Dear current/future graduate student,

Please share some of your experience with the graduate study in US (particularly the relationship with your advisor). I have an "experience" that might be useful to know. I would be able to share the information at the end of this month.

In the meanwhile why don't current/past graduate students share theirs. Future graduate students, let us know how you "hope" the relationship would/should be?

Thanks.

BKB

First thing to know is that grad school is 1000 times tougher than undergrad.....
more later....got a test coming up...

Amethyst,
I totally disagree with your dumb statement you made. I even feel like you as a new pathetic alien just entering U.S. You don't know how hard it is to go through the undergraduate life and graduate with a degree. Undergraduate courses are tougher, and career oriented while graduate is project oriented. Moreover, for students like us who has no option other than to work to support our life and school for four years is definitely a uphill task rather than 2 years. I've been here for 4 years and will be graduating within a year. I can't measure nor explain how much I've struggled to come over to this stage. If you've got some relatives living than it won't be hard than it was supposed to be.
On the other hand, graduate program requires 62 credits which can be completed within 2 years or 2 1/2 yrs whereas it takes almost 5 years to get a degree. Supporting you and your college expenses for 5 yrars is not a joke . I wouldn't say undergrad is 1000 times but atleast double tougher than graduate program.

But I don't regret that I came here for undergraduate program because I've learned a lot including pain,sorrow, hatredness and patience. I feel proud myself that I've came to this stage myself and will be the happiest man the day I will wear the graduation cap.

ASTALAVISTA
SIRUS

Good Luck sirus me,

You seem to be a serious student on your way getting to your goal. All the best to you!

hey Sirius, don't get me wrong. I also got my undergrad degree here.I amnot a pathetic new alien here. I also understand the pain ,immense hardwork, dedication and patience associated with 4.5 yrs of bachelor's degree. I amnot oblivious to your situation nor I dont emphathisize with you. I have been there and I used to think it is so tough as an undergrad. But as I am doing my graduate degree now, I feel that bachelor's degree was a piece of cake( just my personal thought). There was less pressue involved. Moreover, being in the science stream takes a lot of your time and a lot of your patience. There is so much pressure in grad school, the pressure to maintain your GPA, the pressure to have publications and all that.
so my above statement was made right after I came out of my evening class. The profs just pile up everything on you and they dont care if you can handle all that pressure or not. They just want it done.
My statement was made in all good intent. When I look back I feel that I didnt do much hardwork in my undergrad( could be one reason why I find grad school so tough...hehhe).

anyways....cheerup!

The only way to maintain a good relationship with your graduate school advisor is to work hard, submit your work on time, see him at least once a week, and make it clear to him that you are willing to learn from him. Be a student, don't try to be his teacher. Don't take his constructive criticims as personal. Ask him to challenge you..engage in serious debates woth him. State whatt you feel politely and firmly without sounding like a prof. Know that you don't know much and your advisor is tehre to help you learn more. You know your advisor likes you when he starts reccomending or lending you books/articles from his personal collection. Read, write and speak.. that's all. You don't have to do anything else besides those.

That's from my experience.. and I didn't attend graduate school in America.

Amethyst: I am sorry that I blamed you because of my ignorance. But I think you might have graduated from an university that has easy course as well as easy teachers. But I am struggling hard with my studies as my teachers suck on quality. Some of the foreign teachers are hard to understand and don't teach shiit but gives tons of homework whereas some teachers are fawking harsh thinking we know everything of universe and teach us more advanced stuff. But that's what the life is. No matter what, you should learn and self study is more required because of those teachers. Actually, I've still 3 homeworks due tommorow and I just finished one.
Happyface: I partied too much within 4 yrs and now it's time to be serious and get things done. Weekend is coming to get drunk anyway. :)

Astalavista

Sirus

Crap, for me 10, 10+2, undergrad, MS all are same.

even PhD or Post PhD.

As per pees above, Grad school may be hard but for me personally, I hardly see anyone failing (even the ones who know jack)...As long as you do the homework on time and attend classes, most peeps end up getting a passing grade, which cannot be lower than a B. However, Its definitely is a lotta work to get straight As though...Passing the course with a B is a god-given right (unless extremely dumb) but to get an A require tonnes of extra hours after the class (in my case). And, I also feel that the professors are more "understanding" since they know that a majority of the grad student work full-time (except for the ones teacing the more advanced Ph.d courses). So far, this has been the Samsara experience.

Undergrad is the nightmare...............if you want to graduate in time........

most grads also agree with that
grad is tougher in the beginning but undergrad is loads of work all the 4year/...

I always felt that the undergraduate courses (at least the split level courses I took) were more demanding in terms of time (not necessarily effort) because generally they had lots and lots of homeworks where you need to read a book and write answers from them. And of course grad students are supposed to do a lot more than the undergrads in the same class.

But in the graduate courses, you will need to put more effort as it is more of literature reviews, projects, reports etc. The good part though is generally less homework and sometimes no exams as all...

yacc cotd...................
and less credit also............................

I think lot of us tend to rush to graduate school without understanding the demands and implications of a graduate school ( at least in my case .... ;)).

Since most (not all) of our undergraduate experience seems to revolve more around work that will help us get through the expenses of our schooling, we seem to postpone our real career goals. Thus, in that scenario, graduate school, particularly the first year can be super-overwhelming, especially when you have snobs in class that know better than the professors :).

The other twisted version of graduate school in my experience was this high hope of having good mature friends, socializing, getting involved in engaging activities and so forth. In my experience, it is the complete opposite, except in those pathetic happy hours. Everyone goes into a shell and lives in that shell, unless you decide to do something about it, it can get very frustrating....

Having said all that, the only way to overcome all those hindrances is one mantra::::

Patience, Patience, Patience, Patience, Patience!!!

batas:

please elaborate. I didn't get you.

I agree with you that undergrad studies is a nightmare especially if you have no scholarships. 4 years of financial crunch must be very very difficult. I applaud ppl who have done that..

when you compare two things, make sure they are pitted against each other under similar circumstances:

pursuing UG degree with scholarships --- not all that challenging (attend the classes, do your assignments regularly, be attentive and you'll get good grades)..don't need to worry about your finances...make sure you get good enough grades and that's pretty much it.

pursuing Graduate degree with assitantships (TA/GA/RA) ---apart from the pressure from classes (which is also prevelant during UG years), you have to prove your worth as a researcher, be able to produce unique work by yourself, publish paprers and all. as oys said, it needs a lot of patience, discipline and hardwork.

2 years Masters degree is faiirly easy if you go for non-thesis (project option). 4/5 years doctoral research for a phd is a totally different story altogether.

my humble opinion.

LooTe
high-school drop-out

Sounds like the guy compelled himself to graduate student before he was mentally prepared for it.

when a man knows what he is doing - it does not matter else these things happen.

Thanks to all you took their time to comment :)

The experience I was talking about was "not-so-pleasant." After first few meetings with my advisor I felt, he is the person who thinks all his graduate students should think and act as he "thinks" they should. I really thought at that point that I would NOT do Ph.D. under that person.

Now after nearly a semester, I realize that it is NEVER in graduate students' interest to show "attitude" to the advisor. Even if one may think he/she is right and the advisor wrong, we need to give lots of benefit of doubt to the advisor. All (or at least most of them) advisors want their gradaute student to do very well. It is in the interest of the advisor that his/her students does well in thei career.

I took a lot of time to realize this. I hope some present/future gradaute students "learn" from my experience.

BKB

PS: Guys please wish me luck, at this point I really want to show my advisor with my work or "anything" that I learned "valuable" lesson from the "bad start" to my graduate study. Thanks again.

bkb,

give us some examples from your experience.