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Any PH.D. or masters degree members here?


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Think of what you want to achieve there. Treat it as a job and don't slack off.

 

I've juggled my wat through both my bachelor and master, not really giving it my all. Finished with nice grades, but not very fulfilling. I feel embarassed about that now tbh.

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Think of what you want to achieve there. Treat it as a job and don't slack off.

 

I've juggled my wat through both my bachelor and master, not really giving it my all. Finished with nice grades, but not very fulfilling. I feel embarassed about that now tbh.

yea that's how I feel about my bachelors. didn't really give it my all, didn't take time to make any friends like most college kids.

 

thanks for the feed back. its helpful

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I haven't got a post graduate degree, only 2 (I completed a double degree) normal degrees which I finished ~18months ago, but if you are planning on studying something you find interesting that will definitely make it easier for you to focus and get through.

I will say though that a massive part of doing well is time management - use your time effectively and you will have more time to do things that aren't related to your studies. Study / work / social life balance is really important. If you're enjoying life in general then you'll probably find it easier to enjoy studying.

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I haven't got a post graduate degree, only 2 (I completed a double degree) normal degrees which I finished ~18months ago, but if you are planning on studying something you find interesting that will definitely make it easier for you to focus and get through.

I will say though that a massive part of doing well is time management - use your time effectively and you will have more time to do things that aren't related to your studies. Study / work / social life balance is really important. If you're enjoying life in general then you'll probably find it easier to enjoy studying.

thank you. I think being the person in the situation makes it really hard to see what your saying on my own. I will do my best to keep it in mind, because you're right, its really important to remember the other portions of my life as well.

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I didn’t bother going for the PhD title thing, and just went to work after graduating with a bachelors. After working for a couple of years got board with the type of work I was getting, so I went and got a second independent specialty diploma. It compliments my first one very well. But then aging I live in eastern Europe, were we don’t usually bother with letters of recommendation and such.

Just remember that you can always go back to collage any time you want.

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"Thinking of going back to school but I've always hated it." Depending on the program, sounds like you'd fit in with graduate studies. :)

I have a Master's in Cognitive Psychology, moved to another university for the Ph.D. (but ultimately left before finishing). Since this post, more details have actually come out surrounding the situation with my former advisor (more unethical behaviour was revealed to me when I saw another professor at a conference), and he even had the nerve to ask for my help on a publication for his "Golden Child". (To this day, I'm not sure what answer he was expecting outside of a flurry of profanity.)

 

My advice would be to consider your goals and which degree (Master's or Ph.D.) will help you achieve those goals much more easily. There are many cases where only having a Master's makes the job hunt much easier than the Doctorate would.

Which program(s) are you looking at going into?

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Unfortunately, grad school often means moving away, especially if there's a particular program which you have in mind. My Bachelors was technically in Artificial Intelligence, so my options were to move to British Columbia for grad school, or switch to Cognitive Psychology. Also, even in a city with 3 major universities, it's uncommon for someone to stay in Toronto for their graduate studies. I attended a university 2 hours west of Toronto for my Master's, then another 2 hours east of Toronto for my time in Ph.D.

 

My two pieces of general advice for any Psych grad student considering their life beyond grad school:

  1. Master's helps with the job hunt, but the Doctorate is only useful if you plan on becoming a professor. I had a handful of interviews and 2 offers within 6 months of the job hunt, while friends with their their Ph.D. haven't gotten a job offer in over a year.
  2. If you intend on searching for a job after grad studies (and not pursuing academia), then try to find a program with internship opportunities. Also, try to develop other skills in the meanwhile (such as programming). These skills will help greatly your marketability in the job hunt. The friends who have been in the job search for over a year lack marketable skills, and can only lead with the statement "I have a Ph.D."

Some of this advice probably applies to fields outside of Psych, but I can only attest to this being the current state of the market in relation to Psych jobs.

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I did university after 8 years of army. It was before germany switched to the bachelor/master system. So it was still diploma/doctor.

While very few did their doctor in maths (I was one of the 7%) - around 90% of all chemicians did it and around 75% of economics.

 

The economics did it mainly to have a doctor in front of their name to impress people at meeting. The chemicians because germany had Chemisch Technische Assistenten which did 13 years of school and 3 years training at job. So the technical working part of a chemician was covered by these people already and they needed a doctor to join the research trees of companies.

 

As a math you are considered crazy and clever anyhow and you don't need a doctor title to impress people. My doctor title reads dr.phil. That was because maths belonged to the philosophy department of the university for centuries even we were fully included into nature sciences with their dr.nat.

 

The main reason I did my doctor was because my diploma work opened some new questions and my prof asked me if I would write a doctor work to cover them and offered a job as assistant teacher.

 

Today it is even more complicated in germany. The old diploma was equivalent to a master. But the bachelor in chemics is considered even less useful than a trained assistant in technical chemics.

 

So if you need a master or not, depends on country and what you are studying I think. Looking back I wouldn't have missed all the experiences the studies for the doctor included: discussions, being up to the research front, ...

 

The doctor opened and widened my mind, even the theme (approximation of complex functions) had very little in common with my current work (explosive welding) ;)

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