57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School: Perverse Professional Lessons for Graduate Students

57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School: Perverse Professional Lessons for Graduate Students

by Kevin D. Haggerty, Aaron Doyle
57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School: Perverse Professional Lessons for Graduate Students

57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School: Perverse Professional Lessons for Graduate Students

by Kevin D. Haggerty, Aaron Doyle

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Overview

Don’t think about why you’re applying. Select a topic for entirely strategic reasons. Choose the coolest supervisor. Write only to deadlines. Expect people to hold your hand. Become “that” student.

When it comes to a masters or PhD program, most graduate students don’t deliberately set out to  fail. Yet, of the nearly 500,000 people who start a graduate program each year, up to half will never complete their degree. Books abound on acing the admissions process, but there is little on what to do once the acceptance letter arrives. Veteran graduate directors Kevin D. Haggerty and Aaron Doyle have set out to demystify the world of advanced education. Taking a wry, frank approach, they explain the common mistakes that can trip up a new graduate student and lay out practical advice about how to avoid the pitfalls. Along the way they relate stories from their decades of mentorship and even share some slip-ups from their own grad experiences.

The litany of foul-ups is organized by theme and covers the grad school experience from beginning to end: selecting the university and program, interacting with advisors and fellow students, balancing personal and scholarly lives, navigating a thesis, and creating a life after academia. Although the tone is engagingly tongue-in-cheek, the lessons are crucial to anyone attending or contemplating grad school. 57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School allows you to learn from others’ mistakes rather than making them yourself.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226281063
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 08/15/2015
Series: Chicago Guides to Academic Life
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 208
File size: 483 KB

About the Author

Kevin D. Haggerty is a Killam Research Laureate and professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Alberta. He is also editor of the Canadian Journal of Sociology. Haggerty’s most recent book is Transparent Lives. Aaron Doyle is associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. His most recent book is Eyes Everywhere.

Read an Excerpt

57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School

Perverse Professional Lessons for Graduate Students


By Kevin D. Haggerty, Aaron Doyle

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2015 The University of Chicago
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-28106-3



CHAPTER 1

Starting Out

Applying to graduate school can be an exciting process. It also involves a big time commitment, especially if you do it the right way. To avoid pitfalls in the early stages of your degree — some of which could haunt you for years to come — you will have a lot of work to do, and many decisions to make, long before you arrive on campus.

Think carefully about why you want to go to graduate school, and what you would like to get out of the experience, both immediately and in the long term. You also need to reflect on what type of career you want and how a graduate education will advance your ultimate goals. Do some research into what graduate school is (and is not), how it works, and the career prospects in your chosen field. If you are reading this book prior to applying, kudos to you, but also be sure to talk to friends, instructors, and supervisors to get a larger appreciation for graduate education and the life of an academic, researcher, or any other occupation you might pursue after your degree. It is good to contact the graduate chairs of the programs you are applying to (that is, the professors who are in charge of those programs) while you are considering applying or in the process of applying. Talk to current graduate students if you can, especially students in the graduate programs that interest you. You can often arrange this with the graduate chairs of those programs. It is good if you can talk to students who have had both great and less-than-great experiences in grad school.

If grad school seems a good fit for you, you will have to apply to be admitted. This is a time-consuming process, so give it the attention it deserves. It is not simply a case of filling out forms and requesting transcripts. Beyond getting you into the program of your choice, the application is your first opportunity to impress (or depress) a group of academics with your intellect and dedication (or lack of same). Think about what kind of first impression you want to make. A strong application can also help you get the best possible funding. You will usually need to write a statement of interest or statement of research plan. This is something you should put a lot of work and thought into. You should get feedback on drafts from professors and current graduate students. As grad chair of our master's and PhD program, I offer to give applicants feedback on drafts.

The admissions committee at the program you are applying to will read your statement carefully. An ideal statement will contain a detailed account of your research plans, including showing some knowledge of the research literature your project would be based in, and, depending on the discipline, some talk about research methods. A bad statement may contain few specifics on proposed research, and instead contain vague generalities, such as that you "love learning." Be aware that in the end writing the statement is just an exercise: you are not required to do the exact project you propose. Committee members want to see whether you have some idea what a graduate research project would look like. They are also looking for a fit between your interests and their program, and a sense that their faculty will be able to support your research.

Find out if there are scholarships you should be applying for to help fund your graduate school efforts. Sometimes the deadlines for these scholarship applications are months before the deadline for graduate school applications.

You will need letters of reference from professors who have worked with you recently. Do not shy away from asking for such letters: it is the job of professors to give them. Do give them plenty of notice! A great screw-up is to ask a professor for a letter of reference on short notice, as they will be more tempted to dash off something brief that will come off as less than enthusiastic. Another error is to ask a professor for a reference when you are not certain what kind of reference they will write you. Be direct and ask, "Based on my previous work with you, are you comfortable writing me a strong reference for graduate school?"

Find out if there are any exams you need to complete as part of the application process, such as the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), which is a standardized test that is an admissions requirement for many American programs, and find out what you might need to do to prepare for these tests. Again, this part of the process may require quite a bit of lead time.

You face some life-altering choices about where to apply, and, if you are accepted, which school to attend. You could face decisions about what degree program you want to pursue, how much and what type of funding you will receive, and who will be your supervisor. Such choices will shape the structure of your higher education, financial status, and long- term career prospects. Some choices may put you on an irrevocable road toward screwing up. Take your time with these choices and talk them over at length with people whose advice you value. Different graduate programs make their admission decisions at different times. Clarify with the schools in question when you must respond to their offers. If one program is awaiting your decision, that school may be willing to give you an extension if you are still awaiting an offer from another program.

Even from the earliest stages, you will have ample opportunities to make poor decisions that will reverberate for years. With some foresight, planning, and honest reflection about your ambitions, however, you have the chance to maximize your opportunities.


1

Do Not Think About Why You Are Applying

Grad school can be a great place to hang out with smart people and pursue fascinating intellectual projects. Further Schooling can also provide a seductively easy answer to the dreaded question, "Now what are you going to do?" that goes hand in hand with the end of your degree.

People go to grad school for both obvious and idiosyncratic reasons. My professional musician friend John, for example, started a master's degree in business simply because he could not think of what else to do after he developed extreme tendonitis that prohibited him from playing guitar. Others may apply simply because a partner is applying to the same school. And while some excellent scholars put little thought into their decision to pursue a higher degree, it is still crazy to enter a period of extended study without seriously contemplating whether it is right for you and what you hope to gain from the experience. Amazingly, some students give their decision to go to grad school less sustained thought than they dedicate to their vacation planning.

The implications of going to grad school differ depending on whether you are seeking a PhD or a master's and, if the latter, what type of master's you are after. The risk with a master's degree is nowhere near as high as with a PhD. Master's programs are typically much briefer and have a much higher completion rate. Master's students have more freedom to use grad school as an opportunity both to explore whether an academic career might be right for them and to acquire a credential while postponing the job search for a year or two. A master's degree always looks good on your résumé and, depending on the field, can expand your employment options considerably without pigeonholing you as an expert in a specialized field.

For PhD students, grad school represents a considerable personal, professional, and financial investment, and the possibility of having what has thus far been a stellar academic career culminate in a costly and soul-sucking personal defeat. If, instead of working on a PhD, you spent those four or more years working full-time at a job, for example, you would likely have saved some money (rather than gone into debt), gained valuable work experience, and moved up the ranks in your organization. So pursuing a PhD has notable career costs. Not only is it a much greater time commitment than a master's, there is a considerably higher risk of dropping out, and it requires you to become an expert in an area, thus putting all your eggs in one small professional basket, perhaps the wrong one. Sometimes a PhD can actually narrow your job options.

Most basically, think about seeking a PhD if you want a career in research or university teaching or affiliated areas, and you think you have a realistic shot at such a position. A PhD is the highest academic credential, and while many PhD graduates go on to other interesting jobs outside the university, it is in the university where the PhD is both required and valued, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. That said, for an academic career, the PhD is the minimal requirement, and you will have to do a lot of other things besides graduating, most notably publishing your research, to make yourself competitive for positions as a tenure-track professor. A major theme of this book is that to succeed in grad school, you need to do a lot more than just complete the official requirements for your degree.

Some of the attractive features of such tenure-track academic jobs are that (at least in broad terms) you are your own boss, responsible for setting your own career path and managing long-term projects that you design in an intellectually stimulating world. You have a lot of freedom as a tenured or tenure-track professor. Teaching a new generation of students can be highly fulfilling. Academic jobs also have the prospect of considerable travel and come with a certain level of prestige associated with being a "doctor" (even if you always have to explain you are not "that kind" of doctor). Academic salaries in developed countries are generally good, although as I note elsewhere, the job market in some disciplines is declining sharply.

A much less desirable place to wind up is in a supposedly temporary position as an adjunct professor or contract instructor. Such positions are occupied by senior PhD students teaching courses in the final years of their degree or people who have already completed their PhDs and are teaching one or more undergraduate courses per term on a contract basis. This can provide valuable and marketable teaching experience, but is best done in small doses. Today's university depends heavily on such instructors, partly because they are a cheap and flexible labor force. In some departments, adjuncts (also called sessional instructors) teach 70 percent or more of all undergrad students. Despite their central importance, these people have poor job security and few benefits and are not well paid, even though efforts to unionize these jobs may improve conditions somewhat. The adjunct or sessional labor force also unfairly features a disproportionate number of female academics. In the short term, graduate students and recent postgrads can gain valuable experience in such positions, but too many end up on the adjunct treadmill for extended periods of time rather than finding much more attractive tenure-track professorial jobs. Following the advice in this book should help PhD students avoid the adjunct/sessional trap.

In short, then, pursuing a PhD can potentially be a great way to screw up your life. While there may be sound reasons for getting a PhD, it also might not be right for you. Most conspicuously, do not pursue a PhD because you do not know what else to do. This can be a catastrophic blunder. A PhD is not a way to postpone a career decision; it is a career decision, and one best made by thoroughly weighing the pros and cons before you apply for admission.

Do not seek a PhD to please other people. Your parents' hopes, for example, should figure minimally in your plans to become an academic. I recently had a long talk with a PhD student who had decided that he was not going to finish his thesis and that he was better suited to the new job he had found in government than he was to the academic life. He estimated that he would have dropped out of the PhD two or three years earlier if not for the fear of disappointing his parents.

Likewise, do not pursue a PhD because your current professors praise you. Such encouragement is nice and worth bearing in mind. The job market, however, has changed dramatically since many professors completed their PhDs, and they may have little idea about the rigors and risks of embarking on an academic career path today. Consequently, you need to contemplate a wider set of factors beyond the fact someone you respect said you should go to grad school. Do not seek a PhD just because you can, or because you think it makes you sound smart, or because it gives you a good short-term, impressive-sounding answer when people ask what you are up to.

While you might be attracted to the professional freedom enjoyed by academics, the flip side is that you need to be a self-starter. Being brilliant is obviously a great scholarly asset, but academics are rarely geniuses, and I certainly know a number of brilliant people who have foundered in grad school; successful academics are certainly smart, but they are also focused and self-disciplined. If you lack discipline and determination, you might be heading toward problems in grad school.

Also think twice about an academic career if you need regular praise. Most grad students were strong undergrads who were used to receiving positive feedback regularly. Now the feedback is more mixed and comes less often. Sometimes the rewards can be huge — winning a lucrative fellowship or publishing in a respected journal. However, you will need to stay motivated in an environment where much of the feedback on your research projects will be received years into the future. On a day-to-day basis, you also have to regularly deal with rejection in the form of unsuccessful grant applications and declined journal submissions. You will get feedback from your students in teaching evaluations, which can be extremely gratifying, but they also can sometimes be an exasperating audience. If you need steady affirmation you could find yourself in a tough situation.

You will also need to be able to work in a competitive environment. I am constantly baffled by graduate students who say they resent being evaluated or being compared to one another. If you hate being judged, you are in the wrong institution. In the contemporary university system, almost everything (universities, departments, research grants, journals, conferences, academic presses, courses you teach ...) is evaluated and, increasingly, ranked, often using assorted metrics. How you and the units you are affiliated with perform on these rankings will have real consequences for your professional life. If such evaluation and competitiveness is upsetting to you, you probably should rethink your decision to pursue an academic job.

Being a well-rounded person is also a strong asset. People with a wide range of personalities have enjoyable academic careers, but it helps if you can draw upon diverse skill sets and personality traits. Doing research, for example, involves an extended, and sometimes lonely, focus on a single task. Teaching, in contrast, requires greater people skills and the ability to be the center of attention, something that might not mesh with the solitude of the archive or concentrated routine of the lab. Administration has its own interpersonal and leadership skill sets that (a subset of) academics are expected to master, often with minimal training. It is rare to find a single person who has the personality profile to excel in all of these areas, but you will be expected to competently perform fairly disparate tasks.

Avoid grad school if you have personality traits hindering you from performing your main academic tasks. Nobody would recommend that you become a lifeguard if you fear the water, and the same applies to anxieties that stand in the way of academic duties. I know one student, for example, who absolutely detested writing, to the point that she saw it as a form of torture. Another student in the fifth year of his PhD observed that he hated being alone with his books and computer. Yet this is how graduate students and professors spend much of their time, and, honestly, it was a bit late in the day to be figuring that out! Another colleague discovered that he is terrified of teaching and suffered anxiety attacks in the classroom. He is now looking for work in another profession. All of these people are smart, serious individuals, but, given their personal characteristics, they probably should never have started a PhD. Not that you can always tell in advance, of course: I am a relatively shy person, and when I was a grad student, I was not sure that I would be able to handle being center stage as a university teacher. But, when I tried it, I found that I loved it.

These are just a few of the reasons why it might not be in your best interests to pursue a PhD. Most fundamentally, when considering this prospect, remember that a PhD is training for a career in research or teaching or both, often (but not always) within the university. If you have the right mix of career ambitions and personality traits, an academic career can be an outstanding choice. Early on you should learn as much as possible about what an academic career involves so that you can decide whether it will meet your goals and mesh with your personality. You should also research what nonacademic careers your degree may lead to. Find out what paths graduates of the program you are interested in have followed.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from 57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School by Kevin D. Haggerty, Aaron Doyle. Copyright © 2015 The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

An Introduction to Screwing Up
Who are I?
Gendered Pronouns
Thesis vs. Dissertation
 
THE SCREW UPS
Starting Out
1. Do Not Think about Why You Are Applying
2. Ignore the Market
3. Stay at the Same University
4. Follow the Money Blindly
5. Do an Unfunded PhD
6. Do an Interdisciplinary PhD
7. Believe Advertised Completion Times
8. Ignore the Information the University Provides You
9. Expect the Money to Take Care of Itself
 
Supervisors
10. Go it Alone and Stay Quiet
11. Choose the Coolest Supervisor
12. Have Co-Supervisors
13. Do Not Clarify Your Supervisor’s (or Your Own) Expectations
14. Avoid Your Supervisor and Committee
15. Stay in a Bad Relationship
16. Expect People to Hold Your Hand
 
Managing Your Program
17. Concentrate Only on Your Thesis
18. Expect to Write the Perfect Comprehensive Exam
19. Select a Topic Entirely for Strategic Reasons
20. Do Not Teach, or Teach a Ton of Courses
21. Do Not Seek Teaching Instruction
22. Move Away from the University Before Finishing Your Degree
23. Postpone Those Tedious Approval Processes
24. Organize Everything Only in Your Head
25. Do Not Attend Conferences, or Attend Droves of Conferences
 
Your Work and Social Life
26. Concentrate Solely on school
27. Expect Friends and Family to Understand
28. Socialize Only With Your Cliques
29. Get a Job!
 
Writing
30. Write Only your PhD Thesis
31. Postpone Publishing
32. Cover Everything
33. Do Not Position Yourself
34. Write Only to Deadlines
35. Abuse Your Audience
 
Your Attitude and Actions
36. Expect to be Judged Only on Your Work
37. Have a Thin Skin
38. Be Inconsiderate
39. Become “That” Student
40. Never Compromise
41. Gossip
42. Say Whatever Pops Into Your Head on Social Media
 
Delicate Maters
43. Assume That the University is More Inclusive Than Other Institutions
44. Rush into a Legal Battle
45. Get Romantically Involved with Faculty
46. Cheat and Plagiarize
 
Am I Done Yet? On Finishing
47. Skip Job Talks
48. Expect to Land a Job in a Specific University
49. Expect People to Hire You to Teach Your Thesis
50. Turn Down Opportunities to Participate in Job Searches
51. Neglect Other People’s Theses
52. Get an Unknown External Examiner
53. Do Not Understand the Endgame
54. Be Blasé about Your Defense
55. Do Not Plan for Your Job Interview
56. Persevere at All Costs
57. Consider a Non-Academic Career a Form of Failure
 
Final Thoughts
Appendix: A Sketch of Grad School
The Thesis
The Program
Your Department
The People
Acknowledgements
Index
 
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