Graduate School - How many of us are in it?

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Just got back from my thesis committee meeting. The powers that be won't let me graduate in December! I'll have to wait until May.

That'll mean 7 long years here when it's all said and done. I'm so pissed.

patience, patience, puppy.
i remember that the last months are the most difficult ones to go through just because of the ecxitement but eventually it ends. and it is good to know you'll graduate. 7 years is pretty common for life sciences from what i heard.

you put your time to a good use by looking closely into your career options. it is easier to do it when you already have a salary (you do have a stipend right?) than when you are just unemployed.

search the web, science magazine site has a career webpage tailored to life/med graduates and it is good to research there.

More revisions needed?

Thesis committees can be a PITA, but the work is worth it at the end (sort of).

This is what I'm really afraid of! My program's Powers That Be suggest I finish my thesis by the time I do my internship in January of 2011, and I don't want to have to postpone anything. Blah!

Then again, I'm just writing a thesis and not a dissertation. The way things are going, I'll be 37 before I can even think about a PhD.

I know how ironic the recent sourness seems, compared to the earlier post I made about congratulating everyone in grad school...

AnotherOne: For the record, I've had a stipend all 6 years so far, and will continue to do so for this upcoming Fall semester. The funding situation is uncertain for Spring 2010, so in the fall the best I can think of is to try to cram everything I have left to do, finish writing, and submit the dissertation to the Graduate School before the winter holidays. That way, I'll only have the actual defense remaining in the spring, and technically I don't have to stay on campus that semester just to do that. I could have a real job!

GreatCeleryStalk and TheCaityCat: I don't have any regrets about grad school, but if there's one thing I really detest about grad school, it's that what's considered "sufficient to graduate" is extremely subjective and can vary wildly from student to student within a department, and depending on who's on your dissertation committee. I also don't like that there seem to be the "official" requirements for graduation, and then there are the "unofficial" requirements that the committee expects you to do and they kinda hint at them, but don't say explicitly that they're requirements. For example, in my department there is no official requirement of a publication, but everybody "knows" that the amount of work you have to do is generally the amount needed for a publication. That much is not all that surprising, but then when I finally hear from my committee that graduating in the spring would allow time for my manuscript to complete the revision process and finally get published, I just feel resentful. Had I known that it was a serious, concrete expectation from the committee earlier, instead of at the end of year six, then I would've had more time to push harder for the paper to get out the door. No, the problem wasn't that more written revisions were needed, it was that more experiments altogether were desired. "Ooh, this new finding looks interesting, you have to follow up on that before you can start writing", etc., which just sucks because as every grad student knows, any answers you get from research leads to more questions... so when does it all end, and how does one know when the end is reached?

By the way, in this university there is a hard limit of 7 years maximum for getting a Ph.D.. The Graduate School won't let me register as a student (and hence no stipend, no health services, nothing) after seven, so I'm stressing out from the time crunch. I also really want to get out of here as all of my family are on the West Coast, and I'm in CT and therefore have been very far from them for a long time.

Stinkypuppy:

Is there a faculty member or committee member in your department who you can trust enough to talk to about your thesis and maybe ask for some frank requirements/feedback?

Hmm I'm not sure, I'll have to figure that one out...

You are not the only one who is in grad school or who is looking to be an SLP. I am currently delaying the writing of my personal statement for grad school (in Speech-Language Pathology) by being on this site. I am taking a grad course in it now, though. The good news is, you will be surrounded by people who should have the ability to understand you, and those that don't chose the wrong profession! You will also be confronted with yourself every day, both personally and professionally. Personally, I am terrified and feeling quite inadequate, but I do know that it is possible to do this (I have seen the living proof, and the living proof [prof] is pretty amazing).
Have you noticed that most of the people in your program seem like clones of one another? Even moreso than most people seem like clones of one another? I think there might be a mold people go through before they become part of a Speech-Language Pathology program. It leaves you feeling like the ugly duckling from that childrens' story (I know this because I read it and screamed "OMG, I'm a swan!! !). Don't be afraid to be who you are. Break the mold. If we need to be represented anywhere, it's in this field. And just think, you don't even need a lot of empathy for it-- you'll have enough sympathy to make it work!
Oh, and just out of curiousity, how did your describe yourself on your application... and where do you go (if you don't mind me asking)? You can PM me if you want to.

Laney