… the academic “eighth” system.
That’s right, I just completed a week long take home final that has drained about every sparkle of energy, and every ounce of pride, from me. Apparently, in graduate school, professors delight in testing on concepts that they didn’t cover in lecture, and making it count for more than 50% of our grade… I mean, it is a logical strategy if their aims are not to teach, but weed. I need to stop whining, I’m learning a butt load and seem to be doing quite well considering that I’ve never taken an undergraduate biology or biochemistry course. All of these descriptive/qualitative explanations (to explain other, “more solid”, qualitative explanations) makes me want to bang my head against the table. Please for the sake of humanity, love of God, (or scorn of atheists) capture some of these findings with an equation. I’m a limited physicist without the verbal intelligence to retain one hundred item long grocery lists to explain the mechanism involved in a single signal transduction pathway.
The classes that interest me are offered during the second year. Believe me, the subject matter that I am learning now had better apply, because right now I can think of a hundred better uses of my time. The tables will be turned when classes turn toward the more mathematical end of the analytical spectrum. Oh no wait, those classes aren’t required so I guess I’ll never get a chance to shine in front of my bio-savvy peers. Being in the spot-light doesn’t jive with my personal philosophy, but it would do wonders for my self-confindence right now, when every lecture that I attend slams me with unfamiliar subject matter for which I must decode the alien terminology in which it was presented. These required classes contain the material that, I am repeatedly told, “everybody should know.” Not only does that statement repeatedly piss me off, but it makes me repeatedly feel like the department’s biggest dumbass.
I think to myself (and believe me I think to myself a lot since I’ve started school since I now live in isolation 90% of the time) “If all this should already be known why did you admit my ignorant ass?” I certainly made it explicitly clear in my application and during my interview that my bio background is poor at best. [Regarding that last clause that I wrote “is poor at best”, refer to my above self-evaluation of my verbal intelligence.] Could you guys have at least told me about the class pre-requisites in advance so that I could at least have known what I was getting myself into?
Anyway, now that I’ve granted myself this 20 minutes, (no shit… 45 minutes) of reprieve, I need to get started studying for another exam that will take place Monday morning. If my present course load turns out to be the norm for the next 2 years, you guys best start making arrangements for my future appointment in the psychiatric ward… as a patient that is.
-Cheers!!!
5 replies on “The Only Thing More Stressful than the Academic Quarter System is…”
WOW, my stomach clenches in sympathy pain. Whine away. Most people never go through anything as painful as higher, higher education. It is brutal and unrelenting and you deserve all and any good that comes out of it. It is just gonna suck for a while to come. Cringe. I don’t even know what a transduction pathway is, see the strides you’ve made already?
Hooray for jolie! I agree – man, think of how nice it will be when you’re not in school! You can appreciate it, man!
I can only imagine how much it all sucks – remember when I cried about calculus? I can’t deal with numbers at all… I can’t even imagine trying to sit in on a graduate level math class. I think you should be extremely proud of yourself for making it as far as you have and learning as much as you have.
Some day soon I’ll tell you the tale of my qualifying exams. It’ll make you laugh, especially in light of your recent experiences.
Biology was totally forign to my chemistry-trained mind for the first bit, but you’ll get used to it. My advice is to be kind to yourself and let your mind slowly adapt to its new surroundings.
I thought that signal transduction class was about…like…signals travelling through a wire. Not cellular signalling. If that’s it, and you need a friend who knows that shit and can relate to your situation…you know my #, email, etc. Use me for I would be used that way. Tis my calling.
I know of other people who’d been railroaded into grad school programs that were a bad fit, but I think you might be the only one who was willing to sack up and get back on the horse that bit you (or however that goes).
Also, I think you’re one of only a few people I know who took a few years off of school, and not only stayed pumped up about their academic interests in the meantime, but used that time to find an interesting program and get on board. It seems to me that most people use grad school as a “get out of jail free card,” (Ann K’s phrase) to sidestep, say, a bad job market, or else they (like me) have vague dreams and lip service about maybe going back someday.
To me, either of those traits would be really admirable, but I think the combination is more than doubly so.
If people don’t dig on your humor, then I’ll tell you what — I know who’s problem it isn’t. I can’t relate to the environment that you’re in, but it sounds kind of like simply not getting stuck in their gossip quicksand is enough to make you stand out among your peers. Keep standing tall
Jeez, with wonderful supportive friends like all of you could anyone question why I miss Portland SO MUCH.
As far as school is going, yeah it thoroughly sucks right now but I see definite signs of it getting better in the not to distant future. Not dwelling on disappointments and staying optimistic and motivated about the big picture is key for getting through this I have decided.