Grad School
For those of you who didn't know, I am back in Grad school. I am pursuing a Master's degree in History. Since not everyone knows exactly how grad school works I will try to explain.
Grad school is hell.
I'm taking a class right now dedicated entirely to communicating in every way possible, including branding it on your forehead so you can find it easily, that grad school is hell.
Now, some of you may be thinking that I'm exaggerating, may be, just a little. Let me tell you about the program I'm in and the classes I'm taking.
The overall program demands 30 credit hours and a thesis paper in order to get my master's degree. Sure it's only 30 credit hours and if this were undergrad school I would be done in two semesters and wondering what the big deal was. Grad school works a little different.
I am currently enrolled in 7 credit hours. This is considered full time for a Grad student. My first class is called Intro to Grad Studies and is the class I mentioned earlier. It is a one credit hour class. We meet once a week for an hour. We have four books to read, three or four light writing projects and a few other misc projects. Light class, actually kind of enjoyable.
Second class is called Directed Readings and is not technically a class. I find a professor who has some expertise in the subject I'm interested in and start to beg. Reason being is that over the course of this semester I will be reading 9 books on my chosen subject (world war 1) and talking about what I've read with the professor I've chosen in their free time. After I have read the 9 books for this professor I then write a comprehensive book review that should be around 10 pages in length.
Third class is a Research Seminar. A class designed to teach you how to research a paper. From thesis statement development to swindling the grad department out of research grants. For this class I have only four books and a half dozens articles to read. But I also have a 30 page research paper to write that involves all sorts of deadlines and reading about six more books, spending several hours in archives and historical libraries and such.
This is a light semester. I found the easiest classes I could find in the hopes to ease myself into the new method of work that they're teaching me. There is another class that demands ten books, weekly lectures, weekly posts on a class website, an essay and a book review of about 6 pages per book read. I will take this one later.
In my intro to grad school class we're reading a book about the horrors of grad school and how to deal with them. In one chapter the author refers to a psychological study saying that Grad school is about three times more stressful than having a spouse die. Food for thought.
Grad school is hell.
I'm taking a class right now dedicated entirely to communicating in every way possible, including branding it on your forehead so you can find it easily, that grad school is hell.
Now, some of you may be thinking that I'm exaggerating, may be, just a little. Let me tell you about the program I'm in and the classes I'm taking.
The overall program demands 30 credit hours and a thesis paper in order to get my master's degree. Sure it's only 30 credit hours and if this were undergrad school I would be done in two semesters and wondering what the big deal was. Grad school works a little different.
I am currently enrolled in 7 credit hours. This is considered full time for a Grad student. My first class is called Intro to Grad Studies and is the class I mentioned earlier. It is a one credit hour class. We meet once a week for an hour. We have four books to read, three or four light writing projects and a few other misc projects. Light class, actually kind of enjoyable.
Second class is called Directed Readings and is not technically a class. I find a professor who has some expertise in the subject I'm interested in and start to beg. Reason being is that over the course of this semester I will be reading 9 books on my chosen subject (world war 1) and talking about what I've read with the professor I've chosen in their free time. After I have read the 9 books for this professor I then write a comprehensive book review that should be around 10 pages in length.
Third class is a Research Seminar. A class designed to teach you how to research a paper. From thesis statement development to swindling the grad department out of research grants. For this class I have only four books and a half dozens articles to read. But I also have a 30 page research paper to write that involves all sorts of deadlines and reading about six more books, spending several hours in archives and historical libraries and such.
This is a light semester. I found the easiest classes I could find in the hopes to ease myself into the new method of work that they're teaching me. There is another class that demands ten books, weekly lectures, weekly posts on a class website, an essay and a book review of about 6 pages per book read. I will take this one later.
In my intro to grad school class we're reading a book about the horrors of grad school and how to deal with them. In one chapter the author refers to a psychological study saying that Grad school is about three times more stressful than having a spouse die. Food for thought.
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