The "Education" Thread

Grad school was SO much better than undergrad. The quality of discussion is day-and-night better. I had to take one class in grad school that was split grad/undergrad. It was me and two other grad students...the rest were undergrads, and it was just painful.

The only thing I don't like about grad school is how there are rarely any classes during the day. I hate night classes so much.

I don't want to do grad school, I literally hate college. It's making me want to re-enlist again.

Why not go back as an officer?
 
I would go back in as an officer because the pay difference is insane, but i'd also feel like a piece of shit and hate myself day by day for being part of it
 
(probably the opposite sex dynamic in history?).

I wouldn't say it's the opposite, but the range is more like 50/50.

I'm sure it also has a lot to do with who is in the program with you. Our classes were pretty small (fewer than 10 students), and you tend to see the same people in different classes. It could be really fun or miserable if you don't like any of them

For better or for worse, classroom sizes in upper-level history and philosophy undergrad courses at Morgan never have more than 10 students in them (the one exception to this was the conspiracy theories course, but that dwindled down to 10 by the end of the semester). Of course, it's for the worse because it shows that the liberal arts program there is half dead. We'll be graduating about 8 history majors this year, which is way more than usual. Often classes only have 4-5 students in them. As a professor of mine recently joked, "At Morgan, you can experience the student/faculty ratios in upper level courses that can only be dreamed of at the nation's premier research institutions" (this while Morgan likes to say it is a world-class research institution). Say it enough and maybe it'll become true.
 
Yeah at ECU the upper level philosophy classes were 10 or less, and it's a decent sized school. I think a lot of the liberal and fine arts programs are dying though, except maybe music. Everyone is going allied health(which does include Psych)/medical or business.
 
Well, tomorrow I retake the MA Comprehensive Exam. If I fail it again I will not be able to get my Masters Degree and am basically expelled from the program (despite having good grades and an excessive amount of coursework completed). However. I am far more confident and prepared this time around. Last year, I underestimated the exam and it came to bite me in the ass. If I fail it again, so be it. There is nothing that I can do about it. The academic world is not suited for me with it's bureaucratic nonsense, prissy professors, and autistic students. I have done the very best that I can and despite receiving the diploma or not, I am proud of how far I have come.
 
I finished reading my sources for my senior thesis earlier today and have begun transposing my quotes, summaries, and such into a word document. I'm about halfway through the music section and it's already 5 pages long. Jesus, this thing's going to be 50 pages by the time I finish. Organizing this mess into a comprehensive outline (essentially a skeleton paper) will be a blast. Like a good history major, I'm putting together way more sources than I need and much of it won't make the final cut. Then comes writing paper itself. I'm aiming to have this fucker finished by the 28th--it should be a fun three weeks!
 
I finished reading my sources for my senior thesis earlier today and have begun transposing my quotes, summaries, and such into a word document. I'm about halfway through the music section and it's already 5 pages long. Jesus, this thing's going to be 50 pages by the time I finish. Organizing this mess into a comprehensive outline (essentially a skeleton paper) will be a blast. Like a good history major, I'm putting together way more sources than I need and much of it won't make the final cut. Then comes writing paper itself. I'm aiming to have this fucker finished by the 28th--it should be a fun three weeks!

My senior thesis was 52 pages includes cover/title sheet, ref list, appendices.
 
My senior thesis was 52 pages includes cover/title sheet, ref list, appendices.

That's the standard. Morgan only just started doing theses for history majors. The page requirement is 25 pages. As one of my professors put it, "We had to make the requirement something that students might actually meet. We can't have zero history majors graduating."

I managed to get into another MA program that offered funding and a TAship, one just outside of Baltimore. Now I have the debate: stay in the area I know and work with a small program, or move to snow-hell-land to attend a more prestigious school with a larger program. The choice is obvious, of course. I have only Brandeis to hear back from. Considering I still haven't heard from them, I'm guessing I'm probably going to be wait-listed.
 
That's the standard. Morgan only just started doing theses for history majors. The page requirement is 25 pages. As one of my professors put it, "We had to make the requirement something that students might actually meet. We can't have zero history majors graduating."

I managed to get into another MA program that offered funding and a TAship, one just outside of Baltimore. Now I have the debate: stay in the area I know and work with a small program, or move to snow-hell-land to attend a more prestigious school with a larger program. The choice is obvious, of course. I have only Brandeis to hear back from. Considering I still haven't heard from them, I'm guessing I'm probably going to be wait-listed.

Yeah I would think you would have heard back by now otherwise. I'd take the best thing you can get that won't saddle you with debt.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/o...ck&ad-keywords=AUDDEVREMARK&kwp_0=112272&_r=0

Couple of fun quotes:

"while the total number of full-time faculty members in the C.S.U. system grew from 11,614 to 12,019 between 1975 and 2008, the total number of administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183"

"If over the past three decades car prices had gone up as fast as tuition, the average new car would cost more than $80,000."

"Salaries of full-time faculty members are, on average, barely higher than they were in 1970. Moreover, while 45 years ago 78 percent of college and university professors were full time, today half of postsecondary faculty members are lower-paid part-time employees, meaning that the average salaries of the people who do the teaching in American higher education are actually quite a bit lower than they were in 1970."
 
Yep. At my alma mater, there are more administrators than full time faculty by almost a 2:1 average, and the average salary was over 100k. I was furious when I read that.
 
What do these administrators do, anyways?

Sit in offices and reply to emails, to my knowledge. The dean at one of my schools has like 5 secretaries (which are paid more than me) and I've never even actually spoken to the real dean. The secretaries do everything for him. Bureaucratic mess.

"Our bureaucracy is expanding to accomodate our expanding bureaucracy"
 
Good job, I'm finishing up my experiments and manuscript to submit for publication hopefully in a few weeks. Luckily our lab got a nice grant so I can dedicate more time on research instead of teaching, so the summer coming to an end won't delay me. I did love teaching tho.

Welp, two rejections and a decent number of experiments later and it has finally been accepted. Woot.

Great timing because we've just had a couple of really fucking neat discoveries to kickstart my next project.