One thing I disliked about the TA training session on Thurs. was that they bombarded us with information that I believe was supposed to make us feel that we were being provided support by the university community in dealing with students, but instead gave the impression that we are going to have to be hyper-vigilant to all the different problems students can have so that we can ensure that they get help. For instance, representatives from the college police, the counseling center, and the student health center all warned us about the different ways students can seem messed up and requested that we contact them when we notice these things.
Another thing I didn't realize was bad until yesterday evening was that they emphasized the approximately 8.2 gazillion things that are part of the TA's responsibility while also acknowledging that our primary tasks as grad students are doing well in research and classwork. This creates a feeling in the student of being overwhelmed (as groups of us discussed at the lunch break), but they did not provide us any information/guidance about how to manage all of these responsibilities. This reminds me of a screwed-up fear appeal (in advertising) in which the listener becomes aroused by the threats outlined in the ad but is not given any recommendations for action that she can take to avoid the negative consequences described.
In my first year, I will be taking 3 classes each semester (9 hours), doing a research class each semester (3 hours), doing a TA (15 hours per week, theoretically), and writing a first-year research paper. My classes for first semester are social psych, cognitive psych, and stats.
So an important issue for dealing with these various grad student responsibilities is knowing the relative importance of the different aspects of the role. To my understanding, the importance can be ranked as:
Research > Classwork >> TAship
But I think the TA training is going to exacerbate problems of people putting too much energy into their TAship at the cost of lesser performance in research and the classroom. It seems to me that we already are likely to put too much into the TAship because failures there are immediate and public, resulting in humiliation and a feeling of inadequacy. If you aren't prepared for a question a student asks or you find yourself fumbling a bit trying to describe something you thought you knew, you're possibly going to feel like you've just announced to the world that you are an idiot. This is a major threat to identity among grad students (especially in highly-ranked programs) who need to feel "smart." With research, it's very easy to be doing way too little without realizing it since failures are private and distant in time; you won't necessarily know how screwed you are until much later (possibly, when applying for PhD programs or academic jobs without competitive presentations and publications or getting to the thesis/dissertation stage and not being able to finish at all or in a reasonable time frame). Classwork falls in the middle because you do get feedback in the form of grades, but grades occur at intervals over the semester.
In PhD programs, I have heard that getting a 4.0 GPA is basically indicative of having done too little research, since for most people, there isn't time to do one's TA/RA, conduct good research, and get straight A's. And since academic hiring committees are going to judge you on the basis of your dissertation/job search paper and recommendations from your advisors, not on your GPA, you've basically wasted your time.
For people in masters programs who intend to apply to PhD programs, it's a different story since graduate GPA will be a criterion of interest and something that adcoms can use to compare students.
So this raised the question for me: What should my goal GPA be for my masters program?
The easy answer is, a 4.0 or the very best I can get. Ceteris paribus, that's true. But all things won't be equal; a 4.0 might come at the expense of doing good research and reading/thinking deeply about the sorts of things that will position me to write an outstanding, intellectually-mature statement of purpose. And once I tell myself I should get an A in every class, I'm really going to basically get an A in every class, even if that doesn't make very much sense in terms of my future, sort of kills me, and burns me on the idea of future grad school. (This is the downside to being goal-driven.) While I need to work hard, I also have to pace myself to a certain extent, since I'm going to be doing this for many more years. I don't see that trying to maintain 70 hour work weeks will be conducive to my mental or physical health or my personal relationships. (For other people, that level of work may be sustainable for longer periods of time, but I know that it would burn me out. Robert suggests this is due in part to the fact that I work at a higher level of intensity than many people do. But it's also because I just get really tired of that kind of lifestyle.)
So then I looked at what masters GPA PhD programs recommend their applicants have. In business PhD, it looks like 3.0 undergrad and 3.5 grad GPA are common requirements. If we can assume linearity, that would make a 3.5 undergrad (a solid GPA for applying to PhD programs) = 3.75 grad.
Next, I looked at the average grad GPA's at various business PhD programs (by google search, not seeking out particular programs). This is what I found:
Southern California: 3.88
Wisconsin: 3.75
South Carolina: 3.8
UT-San Antonio: "over 3.75"
Temple: 3.5
Minnesota: 3.64
Missouri: 3.68
California - Irvine: 3.88
Maryland: 3.8
California - Berkeley: 3.9
Georgia Tech: 3.8
Given that I am in a strong masters program, I think a 3.75 GPA is a reasonable minimum goal. Of course, there is the possibility that a psych degree will not be perceived to be as "rigorous" (i.e. mathematical) as a stat/econ/engineering masters, but it is more rigorous than an MBA program, and a good many of the degrees represented in those GPA's are MBAs. [Note: I don't really know whether GPA and MBA should be made plural with an s or an apostrophe s. I guess I'm hedging my bets here.]
As best as I can determine from the information on my program, I will be taking 9 seminar classes and 4 thesis/research classes for a total of 13 classes (39 hours). With 3 B's, I would get a 3.77 GPA. With 2 B's, I would get a 3.85 GPA. Since I would not want to get a B in stats, a class related to my research interests, or research/thesis course, this allows me 2-3 B's for subject seminars tangential to my research interests. While I hope that getting a B won't be necessary, I am feeling relieved that if a certain course (say, physiological psychology) is a lot of work but isn't going to advance me toward my goals very much, and I have so many more important things going on (including wanting to have something of a personal life), I can settle for the lower grade.
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4 comments:
This seems like a very sensible way of thinking about things.
It's kind of hard to balance. Even though research is more important than classes, you can't do all the research first and then the classwork, obviously. And your TA performance only affects you (it seems to me) if it's so bad that you get fired or generate a ton of complaints, which seems unlikely, but it does affect other people (the students).
At least the Research vs. TA aspect must also be what tenure-track professors experience, where their teaching is somewhat important but at many schools the research is less optional to excel at.
I don't know if you have +/- grades or if it matters, but it might also be important to remind yourself that an A is sufficient and you do not have to get an A+. Once a paper or something is clearly at an A level, you can stop - you don't have to make it your Very Best Work every time. (For some people in some situations, of course, it requires their Very Best Work to hope to get an A, but I don't think that will be true for all of your courses here.)
Are the 4 Thesis/Research Classes actually classes? (That is, is there going to be a taught research methods or some similar curriculum with assignments, or are the credit for research work in progress?) At my PhD program, the research/dissertation hours were, essentially, Pass/Fail, and didn't count in GPA. The possible grades were S(atisfactory), U(nsatisfactory), I(ncomplete), Q(-Drop), and X(-Withdrew). In Fall 2008 there were 9744 S's and 267 U's at ATM, and most of the U's were for classes taken pass/fail - there were 96 in Kine 199, which is the mandatory PE class for undergrads.
Getting a "U" is kind of a kiss of death for a grad student, of course - typically it means either your Director of Grad Studies or your Committee Chair thinks you suck, neither of which is a good thing.
If they are pass/fail, 2 Bs in 9 classes would be the target minimum.
Tam, right, getting myself to stop at "A" level rather than "A+" level can be difficult, but is probably a good strategy for courses taught by a prof I am not relying on for a recommendation. Clearly, having blown coursework out of the water > getting an A when it comes to the rec.
Rvman, I went back and forth with my thoughts on those research/thesis hours myself. I should find out more about it at orientation on Monday. 2 B's is a reasonable/comfortable number to work with, I think. I cannot imagine getting less than the highest grade in the research/thesis courses would be desirable AT ALL.
Right. You want to really blow some people away, but you don't necessarily have to blow everyone away as long as you impress them adequately.
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