I am not sure how I imagined grad school to be. Certainly not this way. My professors and the grad students at UCLA weren't kidding about it being a "job". My schedule has been 8:30 - 4:30 during the week. Fridays seminars don't end until 5 and Tuesdays I usually stay till almost 6:30 for review sessions. Every time I get home I feel so defeated. My brain is fried and I am exhausted both physically and mentally. And all my homework are somehow still unfinished no matter how much time I've spent one them. I now understand why Dr. Park told us to call him a Dr. You have to earn your phd, they don't hand them out like high school diplomas!
After realizing grad school is no joke, I've been able to change my mindset and try my best to adjust to what my TA Gene would call "hell".
On top of the overwhelming amount of work, the differences between how ncstate was portrayed when I visited and how it actually is made me felt tricked. I felt that a lot of the information that I was given was not necessary true. Either because they were trying too hard I sell the school they sugar-coated a lot of the facts or I am just too sheltered.
I am still bummed that my main form of transportation will be driving. They praised the bus system when I visited, but in fact it sometimes would take me up to an hour to bus home. Not to mention about the numerous emails I have receive from the campus police regarding assaults and robberies. I thought Raleigh is suppose to be safe.
They also claimed to want their students to succeed and are not one of those department where they would purposely fail people at qualifying exams due to lack of funding. Maybe they are, maybe it just so happened that only one of the now second year students passed the exam. Maybe it just so happened that I also hear from an upper classmate that its unfortunate that majority of the people he came in to the program with are no longer here. If there are abundant amount of industrial internship opportunities available to students then why are most students on Ta-ship?
As a stats major, I should have known better than to fall for extreme cases.
The one thing they did not lie about though, is that parties do start at 7... Thankfully they don't always end at 11. Not that I have time for parties anyway...
After realizing grad school is no joke, I've been able to change my mindset and try my best to adjust to what my TA Gene would call "hell".
On top of the overwhelming amount of work, the differences between how ncstate was portrayed when I visited and how it actually is made me felt tricked. I felt that a lot of the information that I was given was not necessary true. Either because they were trying too hard I sell the school they sugar-coated a lot of the facts or I am just too sheltered.
I am still bummed that my main form of transportation will be driving. They praised the bus system when I visited, but in fact it sometimes would take me up to an hour to bus home. Not to mention about the numerous emails I have receive from the campus police regarding assaults and robberies. I thought Raleigh is suppose to be safe.
They also claimed to want their students to succeed and are not one of those department where they would purposely fail people at qualifying exams due to lack of funding. Maybe they are, maybe it just so happened that only one of the now second year students passed the exam. Maybe it just so happened that I also hear from an upper classmate that its unfortunate that majority of the people he came in to the program with are no longer here. If there are abundant amount of industrial internship opportunities available to students then why are most students on Ta-ship?
As a stats major, I should have known better than to fall for extreme cases.
The one thing they did not lie about though, is that parties do start at 7... Thankfully they don't always end at 11. Not that I have time for parties anyway...
