Monday, November 21, 2005

Grad Studies- the slow pace

Don't get me wrong. I find my thesis research topic very interesting. Building this hardware-in-the-loop platform will be frustrating, rewarding, good experience, and perhaps, fun. These problems have had me think up solutions while on the road and at home, hence I figure my mind is sufficiently interested.

However, I seem to be finding everything else in the world more interesting right now: books, TV, movies, games (like Civilization) . It's almost hearkens back to the days of summers off when I was a kid: no school, no work ("schools out for the summer"). When I am at the lab (school), I'm easily distracted by pretty much anything.

I started to feel guilty about this, like I should be getting more work done.

Then I thought in retrospect, this is nonsense! I've just finished 4 years of undergrad; most people's brains are tired by then. My brain is resisting further learning for the time being. Other grad students in my year and a year ahead of me expressed similar feelings.

My brain needed and deserved a few months off (even though I tried to deny it).

Now to get the brain ready for more schooling, schooling that I'm not forced to do, that will be the challenge.

5 Comments:

At 7:52 p.m., Blogger James said...

I know the feeling man. I'm amazed at how little I think I've accomplished in the last 2 and a half months. I can't imagine doing that in your case though, trying to finish in a year. But I guess that makes sense. You engineers deal with circuits and electrical currents, we earth science people deal with hill slopes and tectonic plates that move only a few centimetres a year.

 
At 8:13 p.m., Blogger Medieval said...

Well, I plan on finishing 1 yr 4 months now. :) That's my goal.

One of the smartest guys I know, who I believe who just got his PHD from Stanford and is teaching there, did his Master's in 1 yr 2 months.

I'm atleast 1 month behind now, but I can still make it.

Gotta remain optimistic and try to finish as quickly as possible. :)

 
At 10:00 a.m., Blogger James said...

I guess it's really the same timeframe when you think about it. I'm sure if I'm done in a year and a half that they won't keep me around just to do GA work.

As long as I don't end up like the guy I'm sort of taking over for, he might end up here one semester past two years. Eek.

 
At 10:25 a.m., Blogger Medieval said...

Well, once you've done your thesis, they can't really "keep" you there.

I guess GA might be good cash while you are looking for something, though.

 
At 11:58 a.m., Blogger James said...

I suppose. The thing with building software is that there's always more features you can add, so there will always be something for me to do right up until those last few months.

 

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