I would suggest that that's not so much a matter of temperament as it is simply that they all work/study/live together. Through 8 years of grad work (MA/PhD) I socialized with almost no one who wasn't in my department, and the same went for most of the other folks.
Eight years? Is that common in the humanities (you're in English, right)? So compared to other fields, you're older, you don't get funded so you're in debt, and you still can't get a high-paying job. Ouch.
Eight years? Is that common in the humanities (you're in English, right)? So compared to other fields, you're older, you don't get funded so you're in debt, and you still can't get a high-paying job. Ouch.
Yup. That's about the size of it.
Actually, I went pretty quickly through the track I was on. My MA took 2.5 years (a little long, but I got hung up on a foreign language requirement). My PhD took 5 (the average in my field is 8 for just the PhD).
There are programs that will allow you to get both the MA and the PhD at once, and there are some programs (like Penn State) that really ram you through (4 years for PhD, I think). But my program was pretty representative of the old guard graduate education in English: MA = 40 hours beyond the BA + a thesis; PhD = 60 hours beyond the MA + dissertation.
So to answer your question, yes. It sucks. Completely. I have taken no breaks, and I have moved relatively quickly through my education, and I graduated with my PhD at 30. I was *extremely* lucky to find a job.
As for funding...difficult to answer. I was "funded" through my grad work, but that was only a TA-ship. You teach two classes a semester and are paid next to nothing. When I started my MA in 1995, I made $800 a month. I think I wound up making about $1100 a month by the time it was over. No insurance. No benefits. You don't pay Soc. Sec. because you're still a student. To make matters worse, because of the way the fee structures worked where I went to grad school, even though I got tuition deferments and fee waivers, I still had to pay about $3-400 a semester.
And now I owe $64,000 in student loans, am just starting to pay into my retirement (and holy COW the benefits are good here!!!), just bought my first house, and have good health insurance (across the board) for the first time.
But the economy being in the toilet is a good thing for me. I consolidated my loans at 2.7% interest (with 1.5% taken off after 36 consecutive on-time payments) over 30 years. My payments without consolidating would be around $1000 a month for 10 years. Now they're $287 for 30.
But professors have a longer shelf-life than your average private-sector folks. I can easily expect to work until I'm 70.
My wife, who is also a professor, is already talking about retiring in 15 years when she's 55. Damn her. But she has a different financial situation.
Hehe this reminds me of Scrubs, the distinction they made between internal medicine and surgery "jocks" like Todd, Turk's friend, who's a high-fiving Quagmire type character. Damn I love that show, I thought network TV was out of good ideas until Scrubs. Incidentally if anyone has any season 1 or 2 Scrubs episodes please message me.
I would suggest that that's not so much a matter of temperament as it is simply that they all work/study/live together. Through 8 years of grad work (MA/PhD) I socialized with almost no one who wasn't in my department, and the same went for most of the other folks.
Sure all have our groups we socialize with. What I'm saying is that if you were not in med school they had no interest in talking to you. Not being a med student could kill the conversation. It's like they have nothing else to talk about.
They don't. Seriously. It consumes you. And they're boring people to begin with, having wasted most of their undergrad years locked in the library. It's a double-whammy kinda thing. I'm so glad I escaped to grad school for a while.
Sure all have our groups we socialize with. What I'm saying is that if you were not in med school they had no interest in talking to you. Not being a med student could kill the conversation. It's like they have nothing else to talk about.
Gotcha. I've been so thoroughly ensconced in grad school that I don't know that I actually have ever talked to a med students. I can say that the opposite was very often the case for me and my colleagues in grad school. Every now and then we would simply require hanging out with the blue collar folks at the bar. You can only live the life of the mind for so long before you start to go insane.
Comments
Originally posted by midwinter
I would suggest that that's not so much a matter of temperament as it is simply that they all work/study/live together. Through 8 years of grad work (MA/PhD) I socialized with almost no one who wasn't in my department, and the same went for most of the other folks.
Eight years?
Originally posted by BRussell
Eight years?
Yup. That's about the size of it.
Actually, I went pretty quickly through the track I was on. My MA took 2.5 years (a little long, but I got hung up on a foreign language requirement). My PhD took 5 (the average in my field is 8 for just the PhD).
There are programs that will allow you to get both the MA and the PhD at once, and there are some programs (like Penn State) that really ram you through (4 years for PhD, I think). But my program was pretty representative of the old guard graduate education in English: MA = 40 hours beyond the BA + a thesis; PhD = 60 hours beyond the MA + dissertation.
So to answer your question, yes. It sucks. Completely. I have taken no breaks, and I have moved relatively quickly through my education, and I graduated with my PhD at 30. I was *extremely* lucky to find a job.
As for funding...difficult to answer. I was "funded" through my grad work, but that was only a TA-ship. You teach two classes a semester and are paid next to nothing. When I started my MA in 1995, I made $800 a month. I think I wound up making about $1100 a month by the time it was over. No insurance. No benefits. You don't pay Soc. Sec. because you're still a student. To make matters worse, because of the way the fee structures worked where I went to grad school, even though I got tuition deferments and fee waivers, I still had to pay about $3-400 a semester.
And now I owe $64,000 in student loans, am just starting to pay into my retirement (and holy COW the benefits are good here!!!), just bought my first house, and have good health insurance (across the board) for the first time.
But the economy being in the toilet is a good thing for me. I consolidated my loans at 2.7% interest (with 1.5% taken off after 36 consecutive on-time payments) over 30 years. My payments without consolidating would be around $1000 a month for 10 years. Now they're $287 for 30.
But professors have a longer shelf-life than your average private-sector folks. I can easily expect to work until I'm 70.
My wife, who is also a professor, is already talking about retiring in 15 years when she's 55. Damn her. But she has a different financial situation.
Cheers
Scott
Originally posted by midwinter
I would suggest that that's not so much a matter of temperament as it is simply that they all work/study/live together. Through 8 years of grad work (MA/PhD) I socialized with almost no one who wasn't in my department, and the same went for most of the other folks.
Sure all have our groups we socialize with. What I'm saying is that if you were not in med school they had no interest in talking to you. Not being a med student could kill the conversation. It's like they have nothing else to talk about.
Originally posted by Scott
It's like they have nothing else to talk about.
They don't. Seriously.
Originally posted by Scott
Sure all have our groups we socialize with. What I'm saying is that if you were not in med school they had no interest in talking to you. Not being a med student could kill the conversation. It's like they have nothing else to talk about.
Gotcha. I've been so thoroughly ensconced in grad school that I don't know that I actually have ever talked to a med students. I can say that the opposite was very often the case for me and my colleagues in grad school. Every now and then we would simply require hanging out with the blue collar folks at the bar. You can only live the life of the mind for so long before you start to go insane.