Band-Aids for Gushing Wound of Irresponsibility

November 13, 2013 1:36 PM

I'm screwing up and need mind hacks to get through the rest of the semester and finals.

I'm in grad* school, it's my first semester, and I'm screwing it up as best I know how.

When the semester started, I was working three jobs because hey, the economy here is much better than it was in the place I moved from and WOW MONEY! But I couldn't get myself to do my reading and started missing assignments. About a month into the semester a professor had a Come to Jesus meeting with me about it, and said I was going to fail out unless I tried harder.

So I tried harder! I quit my jobs, tried to catch up on reading, all that. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked. I have put everything but school on the back burner, emailing my friends to say I'm going to be MIA until after finals and deciding not to look for more work even though I'm very close to the bone financially. I've set up a study spot and made schedules and liberal use of my alarm clock. But the schoolwork still doesn't get done. I miss deadline after deadline, I am drowning in reading, other aspects of my life are starting to crumble. All isn't lost; I tend to do well under pressure and on tests, and so the mid-terms that I've gotten back (in statistics and economics, I haven't gotten my papers back yet) have been at the class average, give or take. But my inability to just get the regular assignments done and honor deadlines is undermining my grades (and my confidence).

I'm not a quitter by disposition and will just keep coming back shamelessly even in the midst of screwing up, but just continuing to show up and muddle through isn't good enough in this case. I'm obsessed with the possibility that I'll fail out. I love what I'm studying, they'll have to drag me from here kicking and screaming. But I'm worried they will.

In the past, I've been a very motivated person. But that motivation was pretty much based in either fear or anger. Since the consequences of failing grad school are more crummy than they are physically dangerous, the usual fear tactics aren't working, and since as a whole the people here are possibly the nicest I've ever been around in my life, I can't get much "screw you guys, you'll see!" anger going on.

How do I: get my reading done, turn in assignments on time, get to class on time, and in general fulfill my requirements as a student/adult? How should I prioritize the time I spend on my schoolwork (for example, in terms of reading v. assignments v. office hours v. studying, or classes I'm caught up in v. classes where I'm behind)? What kind of mind hacks or mantras should I use to make myself behave responsibly? Any mind hacks for greater productivity with schoolwork? Have any of you pulled yourself out of this kind of mess, and if so, how?

My caveat: please don't recommend therapy. I could probably use it, I know where to get it, but the idea of going frankly freaks me out and I am just not up for that possibility until at least next semester. I'm looking for more short-term solutions here, and I'll cross the next bridges when I get to them.

*This is in a professional program (MPP). I do pay tuition, but I was lucky enough to negotiate a fairly substantial scholarship and my debt load isn't a problem. The "what is this degree good for" and "how to deal with my finances" questions are things I'll likely ask eventually, but right now I'm loving the program, I'm just not loving my performance in it.

posted by rue72 to Education (11 answers total)

There is a disconnect between

I love what I'm studying, they'll have to drag me from here kicking and screaming.

and this:

But the schoolwork still doesn't get done. I miss deadline after deadline, I am drowning in reading...

Do you like doing this stuff, or do you just like the idea of you doing it?
posted by Compared to what? at 1:47 PM on November 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

Order of business 1: set up meetings with all of your professors. Tell them what you've said here: you've made major overhauls in your life since the last conversation you had with them, but you're still overwhelmed and you are not sure you're going to be able to get everything done on time. Work something out--new deadlines, taking an incomplete or withdrawal for a class, etc.

Next: if you don't have a study group, join one or form one. It's honestly amazing how much of a difference it makes in grad school--I was never big on study groups in undergrad, but for grad classes, where you're basically shooting raw information straight into your veins day and night, it helps a lot to have someone to bounce off of (and to keep you accountable)
posted by kagredon at 1:50 PM on November 13, 2013

Best answer: Oh and also: if I have a hard deadline I need to make, I do that work at school. I can sometimes get some writing or editing done at home, but the temptation to fart around is also a lot greater, so I don't set my expectations too high for doing work from home. Change of setting may help you buckle down.
posted by kagredon at 1:55 PM on November 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: To clarify:

Do you like doing this stuff, or do you just like the idea of you doing it?

I like doing this stuff, but it's a total departure from what I studied before (I'm in a quant-heavy public policy program now, and I studied creative writing with an emphasis on theatrical writing in college. I also graduated from undergrad about 5 years ago). My professional, and frankly social, background is very different from the vast majority of the other students in this program, so I'm at a disadvantage. But I do genuinely enjoy what I'm studying, enjoy the classes, enjoy doing the reading, everything -- I just can't catch up, feel overwhelmed, and am having a really hard time understanding the unwritten rules of what I should be doing (as in, what is it OK if I slack on and what is it NOT OK to slack on, what is a hard deadline and what is just a target, etc).

if you don't have a study group, join one or form one.

I would love a study group, I think it would be a huge help. But when I've suggested forming one, the other students look at me like I'm nuts. I usually get along well with people, so I don't think it's because they hate me or something, I don't really get what the problem is? Any suggestions on how to put a study group together or find one to join?
posted by rue72 at 2:00 PM on November 13, 2013

So, here's my thought process here:

1) There's no such thing as "what is OK to slack on" and "what is a target" in a grad program. ESPECIALLY in public policy, which is competitive and for which the job market selects for competitive high achievers. If you get given homework and a deadline, you treat those as unbreakable.

2) How come the homework is not getting done? Most master's programs for which there are classes involved mean that the assignments are pretty clearly laid out. Maybe not so overtly as an undergrad, but heck, you know what to do by now. If you are overwhelmed with something, you need to own that and put in some extra work in that area to get up to speed.

As an example, I took a class on 20th century compositional techniques before I learned about 20th century harmony (yes, I was a music student). Damn straight I did extra reading, and basically taught myself the basics of 20th century harmony before each class, so I would be on top of things.

3) The anger thing - you've not yet learned the general demeanour of people in public policy. They will be nice as pie to your face, all while secretly planning to leave you eating their dust. You should not be so complacent, and you should not allow them to lull you into such complacency. They are being competitive - this is why you can't get a study group going. It's not about collaboration, it's about oneupmanship. You need to know your stuff cold, so that you can come in to class and DESTROY everyone else in the room with your knowledge and analysis, all while making it look effortless and you're the most wonderful person that everyone wants to know.
posted by LN at 2:13 PM on November 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

I would love a study group, I think it would be a huge help. But when I've suggested forming one, the other students look at me like I'm nuts. I usually get along well with people, so I don't think it's because they hate me or something, I don't really get what the problem is? Any suggestions on how to put a study group together or find one to join?

Oof, that does complicate things, especially if, as LN suggests, your program is one that's geared more at encouraging competition among cohorts rather than cooperation. I'd say if you still want to try, the strategy to take would be to make the group as low-commitment as you can--basically just say "Hey, anyone who wants to meet to review for [upcoming assignment/difficult reading/exam], let's meet in [room] at [time]." Turnout may be spotty or inconsistent, but there are some people (coughcoughme) who are kind of flaky or reluctant to commit to an ongoing thing, but would show up to an open group review.
posted by kagredon at 2:39 PM on November 13, 2013

Best answer: I have more than one graduate degree, which makes me experienced but not an expert at how to navigate grad school. Here's the advice I give to people, including former students of mine, when they struggle in graduate school in the manner you've described.

Being an undergraduate requires learning how to be a knowledge consumer. You have to learn things -- facts, processes, details, skills.

Being a graduate student requires learning how to be a knowledge producer. You have to learn to create things -- new facts, new processes, new details, new skills.

Depending on your specific program, a master's degree will involve a mix of knowledge consumption and knowledge production. It sounds to me like you are using the tools you developed as an undergraduate student (read all the things! do all the assignments! take all the notes!) and trying to apply them -- but you don't realize that the task has fundamentally changed. It's not enough to consume all the knowledge. You have to produce something with it.

@LN has suggested one way to approach this in a public policy program, and I think it's a good place to start. I also think you need to be WAY more strategic in approaching your readings and assignments. Do you need to read every word in every assigned reading? Or can you read the beginning and the end of a reading to get the point, then go back and look for the relevant details? When you look at your reading assignments, are you thinking about how they work together as a unit? For example, does reading A agree with reading B? If no, what does that disagreement tell you about the point the professor is trying to make? If yes, why did the professor assign both? Are there differences in approach you should be mindful of? What details do you need from each reading to understand the discussion the works are having with each other? When you have an assignment, do you just try to get it done, or do you think about how it fits in with your reading, which readings are relevant to it, how it builds on previous assignments or readings, and how it fits into the larger point the professor is trying to convey in the class?

About the study groups: I strongly suspect other students can see the situation you are in, and they don't see what you have to offer them. They have no reason to be in a study group with you. I know this sounds harsh, but as @LN notes, the other students aren't your friends in the seminar room -- they are your competitors. They will only help you if you bring something to the table that helps them. It's not enough to say "let's form a study group." You have to be strategic about that too. You need an approach like "Let's form a study group for these two classes, because they fit together in X way and I think if we approach the readings from perspective Q, it can help us both get through assignment Y and will help you/us with our theses by preparing W resource" or something like "here's an outline I made of next week's readings. Want to get together and think about how they fit in with P assignment? I'm wondering if you might have an idea about how the T reading speaks to this."
posted by OrangeDisk at 2:40 PM on November 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Clarification Pt. 2:

if, as LN suggests, your program is one that's geared more at encouraging competition among cohorts rather than cooperation.

The program itself isn't geared toward competition. Our grades aren't curved and we have occasional group projects. The field itself is competitive, but I feel that's putting the cart before the horse at this point.

Also, for context, I'm used to being around people with a lot less integrity and a lot more control over my physical well-being than is true now. You're probably right that the other students are red in tooth and claw, but I don't begrudge them that and I have a hard time freaking out about it.

the strategy to take would be to make the group as low-commitment as you can--basically just say "Hey, anyone who wants to meet to review for [upcoming assignment/difficult reading/exam], let's meet in [room] at [time]."

That happens all the time, and it has actually been really helpful. I've been invited to work with people in that sense and have invited others to do the same, and sometimes we've just fallen into it.

I guess I was thinking more about the kinds of study groups that I had in college where we would meet and straight up study for hours, not just work on specific problem sets or assignments together. That was actually in an environment where grades *were* curved and we *were* in direct competition, but in practice the competitiveness was more a problem between different groups/cliques and not so much between individual students.

I think OrangeDisk is right, though, and my mindset is too "undergrad." Maybe that kind of group studying isn't realistic, especially since I don't live near campus and can only come in a few days a week.
posted by rue72 at 3:34 PM on November 13, 2013

Best answer: Picking up on what OrangeDisk said-- the reading, at least, will go much easier if you realize that nobody assigns reading in grad school with the expectation that you'll go over everything word-by-word. Frankly, most scholarly/professional texts weren't written to be read word-by-word, as far as I can see.

Before you pick up a reading, think about why it's on the syllabus and figure out what you need from it intellectually-- a sense of the overall argument? A position vis-a-vis Other Author X? A perspective on a particular topic you're covering in class? A certain piece of data, or an important example of something you're learning elsewhere? Then skim with an eye towards getting that thing, and getting out. (This is how history students tackle multiple classes of 1000+ pages/week reading, without batting an eye.) In an absolute pinch (although I wouldn't recommend it as a habit), scholarly book reviews can be a good way of obtaining a quick overview of a monograph's purpose and argument, either because that's all you need or in order to orient yourself before you plunge into the book itself. You can find reviews in whatever databases you'd use for journal articles in your field; just make sure to compare a couple of them for any given work, to guard against bias or error on the part of a particular reviewer.
posted by Bardolph at 5:40 PM on November 13, 2013

Best answer: I think all the tips above are good. I was kind of in the same situation as you were. I did psychology in my undergrad, took a few years off, then went back and did engineering. It was tough, not only because I suck at math, but the workload was really insane, especially in the final year. I had to develop several kind of shortcuts and new work habits to get things done.

The first thing I had to learn was to get over trying to get all the points/marks for an assignment -- stop being perfectionistic in a sense (i.e. I had to learn how to do things in a half-assed way).

My mind trick to get myself to do this was to initially aim to only do things 70% of the way to completion. Once I started doing this, for the first time in my life I was able to get things done before the deadline. Was it my best work? No, but it was done.

The way I did this was basically leaving the hard bits incomplete for later – usually with just like a filler sentence or assumption. I’d also leave the really easy bits, like the intro and conclusion. It was still passable at the 70% point but may not have that really in depth analysis or that appendix that would get a good grade. But because I was now actually getting things done, I was usually able to come back and add those extra analyses at the end.

I think the real advantage of doing this is that you don’t get stuck on things and can move on to getting better grades in other assignments/areas of the assignment. This way you’re not left with major sections undone, losing lots of points.

A corollary of this strategy for writing papers is to skip sections of the paper as you’re writing it. You can generally tell what points are less key to your thesis. Flag those as “expansion points” where you will come back later to write more if you have time/space. I find 90% of the time I run out of words/pages by the end. The benefit of this strategy is not having to delete stuff at the end and not having to write the superfluous text in the first place.

A second strategy which you might consider is doing things less thoroughly or accurately. At the start of my degree, I would have never considered not being completely accurate or precise. However, myself, and most of my colleagues, simply couldn’t complete the work by taking this attitude. It is a bit questionable, but we would think about what the professor/grader would actually read or look at closely in detail. If they don’t read it, well, maybe it can be done in a less through manner. In engineering, this was usually of the form of putting down references which we might have really read, skipping calculations steps, or guessing what the physical properties of a chemical species were (instead of looking them up properly). Some people would actually fudge numbers, but yeah not my formal recommendation.

In psychology, a trick I used is making use of review papers. As cynical as this sounds, my best grades on papers were when I did not try to formulate an original view but rather read several reviews and just synthesized them together. And it took much less time. Moreover, I’ve noticed, at least in psychology and engineering, there are very few really original reviews out there anyway. It’s like they all just recycle the same structure and points and you’ll see like the same review over and over again.

Anyway, in an ideal world we would dot the I’s and cross the T’s. But it’s school, and it’s a crazy crazy place. I hope this helps or the thread does in general. If I can pass engineering (and end up doing quite well actually), you can make it through your degree too! Good luck.
posted by lifeliver7 at 6:19 AM on November 14, 2013

Response by poster: Thanks everybody! I put some of your suggestions to work last night and today, and have already seen a difference in how manageable my work load feels, and in how productive (as opposed to aimless or frustrating) my time spent working is.

The takeaway strategies, as I understand them:
-- Go to the library or school to get work done.
-- Half-assed is better than not done.
-- Targeted reading.
-- Go to office hours.
-- Pitch myself for group work (and sell myself in general).

If anybody wants to correct my paraphrasing or add to that, please do!
posted by rue72 at 6:44 PM on November 14, 2013 [1 favorite]