fear, loathing, and quantum mechanics
Oct. 24th, 2004 02:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nibotGrad school has turned into a moderately miserable experience. We're definitely trenched in at the office. Surviving the bombardment of homework assignments now means a typical two all-nighters a week. I bought some food for the office so that I won't starve. There's a futon in Kris's office. We took turns napping through the night (I slept the most: 6:00 to 9:00. Kris (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
vyncentvega) didn't sleep at all.) We left school finally at noon -- noon the next day. I'm reminded of CS 152, that nightmare of a course in which we spent 24 or more hours straight in the basement of Cory Hall, on multiple occassions — and after that course I know I can never do that again. The homework here is not interesting, it is not fun, it is not particularly advanced, and yet I am still doing poorly on it. Doing poorly completing it, I should say, for want of willpower and study habits if not actual time. There is a poster down on the first floor. It says in small print, "forget greatness." Then, in much larger print, it says "DELUSIONS OF ADEQUACY." Although that is not actually a complete sentence, that phrase assaults us daily. I desperately need to get myself set up with a research job instead of TAing for next semester, so I'll have some other venue for proving my self worth (to myself at least) than mediocre grades on the assignments I just couldn't bring myself to write up completely. We have midterms next week and I'm half-afraid of flunking out. Nonetheless I still elect to take weekend roadtrips to foreign countries and saturday daytrips to the countryside, which ought to factor into your judgement, for better or worse.
On the other hand, my fellow students are good company. That I am thankful for.
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Oz
Date: 2004-10-24 09:36 am (UTC)That's why PhD's in Australia and New Zealand are so cool. Although you are still required to take grad classes the first year and a half, as long as you do well on the homework assignments, you don't have to take the midterms (if there are any) or the final. The idea I think (which is rather cool) is exposure without totally diverting your attention from what is most important (i.e. your thesis).
Oh yes, and PhD's are only 3 years long down under as well...