(no subject)

[vicarz]

I '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.

Comments

[drmathochist.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Enh, you're better off. I constantly wish I hadn't wasted ten years of my lilfe on my Ph.D.

[grymnir.livejournal.com]

Quit the whining.
Seriously.

I am || close to quitting my PhD program as well...but I won't get a second MA out of it if I do. All of the time and energy will have been wasted if I stop now.

Now, my ^slap^ to you is that a PhD requires coursework, collaboration, a broad passive research (literature review) and active research. The active component for me is braiding works, techniques, and sources that are far outside my areas of experience and "expertise" with those that other scholars have already plucked the nuts off of. The active is the difficult part to do solo. We really need guidance for the active work, from determining a valid line of inquiry to developing it into a basis to integrate the unexpected as we find the "unknown unknowns" during our research, and finally, in that last merciless editorial massacre and purge necessary to present even the dissertation draft.
It isn't "cheating" to use your work related activities, but a real-life application. For some people they find they grow to hate their work or themselves when they try this; others find they can't work in that position or industry any longer--there are hazards. You might call this *gaming* the system, but it is only integration.

What it seems you lacked more was a good adviser and a little direction. Sometimes they don't get to know us well enough to help, and all they do is sign the forms of a multitude of advisees. It can be hard to tell going in and few of us begin a PhD program with a solid goal in mind AND retain it through the seminars, adversarial committees, and especially the final stretch when funds are gone and we've hit the point that the blow-up dolls begin to look like a viable date.

You went back and got the JD. Time and writing and one that you have *gamed* more successfully. So, the PhD, it isn't a measure of you nor aptitude, but perhaps it is of attitude...you didn't see the purpose and did not waste your time floundering through research. Good for you.

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

Same here—I only have a master's because I dropped out of grad school. I don't regret it one bit, though. I decided I was done with all the arguing.