(1) Illness....boo. But I'm feeling mostly better tonight.
(2) Put in my full hours on my job. Discovered that the data is going to be trickier to analyze than I expected. Realized my experience with GLM is kind of longer ago than I remembered. Remembered that I have an in-house statistician. Grinned.
(3) Discovered the Chronicle of Higher Education forums. I've been reading the archives of the 'Grad Life' forum this week and am really appreciating the insight from these people (grad students, professors, and applicants) on the various realities of the grad student experience.
One big take away for me? God I'm more glad than ever that I do not have any desire whatsoever to enter a humanities/soft social sciences field and instead want to do something as practical as a business PhD. Too bad I don't have the background/desire to become an accounting professor (though my financial accounting professor tried to recruit me into their masters of accounting program after my A+ grade) because man, those people make out like bandits. I'm hoping that a marketing PhD will set me up to make out like a slightly crooked tax collector. I'm hoping that a well-regarded masters degree will set me up for that. I am even more thrilled that my masters program is funded.
Other take aways center on the importance of one's advisor, the need to be strategic about applying to grad school and selecting one's area of concentration to position oneself for the job market, the priority of research over coursework in the PhD process, and stuff like some pointers for useful yet cute-looking backpacks.
Hey, this trivial stuff is important! For instance, I am drooling over this one - a laptop bag. If the computer is free, I can justify a pricey bag for carrying it around, right? And wait, I'm employed now. I could pay for this with one good work day. This is a sort of scary line of thinking...must...not...do...that. But actually, I am sort of looking forward to getting a new bag(s) for grad school. My current backpack is a hand-me-down from Robert that is shredding such that the zipper gets stuck on the plastic unless I zip it very carefully and use two hands.
(4) Had a very long, satisfying discussion over iced tea and under sunny skies with my in-house economist with a concentration in labor economics about the many and varied reasons that a job like K-12 teacher does not and probably cannot pay like other careers/professions.
(Note: I know that it is important to many teachers to consider themselves "professionals" rather than some other kind of worker, but I question the wisdom of setting oneself up to be disappointed that one's chosen career does not have the pay-off that the professions like law, medicine, accounting, etc. have. I mean, yes, teaching does require a credential, but so does cutting hair. I say this not to demean teaching, but merely to point out that a great many smart, industrious people doing important work - that requires more advanced training than teaching does - nevertheless do not make lawyer/doctor/CPA salaries.)
This conversation also made me think of an idea about a pilot program that could be tried for reducing teacher drop-out among new (say, first and second year) teachers. I hope to have the time/energy to blog about this later in the week. It is not a cunning plan that cannot fail, but is an idea that I have not yet encountered and that I think would be acceptable to current teachers (unlike most ideas). Stay tuned...
(5) Oh, and I almost forgot, sent emails/letters to the un/under-funded masters programs. I haven't yet officially accepted Most Favored University's offer, but I am almost positive now that I will in the next couple of days. I really need to do this. If nothing else, I am holding on to funding offers that the next person down the list is really going to need to make her own best decision. (At least one of the programs for which I got the highest funding package does not fund all of their students, so this matters.)
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3 comments:
It's nice to think that when you reject a certain program, it means quite possibly the fulfillment of another person's dream of getting funded there. I mean, if you look at that too closely it doesn't quite make sense (obviously you can't accept all of the offers, and the funding exists whether you exist or not), but it still feels nice.
I think she splits her time enough ways already, without trying to attend three Master's programs in two disciplines across about 400 miles simultaneously.
Tam, actually, the "does the funding exist if I don't take it" thing is complicated. Yes, it probably does exist, but sometimes it will go to someone in a different department rather than the one I was accepted into.
In this case, yeah, it'll just move to the next person in my department's line, but depending on which offer I take, it's a different person who gets to benefit.
And of course, one spur to any kind of charitable act is giving the benefactor a specific identity, rather than thinking of some random other. That's the way it's working in my head right now.
And the main point, probably not stated, is that I am saving that other person the feeling of FREAKING OUT about how they're going to afford the program or giving up entirely and accepting funding at a lesser program. It also helps the professors at the departments involved, since they are trying to ensure correct enrollments not only within the department but across professors.
Robert - But *are* they separate disciplines? My "want to scream" post is inspired in part by how disappointed I am not to be able to port an idea from one into the other. And two of these programs are not so terribly far from each other....but nah, one is enough.
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