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[bread_pirate_naan]

First, let me clarify that while I can handle the critique, I was really looking for some light-hearted comraderie, not so much a point-by-point on my approach.

Sorry(truly), you lost me at freakout.  There are too many people with real problems in this community.  

Give me a freaking break.  

I gave her a break.  You can step off or keep it up.  That's up to you.

While I appreciate your efforts in demonstrating the realities of the market and life in graduate school, there is no need to be a drama queen about it.

 
No, you don't.  If you did, you would realize she lost me (and the rest of any cohort she joins) at the drama queen freakout.

If someone has unrealistic goals, you can gently tell them they have unrealistic goals - but telling them they think they are hot sh*t over and over again just feels like brow beating.

This was the response after saying that once.

Half of me thinks I'm hot sh!t

 Then I said, "good luck with that."  What's your beef?  Are you approaching the market the same way this season?

Good luck to everyone applying for admission this year.

Hey, folks who applied to 10 programs and have trouble on the horizon, don't freak out.  It's a bad habit. Dramatizing your freely willed risks and choices may make you unpopular.  Sure there are other routes to unpopularity, but taking a negligible risk and making a spectacle of it is one just about everyone will agree with.  But you got that, didn't you? 

You will do well.

[stanwyck]

No, you don't.  If you did, you would realize she lost me (and the rest of any cohort she joins) at the drama queen freakout.

Please know that BPN doesn't speak for everyone here.  I imagine the members of your future cohort will be able to speak for themselves, too.

What you're going through is normal.  You are among many applicants who will obsessively check e-mail, phone messages, and post office boxes, even though it is weeks and months too early to get a response from admissions committees.  When you do get an e-mail, you will be too anxious to open it.  When you do get accepted, after a few moments of elation, you will then start freaking out about starting school in the fall.  It's all good.  You'll be fine.

[bread_pirate_naan]

No, you don't.  If you did, you would realize she lost me (and the rest of any cohort she joins) at the drama queen freakout.

Please know that BPN doesn't speak for everyone here. 

No, I don't.  Freaking out is fine with a lot of people.  But I can certainly speak for two cohorts and the reputation of women in each them with those attitudes.   Since you have been away from your program a while, it might not be such a common part of your experience as it is mine.

Remarkably, Tam5k got the point and re-framed her thread in terms of support and camaraderie. The more people who want to return to that element of our exchange after we set it aside, the later this thread will take that turn.

Dramatizing one's 'hardship', or 'freaking out' over shared experiences can look very different to your colleagues.  A parent in grad school has a very different perspective than the childfree grad who dramatizes, or demonstrably freaks out over, the time pressures of all the hard work they have to do.  The student who yammers on about all the things they volunteered for making their lives hard is in a very different place than the person in an assitantship with teaching responsiblities.  No person working and going to school is obligated to join in the freakouts of the student on fellowship who is running out their clock. 

The applicant who is secure, has nothing but pride riding on their success, and is confident enough to apply narrowly should probably not step to the front the freakout line.  Yet I have met this character further on.  More than once.

A sense of scale never hurts.  Very few people will point this out F-2-F or among colleagues.  That is one of the benefits of the fora.

[stanwyck]

No, you don't.  If you did, you would realize she lost me (and the rest of any cohort she joins) at the drama queen freakout.

Please know that BPN doesn't speak for everyone here. 

No, I don't.  Freaking out is fine with a lot of people.  But I can certainly speak for two cohorts and the reputation of women in each them with those attitudes.   Since you have been away from your program a while, it might not be such a common part of your experience as it is mine.

Please.  I was gone for a year, not an eternity.

The only drama on this thread was not introduced by the OP, nor was it introduced by me.  Anyway, along with a few other on this thread, I affirm your right to freak out Tam_5k.  You're involved in a very opaque, anxiety-producing process, and the freak-out at this stage is normal. I repeat, it's all good, and you'll be fine.

[bread_pirate_naan]

No, you don't.  If you did, you would realize she lost me (and the rest of any cohort she joins) at the drama queen freakout.

Please know that BPN doesn't speak for everyone here. 

No, I don't.  Freaking out is fine with a lot of people.  But I can certainly speak for two cohorts and the reputation of women in each them with those attitudes.   Since you have been away from your program a while, it might not be such a common part of your experience as it is mine.

Please.  I was gone for a year, not an eternity.

a while =/= eternity

People end up far out of the loop by simply choosing not to participate in the life of the department.  People in online and low residency programs have different relations to their cohort.  Yes, in my experience, spending a year abroad will affect your knowledge of goings on along the grapevine and interpersonally.  IMO, that's a pretty obvious difference between students in coursework, fieldwork, and ABDs.

No, you don't have to agree.  Experience will allow everyone their own views.

[madhatter]

I commend the OP on doing her best to make a reasonable, rational choice, weighing the risks and benefits as best she can.

I appreciate her desire to create a thread where she and like-minded folks could vent and commiserate.

Unfortunately, this has not turned into that thread.

[history_grrrl]

You can step off or keep it up. 

Wow.

[tinyzombie]

I'm just curious, BPN (and thinking a lot about word choice as I procrastinate from editing edit my second of two final papers: if the OP had used a "weaker" word than "freak out" - venting, maybe, or something similar - would it have changed your initial reaction? Or was it more about what the OP had written?

I am grateful that I decided to wait a year before tackling the PhD app. monster, but I'll be happy to see a thread like this come next December!

[bread_pirate_naan]

I'm just curious, BPN (and thinking a lot about word choice as I procrastinate from editing edit my second of two final papers: if the OP had used a "weaker" word than "freak out" - venting, maybe, or something similar - would it have changed your initial reaction? Or was it more about what the OP had written?

It was a whole constellation of circumstances.  I can say it is probably more trying and more stressful to be waiting on  10 rejections/acceptances than 2.  Imagine what it will be like when you need to apply to all the jobs.  Yet there is no freakout thread pinned to the top of the board. 

With regard to word choice, no, I am never going to affirm certain types of communal behavior in any guise.  What's an attractive synonym for freakout?  I don't think there are any words for related behaviors that are inviting. 

I do not post to the venting thread or read it.  I do click in on rare occasions when the last post is by someone I like to read. Venting is a thread that includes support, conversation and ongoing stories about some very substantial life challenges, but it is founded on spewing as a 'solution'/outlet, not about seeking solutions or exploring why the spewing is going on.  I do not aspire to that mode of coping and prefer to cultivate other outlets, but I do feel for forumites venting about the more troubling and trying experiences of the human condition (in the minority). It's just not my scene.  I have posted to the inhaling thread.

I am grateful that I decided to wait a year before tackling the PhD app. monster, but I'll be happy to see a thread like this come next December!

Yes, I think my thesis and apps were better for the gap year, too.  Fortunately, I was working, so the pressure go straight through was not there.   An aside: That sort of 'happiness' is not in harmony with the goals that inspired you to 'subscribe' to the on not taking things personally thread.

Last season there was an application check-in thread of sorts.  That is a form of community that seeds and feeds better outcomes.

Something to keep in mind, there is no 'freakout' thread when you give a talk or when you interview.  There is no freakout thread for your orals or your defense.  There's just you and the skills you developed along the way.  The coping or non-coping you do in these grad processes are the foundation of patterns you take with you for your whole career; unless you change them.* Reading the job seeking board for a few seasons will show you a whole bunch of approaches to the market, a number of which are dysfunctional.  Most of them have clearly mastered freaking out and fueling their anxiety.

*Newsflash: Drinking is not a coping skill.

[tinyzombie]

Can you be my life coach? :)

I really appreciate the thoughtful post, BPN.

[colette_capricious]

And, if you don't get in this year, you can apply again next year with your MA in hand and a stronger writing sample.

That's what I'm going to do. I'd like to apply now as I'm an old fart but I won't have a good writing sample until after my thesis is done (assuming it doesn't suck).  Oh and I also have kids and no partner. The kids can stay with their dad if I go away from school but that's not perfect either is it?

Not sure what the future looks like. I don't have a good back up gig. (Yay being a stay at home mom for 12 years) I'm thinking i need some life coaching, therapy, crystal ball, something. 

Oops, sorry about the thread hijack.  Part of me is always freaking out about the future. Most of me just coasts along, seeing what happens, some of me plans.

[colette_capricious]

(Another oops, don't want to be taken to task for 'freaking out' nor do I want to play Queen for a Day to justify if the pressure I feel on me and if my situation is sufficiently dire to warrant the term.)

But I do wonder about the future. I always like reading these threads where other people have similar constraints and getting to see the answers. Which are always the same.  Don't limit yourself.

My self-imposed limitations for grad school are the things i want to explore further. The main issue for me is a lack of a trailing spouse/partner and three children who I have uprooted for this year. They hate it. I can't do it to them and to me again. It has really made grad school even harder than i was prepared for.  To parent the way I want to interferes with my schooling choices and makes me feel like I'm not doing either well. But if I limit myself for grad school and (imagine) I get into the program w/in commuting distance from the family, then that buys me some time. The oldest two will be out of or almost out of high school and the youngest will be 14, minimum.  But I'll be 49. Is there a point? I'll be 49 no matter what. Who knows? Now I do need a drink or something.

Especially days like today when the sick nine year old won't stay on the couch because it isn't even our couch, our flat is being painted so we're at a friends. A kid-free friend without Nickelodeaon, Disney channel or a region free DVD player. Everytime the kid talks to me, i lose the thread of what I wanted to write. A thread that is tenuous at the best of times.

[bread_pirate_naan]

Can you be my life coach? :)

Wouldn't I have to win at life first? 

I will be happy to care and continue to invest in a warm, yet vaguely defined collegial relationship, if that works for you.

I really appreciate the thoughtful post, BPN.

You're welcome.  If it suits you, feel free to swing by or hang out on the zodiac thread. 


Hi Colette, I wish you the best in your plans.  In a recession there is plenty of insecurity to go around, like the swine flu.

[tinyzombie]

Can you be my life coach? :)

Wouldn't I have to win at life first? 

I will be happy to care and continue to invest in a warm, yet vaguely defined collegial relationship, if that works for you.

It does! I appreciate that, too.

/hijack

[hipgeek]

Tam_5k,

I only applied to 2 schools and I only got into one, with funding, and I'm happy there.  I'm not certain if it's "top tier" but it's certainly not bottom tier either.

I do have geographical restrictions and I don't think I'm hot sh*t either.  I was of the mind frame that if I got in, great.  If not, that was great too.

I also realize that I may not get a TT job when I graduate, but I'm okay with that (I say this now, before even beginning my dissertation in earnest, when I have the distance to be so philosophical and cavalier about it all). 

I actually think the best way to deal with the stress of grad school apps is to forget about them once you've turned everything in.

You have other aspects of your life to focus on and cherish (family, children...) so let the app. process play out as it will now. (I'm assuming you're done sending stuff in now--if not, ugh. I hated that expensive, bureaucratic process but focusing on the little tasks of mailing, editing, etc. distracted me from unhelpful "am I good enough?  will I get in?" concerns)

Good luck