Flashes of Panic

The hardest question I’m asked about graduate school comes in a few forms. “What degree are you going for?” is one; another is, “How long until you finish?”

The most truthful answer I have is along the lines of, “Ask me again in eighteen months.”

My school is more honest than most about the ambitions of its graduate students. In order to start the Ph.D. program, we’re required to finish the M.S. first. I know this doesn’t sound any different from most Ph.D. programs; the difference is that there isn’t much distinction made between those of us in the “Ph.D. track” and those who aren’t. Aside from some suggestions about whether we do a “project” or a “thesis” in the final semesters of the M.S., the biggest difference is in the paperwork required to advance into the Ph.D. program.

I like this, because my own ideas about where to stop change roughly once a day. (There are plenty of days when I don’t think about it at all; I change my mind more often on the other days in order to keep the average up.)

What’s pretty obvious, though, is what they want me to do. Most of the people I talk to in the department are either in the Ph.D. program already (students,) or went through it already (faculty.) Of course I should go the whole way, they say. I haven’t been so rude as to ask why I should, because I don’t think they would have a good answer; for the most part, I think they’re more in favor of the idea of me as a student than thinking about me on the job market with a Ph.D.

The open question is research. Will I like it? Will I be good at it? If the answer is “yes,” then I’m in for five years and the full boat, because that’s what the Ph.D. is all about: proving I can do research, so someone will pay me to do it. If the answer is “no,” I stop with the M.S. and find someone who will pay me to develop and/or run nifty systems.

And until I’ve done most of the coursework for the M.S., I won’t be seeing much research, let alone figuring out whether I like it enough to make it a career. So… ask me again in eighteen months or so.

Now Playing: It’s Good To Be King from Wildflowers by Tom Petty