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Oct. 5th, 2010 04:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vicarzI 'brag' about my Master's degree, but a lot of people forget - I dropped out of graduate school. I was never supposed to have a pissant MA degree. I was going for my Doctorate - a real one, not a JD. I was miserable, lonely, tired, and just...quit. I thought I could do it, but didn't want to and wasn't sure what I'd do with the degree when I was done. I was scared of the job market and couldn't find a job. I didn't have a good job either - when I quit, dropped out with a MA, I just worked in a print shop.
I wasn't a good writer, but worse - I had no interest in any research area. If I could have gotten a PhD with coursework I may well have stuck it out, but I was supposed to develop a research interest and do a dissertation on it. I had no interest in research, no interest in any area of I/O Psyc, and sure as hell had no interest in running an experiment. I understand now a lot of people either teamed up with professors and followed their interests, becoming mildly interested themselves - and others were at work, and I've seen people "cheat" with their work related activities for which they were rewarded at work and at school for work they didn't or barely did. I didn't game the system back then. But...I also didn't care much. I finished a sub goal.
I wasn't a good writer, but worse - I had no interest in any research area. If I could have gotten a PhD with coursework I may well have stuck it out, but I was supposed to develop a research interest and do a dissertation on it. I had no interest in research, no interest in any area of I/O Psyc, and sure as hell had no interest in running an experiment. I understand now a lot of people either teamed up with professors and followed their interests, becoming mildly interested themselves - and others were at work, and I've seen people "cheat" with their work related activities for which they were rewarded at work and at school for work they didn't or barely did. I didn't game the system back then. But...I also didn't care much. I finished a sub goal.
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Date: 2010-10-05 02:16 pm (UTC)I take your points about the "cheats," though I tell my students that if they can make a class project work for their outside life, they will learn more than just doing something for a grade, after which they will promptly forget the entire experience. That said, you worked with the sciences while all of my tracks have been within the liberal arts. Liberal Arts...no wonder the "New Taliban" (to quote Robt Kennedy, Jr) of the heartland are all for getting rid of foreign language programs, cultural studies, and assorted other "identity-biased" lines of inquiry (see recent law in Arizona. Fuck Arizona.)
I did get my MA first, rather than beginning a PhD program that "awards" (as though you didn't fucking earn it) an MA if you do NOT complete the dissertation.
Again, I say there is nothing wrong with gaming the system. But yes, cheating AND gaming...well...I only slept with my professors after I was no longer their student.