Current Events > What's grad school like?

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I start in two weeks and I'm nervous about it. I graduated undergrad 7 years ago and I did pretty well towards the end with a 3.7gpa. I'm worried I don't have my shit together enough. What's it like?

It's cool.

Depends on too many things to provide any one uniform answer. The program, degree, location, and student body will all play a large role in determining your experience, as will your own passion for the subject of study. My own experience with graduate school (in my case Ph.D. work) has been enjoyable, but I'm focusing on subfields that I love very deeply and even if I wasn't studying them for a degree I'd be reading about them all the time anyway.

Yeah it really depends. I remember taking a tour at Georgia Tech as an undergrad and a few of the grad students looked like they wanted to blow their brains out. So when I was looking at other schools, I asked current students about the culture (were other students supportive or was it competitive and stuff like that), what they did in their free time, what are the professors like, and so on. Some advisors are real sticklers where the lead of one lab in my department expected students to be there from 9-5, no excuses other than sickness or emergencies. Others (like mine) didn't care as long as you got work done.

One of my good friends I met in grad school and still talk to this day (can't hang out with him much since he's a family man now in Texas) started a career between undergrad so when he joined the program, he was 9 years older than me.

Also I probably became an alcoholic because of grad school and likely wouldn't have found the motivation for the final push to defend my dissertation if it weren't for my very supportive labmates.

Could also check out University of California San Diego. One of the prominent robotics professors at Georgia Tech, Dr. Christensen, jumped ship to there during their hiring frenzy, which also included my advisor. Then of course Carnegie Mellon.

I mention those two schools specifically because weirdly enough we have a strong connection to them where I work (government research lab where my group focuses on robotics and AI). Our lab in particular is super serious about those two research areas and throw money at anything remotely related to it, so if you wanted some job security after finishing school hint hint wink wink

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Well what type of program are you in grad school for? Its incredibly different based on the program.

Spin4Fun359663 posted...

Well what type of program are you in grad school for? Its incredibly different based on the program.

School counseling for elementary

Master_Kazuya posted...

School counseling for elementary

If it's for education then honestly I support an all online one.

Cocytus posted...

If it's for education then honestly I support an all online one.

I know I wouldn't care about online classes. I've always been someone who likes going to physical class and I sit in the front to absorb everything and feel more comfortable asking questions that way. I can't take online classes seriously, not that they aren't a form of education but I'm not nearly as engaged. And I get more distracted