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[captain_obvious]

My second semester of grad school is just starting, and I feel very angsty and depressed.  I'm taking three (unavoidable) research seminars this semester, each of which requires an article-length piece of original research.  Two of them require weekly reading (a book per week, plus a couple articles, plus several critical reviews) on top of the research.  And I've got a fourth course in addition to all that.

Right now, it just doesn't feel the least bit doable.  Three brand new, from scratch research projects?? Forty-five books plus whatever I need for my projects' lit reviews?  I'm looking at it, and it just seems bleak.

My sense from talking to friends in other programs and looking at the websites of some other departments is that this isn't the norm in my field.  Some days I'm optimistic that I can get stuff done and excited about what I study.  Others (like today), it just looks impossible and, after reading the endless threads on the evils of this history job market, it's hard to see the point.... except that I love what I study, and I don't know any other way to get to study it other than being an academic.

blargh.  This is mostly just a sad little vent, but any thoughts to put things in perspective would be welcome.

[minorleaguer]

This might sound a little too obvious (no pun intended, captain_obvious), but have you tried talking to some of the other people in your program that are a bit further along?  Obviously, different programs are structured differently.  My third semester was the big killer.  After talking to some of the other graduate students I knew it was humanly possible. 

Maybe you have an advisor that is encouraging you to take on too much? 

[captain_obvious]

Hey, minor leaguer!  Yeah, talking to other students is definitely a good idea.  I don't have a sense of what folks who are further along in the program think, but I do know that my cohort is pretty clearly divided along the lines of people who, for various scheduling reasons, are stuck taking the course load I described and people who are able to take only three courses total (and only 1 or 2 research seminars).

I wish I'd had a better understanding of how these things worked when I was applying to schools.  The program I've ended up at has really unusually extreme coursework and research expectations.  I feel like I'm running so fast just to barely keep up that I can't really sink my teeth into anything at all.  I get the sense, though, that this is typical in my program, since the (decidedly sub-par, by my standards) work I turned in last semester earned me 3 As and 1 A-.  I'd rather have less work and do it better than produce a greater volume of mediocre drivel.

[treehugger1]

Yeah. I had a semester just like this -- the workload seemed completely unrealistic.

Some things that might help:

1) Prioritize. Figure out which classes are the most useful/interesting for you. Figure out which profs you might want to impress (the one's you'll be inviting onto your committee). Then, put more energy into those classes and relatively less into the other ones. So what if you get an A- or two?
2) Whenever you feel completely overwhelmed, just step back and re-frame. Instead of fretting, you can think: "Wow. What a great opportunity to learn to read fast and efficiently!" Or "I bet I can write a good 4-page book review in an hour and a half."
3) Try to be aware of your work rhythms -- the times of days that are the most productive for various kinds of activity. (For some reason, I always find very late night and early morning best for working on theory and framing issues and the hours after I got up best for proofreading/detail work.)
4) Try to focus completely on whatever it is you happen to be doing at the moment. Cook up whatever rosy scenario your brain needs in order to do this.

Good luck.

[minorleaguer]

This sounds frustrating.  You have a couple of things to weigh here.  As you point out, you'd like to do high quality work in your seminars.  I'm of the mid that this is especially true in research seminars where papers can be more easily turned into conference presentations or journal submissions.  I think it is important to do your best work there.  

I have taken a standard course load all the way through.  That said, as soon I was offered a teaching post with more responsibility for more money, I took it.  

I would think about this right now, however, before you get too deep into the semester; if you had to drop something (a course, service responsibility, going to the gym) what would go first?  What SHOULD go first?  Why?  If you think about this now, you're more likely to make a calculated decision when the stress is on later in the term.

[captain_obvious]

Thanks for both of your responses.

Prioritizing will definitely be important.  In fact, sitting down to map some of this stuff out is on my agenda for tomorrow!  Treehugger, I like your suggestion to figure out what particular kinds of work I do best at different times of day--I'll have to start tracking that as well as blocking out the available times for research and class work/reading each week.

I had hoped to make my fourth course this semester an independent study, but that seems to have fallen through.  So now I'm thinking about how to choose the smallest possible publishable unit of research for the seminar I'm stuck with but don't care about that much and also how to put the one historiography I get to write this term towards my lit review for the research.


<sigh> Thanks for letting me vent here.  Sometimes it helps to get that out of my system before I try to sit down and be pragmatic, ya know?

[grasshopper]

Being overwhelmed sucks. No two ways about that.

How much control do you have over when you do what you do?

I wonder if you wouldn't be able to reduce your courseload? Technically, you would end up spending more time to do the required courses, but you could also use some of the time you're not spending on a hundred kajillion courses to do some preliminary research for your diss, so it wouldn't be like you were really wasting time.

[carebearstare]

Can you find a way to meld the research projects? That is, embark on a multi-faceted research initiative about Basket Weaving, where for one class you look at the history of basket weaving, one you work on a survey of basket weavers to determine if white or brown wicker works better, and the third you theorize major basket weaving texts? That way, the literature review element would be combined on all the articles, and you'd save yourself a lot of time. Since different programs have different feelings about this sort of thing, you should run it past your profs just to make sure you're not crossing ethical lines. But really, people do this kind of thing all the time.

Second--decide ASAP what your research projects are going to be. That way, every bit of reading you do over the course of the term can done with one eye on the end product. Those foundational readings and methods you read for class can form a backdrop for the articles you must produce.

And definitely talk to other students about what they do in these circumstances. Commiseration is 9/10ths of grad school.

[contemporary_]

My second semester of grad school is just starting, and I feel very angsty and depressed.

blargh.  This is mostly just a sad little vent, but any thoughts to put things in perspective would be welcome.

I was wondering how you were doing.  I'm sorry to hear you are so stressed.  Is this your first grad degree, or do you have an MA already?

[tt_wannabe]

Forty-five books?!?

Sounds like you need LarryC's reading advice. Or maybe a speed reading course. (Not kidding; have considered this for myself.)

[captain_obvious]

Oh, dude, I would so consider a speed reading course! I am a very slow reader, despite having printed out LarryC's advice and posting it over my desk.  45 books is not unusual--3 courses x 14-15 books per course = roughly 45 books.  It's the four course/60 book load I had last term that's truly insane!

Contemp, this is my first grad degree--no MA here.  It's not the level of the work that's kicking my butt, just the volume.  I know the first year of grad school is supposed to be a killer, but the sense I get from talking to people in other programs and reading other programs' websites is that this is pretty unusual.  Ah well!

Anyway, I'm feeling more optimistic this week.  I've got one research project already underway and another for which I still need to choose a topic.  It looks like I'll be able to direct the work for all four courses towards these two projects, which should help some.

[contemporary_]

the sense I get from talking to people in other programs and reading other programs' websites is that this is pretty unusual.  Ah well!

Right now I am spoiled being rehabilitated groomed in a civilized manner, but I did do a brutal MA.  It was a "hazing ritual" in the classic sense, at a school known for making or breaking people.  The second term of our program had a 10am-10:30pm schedule of seminars with one 30 minute break, which gave just enough time to drive from one facility to the other.  I made a noise (several, actually) and things changed, but I payed for it, dearly, until the bitter very end. (got a touch of the PTSD now) 

Today, I am a happy camper.  Yay.  My deepest sympathies, I couldn't do that for a whole PhD program.  Keep your chin up.

[sugaree]

There's reading books, and then there's reading books. Sometimes, one doesn't need to read every single word of precious expert's 700 page tome in order to understand his/her major argument that should be clearly stated in the introduction; that is, if said expert is any good and s/he probably isn't if they can't edit themselves down from 700 pages to the truly important less-than-300 they need (but I digress). The point is that if you have the time to read everything cover to cover, all the better for you, but reading for comprehension (and skimming the minute details) is a helpful and necessary timesaver. The level of work the OP describes seems a bit high if all courses require article-length original research projects, but one book per class per week sounds about right for a humanities graduate program. I second an earlier recommendation to "meld" your research projects and overlap the literature review for them.

[alwaysanon]

Like sugaree, it strikes me that this is actually a primer for a key academic skill that you'll need throughout your career: the ability to glean the necessary and relevant information from a book without reading every last word of it.

I sympathize, though. That's a pretty hellish workload even if you do skim some.

[captain_obvious]

Oh, skimming will definitely be happening!  And I agree that 1 book per week per seminar is very common in humanities programs (and I am in the humanities).  What I think i not common is the following:

Seminar #1: 1 book per week, 2 articles per week, 2 book reviews, 30 page research paper

Seminar #2: 1-2 books per week, 1-3 articles per week, 6 short (2-3 page) response papers, design and lead 2 in-class workshops, 30 page research paper or lit review

Seminar #3: 1 book per week, assorted articles, 50 page research paper

Seminar #4: Introduction to a new research methodology--hopefully this won't kick my butt too much (doesn't look like it will)