I am a student in the first year of my PhD. I was a fan of RYS way back when, and made the switch when CM took its place.I don’t know if I’m really should be asking this, but here it goes: I have a paper due tomorrow evening. I’ve been working on it for a while and presented my preliminary research at the beginning of December, but admittedly it’s not the Best Thing Ever. I know it’s my fault – the topic I began with was too big for a twenty-ish page paper. Even after to whittling it down to something more manageable, I won’t be able to take the ideas as far as I could if I had more time – not only to actually write it, but to direct the additional research towards resources that were more on point.
I never like playing the “I’m going through a rough time right now card,” mostly because I assume that it’s going to get a lot rougher and I do not want to be a snowflake
. Besides my schoolwork and my research assistantship, my funding package also stipulates that I work as a technician/stagehand (it’s a theatre program) – so there are occasionally very long days that extend into very late nights focus lights, setting cues, setting sound levels, fit-ups and strikes. I’ve been ill a lot this term. Sometimes I wonder if this was all a terrible mistake on the part of the admissions committee – and I have to say, I have been going through a rough time.Don’t get me wrong. I love what I’m doing. I am excited about the work. I’m certainly not going to tell my professor that I’m running on empty at this point in the process.
But I need some advice from people who have been through the process, despite the wide array of interests and experiences.
My boss and my professors (including the one that I am writing this paper for) have all told me time and again that I am too hard on myself and I guess to a certain extent they are correct. But, I’ve been in school since I was six
. I’ve been pursuing my research topic since I was fifteen. The person who is probably going to be my advisor is honestly the best person with whom I could have ever hoped to work. But with all this behind me, I feel that at twenty-four I could do better. I know there are still things about the process that I have to get used to and elements of the discourse – the Big Picture, I guess – that I still don’t understand. Q: In this roundabout way, what I want to know is twofold:
- When do you beat yourself up for not being able to do something and when do you let it go? Did you ever turn in something that was not your best? Did it come back to haunt you in another form.
- This paper from hell that’s due tomorrow – it’s not bad, but not awesome. When I email it to my professor I want to be able to tell her that this is something I want to explore further, and that there are other ideas I would have liked to incorporate. Should I, or am I just tattooing “I SUCK AND DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE “ across my forehead.
A: Comments below, please...
I'd just stop worrying, stop wasting precious time by posting to CM, and write the very best paper I could. Severe time constraints can work wonders for the creative process: your paper doesn't have to be perfect, just good -enough-. Will it ever be perfect?
ReplyDeleteFroderick's right--our "head" writing never really makes it to the page, despite our efforts to translate it there. Do your job. The fact that you give a damn--that you have a passion--is patent here; it will be there, as well, and it will carry your efforts to their best at this moment in this place.
ReplyDeleteAs to whether you should communicate what MORE/ELSE you'd like to do with the ideas expressed in your paper, I WOULD, in sort of a cover-note kinda thingie. THAT you are thinking beyond, THAT you're aware that there is more to discover, THAT constraints of time impede the level you'd like to take it to is further evidence of your passion for and insights into both the topic and the process.
(Damn. Mebbe it's time I revisit that thesis.)
You're having a crappy semester. It happens. Do your best and move along.
ReplyDeleteNobody does their best all the time. That level of consistent performance is unachievable. Let it go when you send the paper.
You should let your prof know what you think of your work. Not with whiny excuses but in a mature, professional way. Reassure the prof that you aren't looking for special treatment but you understand that your performance wasn't high quality and list a few reasons why. Try to avoid reasons that are common to all your classmates.
Just do your level best, and turn the thing in. Mrs. C's suggestion is a good one, but be careful NOT to apologize--just say that working on this paper has inspired you to take it further in another, future iteration.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who continually underestimated the quality of her work in grad school (I would turn in a paper thinking "Well, that's crap. I wish I'd had more time" only to get it back with an A and a series of glowing comments) I think you might benefit from some PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) exercises. Something along the lines of Stuart Smalley's "I'm good enough. I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me." Al Franken played it for laughs, but for people who are hypercritical of themselves, it's actually a mantra that helps shut the Critic up for a while. (At least, it's helped me.)
FYI, I just turned in my tenure dossier this week. Before I hit "send" I took a deep breath and consigned the 232-page record of my talents as a teacher, writer, and colleague to the judgment of my department. All I can say when I look in the mirror is that I've done my level best (while mothering 2 small children and teaching a 4/4 mostly-composition load with virtually no support for research or anything else) and that if it isn't enough, there's nothing that will change it.
It is the first year of your PhD. One of the main things I really learned in my PhD was extreme time management. Using every bit of my time to be productive. But I didn't learn that my first semester. I know that my professors would have seen caveats as excuses and whining or neediness. And not cared for any of that. I would just turn the paper in. If it is as bad as you think, when you get your grade you can schedule an appointment with the professor and talk about how to improve and what you want to do with this work in the future. If it's not as bad as you think, I'd work on not being so needy and handling your business. You don't want a reputation as the emotionally fragile student who has to be managed, which is what I get concerned about when you say the professors are giving you pep talks about not being so hard on yourself. I hate to say it, but in my grad school experience every semester was a "rough semester." You just do your best.
ReplyDeleteI think the first semester of a Ph.D. program is a nice splash of cold water -- possibly for the first time, you meet people smarter than you are, or better-read, or more ambitious, and it's daunting. Most first-years experience serious self-doubt. But I agree, a forward-thinking cover letter is all you need. Apologies or excuses will only make people wonder if you've taken on too much. And then, next semester, deliver.
ReplyDeleteBut the flip side is this: careers are long. A bad start doesn't have to determine the outcome.
Another thing you learn about time management is that sometimes there just isn't enough. You say "this is the best I could do with the time I have" and be happy with what you have.
ReplyDeleteOne more thought: if you're NOT routinely a snowflake, you might have a little credit in the bank. Walk up to the proffie (in private) and say that you are ready to hand in the paper on time, but that you think you could do a much better job if you had two more days. If he says 'no', then buckle down and get it done. If he says 'yes' you actually have to DO a better job. If you need more than a couple of days to improve it.. don't bother. The next paper is coming up.
Never apologize for a paper. Ever. Single best lesson I learned in grad school.
ReplyDeleteOne page at a time.
ReplyDeleteI concur with all of the above advice. I know that I had no idea what I was in for prior to my first year. I realized immediately that this was way different than undergrad - more so than I had expected. I spun my wheels, panicked quite a bit, but I eventually figured out how to get things done. My adviser was not terribly hands-on, and I was his first student, so I also had to teach him how to be an adviser. But, we got through it and we are still friends. I'm now in my 17th year of teaching and I can't imagine doing anything else.
ReplyDeleteI guess that my advice is that one bad semester does not necessarily tank a career. Keep plugging away at it and you'll be OK.
You guys are all being pretty optimistic.
ReplyDeleteI began grad school with a cohort of 34 people. Only 6 of us survived to get our PhDs. The rest dropped out, most of them after taking on a lot of debt. I'd like to give some more realistic advice:
1. No one pays attention to your first, second, or even third year in grad school. You are expected to be an idiot. Your work SHOULD be crap. You SHOULD get eons better by the time you're ABD.
2. No one who struggles with deadlines like this, or who even entertains extensions, makes it all the way to the PhD. Well, some do, and many of them read this blog, but the first people to drop in my cohort were those with incompletes and chronic late work. Eventually, you end up having too many deadlines to be late. It's now or never.
3. This feeling you have right now - of insecurity, of not belonging, of wishing you could do more, or better, or brilliance - this will only get worse as grad school goes on. And when you are on the job market, it will scream inside your head 24/7. Either accept that you are awful and hope to be surprised, or suffer the insecurity time bomb.
4. Yes, you could be much more successful at age 24. And by age 32, you're going to feel like an absolute failure as you piece together a 12,000/year living without benefits working 40+hours a week while your friends work normal hours with job security and maybe even buy a house. And as you go through the tenure track, you'll turn 40 realizing that you STILL feel like an absolute fool, subject to the whims of random bureaucrats and government officials and snowflake idiots.
I wish you luck, but you need to know that this despair will only deepen as you continue your grad studies.
Wow, AM! You sure know how to spread the sunshine around.
ReplyDeleteAM does have a good point. If you are paying for this, you damned well better know what you'll get out it. If you drop out with a lot of debt, you'll be wishing you took more practical theater classes, such as advanced popcorn popping and special topics in ushering.
a) sounds like you've got a paper in hand, you just don't think it's perfect. HAND IT IN. Of course it isn't perfect, but it will be good enough. Or if it isn't, they'll tell you. You do NOT want last term's work hanging over you as you start this term's work. HAND IT IN.
ReplyDeleteb) the best piece of advice anyone ever gave me in grad school was "ALL work is ALWAYS in progress." You will never write the perfect paper. You will always have been able to do better later as you learn more. Are you going to wait until you're 93 to finally commit something to print? This paper is the best you could do NOW, in present circumstances, and that is all you need to know.
c) HAND IT IN NOW. Then get on with your life (and this semester.
d) all the self-doubt is a normal part of grad school. Go talk to a counsellor now, it will save you a lot of anguish later. I don't think I know anyone who got through grad school without a therapist of some kind on call.
@Beaker Ben
ReplyDeleteI call 'em like I sees 'em. I watched so many of my cohort go through different shades of despair and depression before withdrawing. And the year before me went from 28 to 9, the year after me went 36 to 12. I heard that two years ago the cohort was 42 (!!!) and already it dropped below 20, with a lot of student debt and personal destruction in its wake. I want to tell people to leave as soon as they begin sinking.
My grad-school roommate and I at one point contemplated needlepointing a sampler for our apartment wall: "A Done Paper is a Good Paper" (and if by any chance she's reading here, I've just outed myself to her: hi, A!). Admittedly, that would have been yet another procrastination tactic (we didn't actually do it), but the sentiment was a good one.
ReplyDeleteYep, maybe write a cover letter (or, if you don't want to bias the professor's reading from the beginning, a note at the end) saying what more you'd like to do with the subject, but mostly, as others have said, HAND THE DAMN THNG IN! TODAY! It's probably better than you think, and even if isn't, it sounds like you've learned a lot about picking and narrowing topics, and about your writing progress and the time it takes you to accomplish various stages. That sounds like quite a lot to have gotten out of one graduate paper. Even if the grade is lower than you'd like (or higher than you think you deserve), call it a very successful learning experience, and build on it in semesters to come.
At the very least, you'll want to take the same attitude with conference papers and with your dissertation (which if you don't treat as a work-in-progress, you'll never finish. Trust me; I came close.)
I think Monkey is being a bit too discouraging (though heaven knows the employment picture in academia is bleak enough, and I doubt the theatre business is doing much better), but yes, if you're going into debt as part of this experience, do spend some time checking out what sort of jobs you'll be able to get when you graduate, and what they pay (one good way to do this is to look at what most graduates of your program -- not the few the profs like to boast about, but the majority -- are actually doing a year or two after finishing. That's probably what you'll be doing, too).
I also like Merely's suggestion to take advantage of any counseling resources available to you (which might come through the counseling center, or might come in the form of time management or study skills coaching from a more academically-oriented health center). Good free- or low-cost counseling is often available on university campuses, and you can often take advantage of it without receiving the sort of formal diagnosis that is often necessary to get insurance to pay for counseling (which can be a problem if you need to buy individual health insurance later -- not that that's a reason not to seek help if/when you really need it, but it is a reality worth being aware of, and, to the best of my knowledge, neither the new health care bill nor parity for mental health care has eliminated the problem). Some self-doubt is, indeed, normal, but, as noriver says, you don't want the people who will eventually be writing your recommendations to think of you as needy or high-maintenance. In any case, expanding your support base never hurts (and probably needs to be done deliberately, since, as you've discovered, grad school can be all-consuming).
@All
ReplyDeleteHelena sent in this note tonight:
"I just wanted to thank your readers for their time and advice. It was all very illuminating and helpful. With my paper complete (as much as it can be for now), and submitted, I’m just going to cross my fingers and wait for grades to be released on the 19th.
Again -- many, many thanks."
No caveats. No excuses. Just turn in the paper. It'll be fine.
ReplyDeleteI get occasional papers with the accompanying e-mail explaining this or that about what the paper could be, might be, etc. I don't read them any more. I just read the paper.
I am starting to notice a pattern that today's profs expect way more than they were expected to do in grad school. Plus, most grad students have more work in the assistantship arena than ever before. (e.g. compare today with 20-30 years ago.)
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else noticed anything similar?
Nope, the opposite. In grad school in the 1990s I was expected to write 2-3 article-length, publishable papers per quarter for 5 quarters. But I didn't have to teach, so I expect 15-page papers "with promise" from my students.
ReplyDelete