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I've come to that point in graduate school at which you dislike everything and everybody and want to do whatever you have to do to escape as quickly as possible.

I know I will finish; I'm just having a hard time staying focused on what needs to be done.

I was reminded of myself just a few years ago, grappling with these same questions and wondering what was waiting for me the next fall.

To choose a career path without first examining all the options--in detail--would be to sell myself short. I intend to be as mindful as possible about the steps I take once I leave graduate school.

Science and engineering offer a unique opportunity to achieve something earthshattering, but that pursuit of perfection and greatness can come at a high price.

Fall semester was rough. Not always because the demands of those five classes got me down--but mostly because my social life SUCKS.

Sometimes an adviser can be a little
too attentive.

If I'm a competitive student, with a very good record and lots of promise, my decision on what grad school to attend will probably depend on pay, faculty, and facilities. In that order.

Taking things personally, whether it be comments on presentation style, experimental design, theoretical derivation, or some other area that we all--hopefully--negotiate and learn, is not an effective way to play the game.

"I'm learning to live gracefully with the frustrations of research: being grateful for when something works and not taking it personally when it doesn't."

Often, an interesting thing happens just before the presentation: knowing you're well prepared, the anxiety melts away and you start to look forward to it.

In the end, it’s up to you to take responsibility for your life and your research.

It's true for many of us, especially those of us who are first-generation graduate students, that what we do at "school" is foreign to a lot of our friends and family.

I decided I wanted to work on something else and, all of a sudden, [my adviser's] interest in me dried up, as did funding for a research assistantship; I've been TA-ing ever since.

Unfortunately many of us get tripped up in the hurdles, because we lack preparation, confidence, test-taking ability, motivation ... not necessarily because we don't have potential as scientists.

I know the end is coming, maybe not this spring, but soon.

There
is a body of research out there that would make me want to get up in the morning, thrilled to be alive. I'm just not working on it.

"We're sorry but we don't believe you are qualified for this position at this time," wrote one consulting firm.

I'm sure there were good things about the whole Ph.D./postdoc experience, but apparently I don't yet have enough distance to know what they are.

"Clarity is a gift." --Micella Phoenix DeWhyse