tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2895296997013219917.post1674780733302150770..comments2013-04-21T11:40:07.895-07:00Comments on Just Dumb Enough... to go to grad school: Excuses, Schmexcusesreappeninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09170358404992842651noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2895296997013219917.post-27908354215383816342011-06-18T10:22:49.813-07:002011-06-18T10:22:49.813-07:00You bring up a good point of how stymieing it is t...You bring up a good point of how stymieing it is to face rejection after years of self-esteem bolstering from childhood onward. <br /><br />You do face challenges from K-Undergrad and they're usually surmountable if your are a reasonably bright person. If not, you just take your C, chalk it up to a professor's subjective exam grading, and take an easy education class to get your GPA up.<br /><br />You finally get to a point where from all your past experiences of jumping through hoops and getting certificates with gold seals that you're feeling pretty good. You come to the Grad school table saying, "Yeah, I'm good enough for this. I know me. I took an extra year out of school just so I could know me better. You should probably know me too by now from all this crap that I had to send you: all these tests about the proper usage of the word 'reticent', all these documents I dug up about how I did in my scuba class, my statement explaining in writing how my month-long study trip to ____vania changed my life." <br /><br />To hear them say, "No, it looks like you aren't good enough. We've seen good, and we've seen what you sent us. You seem okay, maybe, but we've seen better. I think you would do better serving coffee for a few years while you work on your word choice on your statement describing your month-long trip to ____vania."<br /><br />It's confounding, especially if you are smart enough to have gotten more gold stars in your past than red-ink-sad-faces.Jesse Brighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09070321347311517897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2895296997013219917.post-87284663360074989092011-06-17T19:01:33.215-07:002011-06-17T19:01:33.215-07:00good one--maybe backpacking through europe too? a...good one--maybe backpacking through europe too? actually, that would be pretty sweet...reappeninghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09170358404992842651noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2895296997013219917.post-74954051014827078422011-06-14T21:50:45.503-07:002011-06-14T21:50:45.503-07:00You forgot, "I felt I needed to take a year a...You forgot, "I felt I needed to take a year and find myself. I really need to think about who I am. I mean is grad school worth it?"Lindsayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07347112318171378765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2895296997013219917.post-67837445770287522802011-06-14T13:48:06.553-07:002011-06-14T13:48:06.553-07:00Every one of the "excuses" you list is p...Every one of the "excuses" you list is perfectly valid (with the exceptions of the ones based on canines and quasiperiodic climate phenomena), and you should give yourself permission to use them. It really is more competitive out there than it used to be. And the economy really is terrible. As a wise man (with whom I shared an apartment during grad school) once said, "Unemployment is the mother of advanced degrees." <br /><br />You specifically declined my offer of critique, so I am totally not going to point out that you misspelled "naught."<br /><br />Oops. Sorry. My bad.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10963174685932164003noreply@blogger.com