the time, it might be difficult. See if there is anyone else you could meet with.

One last point -- to all those who actually did go ahead and do a Phd -- I can be very forthright in all the reasons why one shouldn't do it, but ultimately I think it's a pretty awesome path and have a ton of respect for you. It's such a fantastic way to make a living, if you're motivated enough, and that's great. Damn I went on too long, didn't I?

i really wish deep springs had grad school

thx for the extended reply, mark. i think a major problem is that as true as this: a.)that there are loads of other options that aren't immediately visible but offer the same intellectual engagement with a lot less of the hassle might be, those "other options" are very much not visible, and i dont really know how to go about looking for them. im more than open to other options (in fact, id really like to something i love as much as this without the impossible job market & 7 years of school), its just hard to figure out that they are.

but this isnt a thread about my creeping feeling of dread, its about my honors project.

I'm glad I'm doing a PhD, but I really wish someone had told me/I had figured out just how shitty and unsatisfying it would be a lot of the time.

in case anyone's wondering i still havent finished my 6-page paper on women in mathematics.

hahha nice. yea max i do wish i had more advice on your honors project. sorry to go off on the big tangent!

no worries mark, its all the same question anyway basically

hi dere I am in this boat!

AFAIK doing these kinds of paper are really good because they are a great great great example of "research ability" which grad schools really look for. But I am doing one too and yeah it sucks a dick. Not doing PhD route tho, just grad school.

In terms of laziness/procrastination/anxiety, I just kind of constantly push myself to do things, make lots of schedules and planners, blah blah. I have to break everything down or I can't function. To narrow my topic and get an idea how to structure a paper like this, I went down to my college main office and asked to see the papers from previous years. They had a whole room of like all of them ever, and you could flip through and find stuff from yr major and look at how they wrote it and everything. Maybe yours does too! My advisor also advised me to break it down into smaller papers, which is a BIG HELP in terms of not feeling totally overwhelmed and terrified.

sorry I know my posts read like gibberish but I am revising a grad school essay and doing reading for my insane IR classes at the same time.

i think i also need someone to say "MAX stop posting to ILX you need to be working on your honors project"

to say that whenever i post, i mean

"where is the job where i can read things i find really interesting and talk about them with fantastically smart people and maybe even write about them but i can do it all at my own pace with no pressure and no one ever judges my work?"

You should pitch this to the Gawker Media Empire (TM). I hear they're always looking for a new blog-hook.

the Fleshbot crossover would be killer

This thread kind of makes me glad I never ended up applying to grad school back when I was seriously considering it. Especially horseshoe's comment about professors as role models and the romanticization of the academic lifestyle. I still wish my job was as social and engaging as teaching would be, but I can't say it's not intellectually stimulating.

max, I have periodically had to swear off ILX to meet grad school deadlines. it helps me to be all absolutist about it and not look at it at all for like, a month. but I have been driven crazy by ph.d. school; such an extremist approach might not be necessary for you.

(I am absolutist about it mostly for psychological reasons, not because I'm getting so much work done.)

the aphorisms of tom

the problem with saying "grass is greener" in that equation is that by the time you hit thirty every hour is worth 50% more than it was when you were twenty, so in a lot of ways, you find yourself really wishing you could use that money to buy more time, which even the most powerful commodities traders in the world can't do

when you're thirty and studying you'd better really like whatever you're spending your time and money on

xpost

i really wld rather have more time than money, it's true

i feel so cheated by phrases like that though cause i totally have no time

but you have energy

it's all a big equation of the universe

i wish i was living in a more affordable place so i could afford to work less so i could afford to have more free time between my 12 hour class days, is what i'm getting at i guess.

"but you have energy" ha it's all relative i guess? certainly doesn't feel like i have lots of energy except to type fast

energy + time
/
nostalgia for lol college life
x money
= UHNIVERSELOL

i just defended my thesis! i totally flubbed the questions but i still got honors! and i passed my comprehensive exam w/ "distinction"!!!!

!!!

congrats bro

http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/images/Pi09.jpg

CONGRATULATIONS MAX!!!

ps - I am in grad school and not insane thankyouverymuch. ;-)

Hoos, you go to TSU, right? Any clue how strict their transfer admissions are?

congratz max :)

Pushing my graduation back two semesters will be worth it if it means I get to go to Wellington (from rural Minnesota) for a year, right?

wellington, new zealand???

yep

that's where i live!

well, for 2.5 more months. what are you going to be doing here?

Going to a different lol college. It'll push back my grad date 'cause I don't really need the credits badly; I just want to get as far away from here as I possibly can, and the study abroad thing seems like a convenient way to travel FAR. My girlfriend and two good pals are coming with, though they're all a bit unsure of what they'll be doing there (ha any recommendations?). We won't be there until January.

What do you do in Wellington? Do you like it?

oh wellington is awesome! webmail off-board if you want to ask about anything.

*webmail ME off-board

wow, how did i miss the update? belated yaaaaaaaay max!

also, ENBB, i think you are in graduate school for something proper and useful, not lol english lit, so i totally believe that you are not insane.

Hahaha. We'll see how useful it turns out to be. I did english lit/creative undergrad so maybe I'm 1/2 insane. ;-)

thanks horseshoe. i graduate tomorrow!

CONGRATULATIONS, MAX!!!

yaaay max!
and congratulations on sticking with the thesis + comps option! :D

guys i just got a letter from college that apparently oops they fucked up and I NEED ONE MORE CLASS TO GRADUATE

fuck knows how half a dozen advising sessions and three degree audits official and otherwise could have missed this

but i kinda feel like this whole insane semester, which was structured as it was for the sake of getting me completely done by june (and thus getting $10,000 in loans forgiven), was completely for naught now.

argasdsfkwl jf jifjks j kijfkidjfdkijf/disfyu yu if hn ddfjn ;nusweic4ju9u4

>:(

Aw Hoos want me to go clothesline some Texans for ya?

damn hoos that is nightmare territory

but i kinda feel like this whole insane semester, which was structured as it was for the sake of getting me completely done by june (and thus getting $10,000 in loans forgiven), was completely for naught now.

Can you tell this sentence to someone with any measure of power? I feel like if it was my decision, and I knew you had repeatedly visited advisors who didn't catch the "mistake", along with the degree audits, I'd use my executive powers to help you out. Then again, this is probably why I will never achieve any position of influence...

oh man, hoos :( so sorry!!!

hoos, that sucks so bad dude :( surely someone will be sympathetic to your case...

because of my own fuckup in planning my degree, i was 2 points short at the end of my last semester (360pts for a degree) but there was no fucking way i was doing another semester so i wrote to the associate dean of my faculty and told him all the reasons i should get an exemption and he granted it within a couple of hours. but my situation was pretty minor. hopefully something similar will happen for you!

Can you tell this sentence to someone with any measure of power?

I'm calling my Dean in the morning.

thx for the sympathies, guys.

also

CONGRATS MAX U GO HAVE A FUKKIN TASTYCAKE DAWG DEAD SERIOUS