advice – Renaissance Guy

Wait, what is Grad School, Actually?

I was going to write about the travails of grad school (where I’ve been for the last couple years and what has been sucking up my writing motivation). But I realized that for the majority of the time I’ve had this blog, I would not have the necessary clarity of terminology to understand what I’m about to write. So as a public service to my past self, and others who may find it useful, I want to take a moment to map out higher education from high school forward.

High School Graduation

About 90% of US adults get past here

The figures vary depending on a number of factors, but depending on the state and measuring method, somewhere between 85%-95% of US adults have a high school diploma or equivalent by age 25.

This is the closest thing the US has to a common basis, probably because it’s the last stage where the government has a legal obligation to not only fund education, but to reach out to you and make sure you can access it, despite whatever disability or financial hardship may exist. Yet despite this heady promise, this is also where experiences start to diverge, depending on individual factors and what sort of resources are available in one’s school district. Some students graduate high school with AP credits, language credits, or other distinctions which, at some universities and in some states, can count towards higher degree requirements. Some schools or some extracurriculars offer preferential pathways into certain kinds of universities, and this is without touching on private, charter, or “prep” schools.

I don’t want to reinforce the myth that a person’s (child’s) future is irreparably predetermined by age fourteen. This was very much a myth that I was told. It was a prestigious mould that I could not make myself fit, and the dissonance caused me a lot of distress until I realized fairly recently I had proven it false. Still, in trying to understand why some people get further than others in their studies, this is a useful piece of the puzzle.

Enrolling in College

About 65% of US Adults get here

A little less than two thirds of US students will go from high school to some kind of higher education. At this stage there are three broad categories: community colleges, four-year traditional colleges, and trade schools.

A side note on chronology, here: when I say “two year degree” or “four year college” these are broad generalizations used by school administrators. While some programs do have a built in pace, many are flexible, and many students, myself included, took a non-traditional schedule, mixing part-time, full-time, intersession credits, and other pathways.

Community Colleges

Community colleges are small, often state funded operations that are supposed to provide an entry point to higher education and exist as a community resource. They may not have all the dorms or common spaces of a 4-year school, and tend to have cheaper faculty earlier in their careers who do less, if any, research. Most focus on two-year Associate’s Degrees (more on these momentarily), but they can also provide vocational certificates or oversee jobs training programs that overlap with trade schools.

Alternatively, they can serve as a “backdoor” for 4-year bachelor’s programs. This is becoming more common in state university systems, where some states like Florida give free community college tuition to local high school graduates, and then allow students to apply those classes to the requirements of a four year degree as a transfer student at a state university.

Four-Year “Traditional” Colleges

This is what most people think of when they think of college. Dorm life, sports teams, fraternities, campus quads, and all the accoutrements. These schools have international students, hire faculty who do research, and offer a broader range of more advanced and theoretical coursework, as well as opportunities to get involved in research, faculty projects, and the kinds of extracurriculars that have an impact on careers. Of course, this picture isn’t universally accurate. Many institutions under this category call themselves universities to distinguish themselves from community colleges- though the jargon is a bit fuzzy and debated.

What defines this pathway as distinct from others is that it typically involves committing full time for a number of years to a course of study. The breadth and depth of that course of study varies. In general, however, the expectation is that students who come in from high school without substantial credits either from high school or community college courses will devote four years of full time study, at least a portion of which will be in general skills like writing, foreign languages, mathematics, and the like. Most degrees also require a portion of study outside of one’s chosen field, in the interest of producing worldly, well-rounded graduates with robust critical thinking skills.

Trade Schools

Trade schools are closer to the community college end of the spectrum, but whereas community colleges often focus on broad foundational knowledge (which can, but doesn’t have to be, transferred into a traditional college program), trade school offerings focus on specific vocational training. Trade schools today conduct a lot of the training that once upon a time might have been handled by apprenticeships or entry level on the job training, as well as preparing students for niche careers in areas like healthcare or engineering, where technicians need specialized skills and certification to do a specific task.

College Graduation

About 45% of US adults graduate with an Associate’s Degree

About 35% of US adults graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree

Notice the sudden drop-off from enrollment to graduation? This is a known problem in US higher education, and is especially problematic for first generation, low income, and non traditional students, whose entire families may be committing resources or taking out loans to try and make a better life through the promise of education. In fact, the majority of student debt holders don’t have a degree to show for it.

Associate’s Degrees were alluded to earlier. In general they are two year degrees. Prospects vary. In fields where technical certification is required, like nursing, engineering, and some human services jobs, an Associate’s Degree with the corresponding certificate can be enough to secure a solid job. On the other hand, a generalist associate’s tends to be widely applicable to a variety of skills, but not very specifically geared towards being competitive in any one job. In the age of widespread college degrees, it is primarily useful for going into a Bachelor’s Degree program.

Bachelor’s Degrees are what most people likely think of as a college degree. Again, there are multiple categories here, but the two main categories are Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science. Both are four-year degrees, though the latter tends to be a bit more specialized and focused, while the former is more of a generalist degree. The name has nothing to do with the subject; you can have a BA in Mathematics or a BS in Music.

Majors, minors, and concentrations vary by school, but very broadly, your major (or majors, if you’re precocious) is what your degree is in. Minors or concentrations can either be specialized areas within that, or an additional bonus outside of your major.

Graduate School and Beyond

I put Bachelors’ graduation as a clean break partly because the cohort shrinks a lot after that, but also because the order of operations gets fuzzier still. While it is entirely possible to progress linearly from one degree to the next from high school onto one’s thirties, plenty of others only come back to grad school after some time in the real world. More confusing still, different pathways have different numbers of steps and degrees involved.

Broadly, though, anything before this is “undergraduate” and anything after this is “graduate” level.

Master’s Degree

About 13% of US adults get this far

Master’s Degrees are becoming more common, partly as white collar “knowledge work” becomes increasingly specialized, or cynically, as more jobs require a Bachelor’s to even get through the door and rich nerds want to be keep an advantage. Most programs are between one and three years, and some universities allow for accelerated programs for some of the more common generalist degrees in conjunction with a Bachelor’s Degree in the same subject.

Professional Doctorate

About 3% of US adults get this far

This category mostly exists because of law and medical schools, though it’s becoming more of a popular niche in spots like education and nursing. What makes these degrees distinct from a research degree is their inextricable relationship to professional practice. A Juris Doctor (JD) prepares a student to take the bar exam and practice law. A Medicinae Doctor (MD) prepares a student to take medical licensure exams, begin medical residency training (itself a multi-headed beast, which varies by specialty), and practice medicine.

Both of these degrees also have competitive admissions with strong prerequisite undergraduate coursework standardized tests as a big part, and generate a major “pre-“ component. Students with the resources may devote gap years solely to preparing for admission. It is rare, bordering on impossible, to get into one of these programs except as a primary goal of professional focus. You would have a devil of a time persuading a med school admissions office to let you in because you think their degree would look good on a finance resume, for instance.

The PhD

About 2% of US adults get here

The PhD, short for Philosophiae Doctor, is generally recognized as the “ultimate” academic degree. It isn’t always the last degree someone completes; some people will go back and complete a master’s degree, or a professional doctorate in a related field that is relevant to their career. But generally, the PhD is what defines a person’s career field. A bachelor’s degree is required to apply for virtually all PhD programs, and many if not most require, or at least strongly prefer, a master’s degree or significant full time research experience.

Program structure, requirements, and timelines vary depending on school and field, but a very rough generalization is somewhere between four and seven years. Of this, usually some portion is spent on coursework, some as a trainee working with established faculty conducting research and teaching, and some spent conducting original research. PhDs generally produce a Thesis or Dissertation, which is supposed to be a student’s original work and contribution to the sum of human knowledge.

The amount of work that is done by PhD students which contributes to the larger work of a university (producing, analyzing, and conveying knowledge) means that they blur the line between student and worker. At larger universities, many introductory courses are taught or graded by PhD students, whose labor makes it possible for senior faculty to teach larger classes while maintaining their own research projects. Because of this, PhD students are typically paid, and in some cases are unionized and receive benefits comparable to career employees.

Post-Doctoral Students

The PhD is the highest rank of degree- as evidenced by the fact that it entails the funniest hat and most extra accoutrements of any degree at graduation. But it is possible to do more school after a PhD. Some master’s degrees are specifically designed for people who have a PhD but want to round out their expertise, particularly in something like law, medical research, or education. Because these programs tend to be singular in nature, it is very difficult to generalize about what they entail, other than that they do not outrank the PhD.

Then there is the Pandora’s box of “postdoctoral fellowships”. Not to be confused with medical fellowships, or doctoral fellowships. Postdoc fellowships are like a degree for tax and immigration purposes, and they tend to be for a limited time (think akin to a master’s degree), but in every other way, they act like an entry or apprentice level research job. Some give you a certificate for completion, and entitle you to a lifetime of emails from the alumni association, while others simply become a resume item.

There’s also no end to certificates, workshops, and gigs of questionable tax status. For as small a percentage of the population that has a PhD, there are very few jobs that require one, and almost all jobs where one is useful fall under the broad umbrella of “professional smart person”, whether that means research, teaching, or advising. Meaning that there can be quite some competitiveness about standing out with a PhD, and there is a growing niche industry that preys on that competitiveness.

As noted previously, some people go back after PhD and do another degree in something related to their field. For example, someone with a PhD in sociology who aspires to teach about social policy might do a Master’s in Public Policy to round out their policy credentials.

Me, Now

At time of writing, I have just graduated with a master’s degree. This degree took me two years, and comprised a cohort of a few hundred students in my subject at my large name brand university. This came after a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences, a generalist undergrad degree. While no one else got my specific generalist degree the year I graduated, my state school department represented a greater proportion of the university’s students than my current department at name brand school. My degree was designed as a four-year full time program, but I started as a part time student and eventually added summer courses to finish in five years.

My masters degree was two years full time, plus a required summer internship. I will be starting a PhD in the same subject, come autumn. My contract is unionized, meaning I will make a modest salary with health and other benefits. My cohort in my subject is four students. I have my eye on a couple different options after I graduate between postgrad research fellowships and masters degrees aimed at PhD holders, but my field is changing quickly enough at the moment that I am not committing to anything at this stage.

College Tidbits

After returning from the wild woods of upstate, my house is currently caught in the scramble of preparing for college classes. On the whole, I think I am in decent shape. But since it has been the only thing on my mind, here are some assorted pieces of advice which new college students may find useful; tidbits I wish I had known, or in the cases where I did know them, wish I had been able to get them through my thick skull earlier.

Get an umbrella
Sure, there are more important things to make sure you have before going to college. But most of those things are obvious: backpacks, laptops, writing instruments, and so on. No one talks about back to school umbrellas, though. Of the items I have added to my school bag, my collapsible umbrella is the most useful, least obvious. To explain its great use, I will appropriate a quote from one of my favorite pieces of literature:

Partly it has great practical value. You can open it up to scare off birds and small children; you can wield it like a nightstick in hand to hand combat; use it as a prop in a comedy sketch for an unannounced improv event on the quad; turn it inside out as an improvised parabolic dish to repair a satellite antenna; use it as an excuse to snuggle up next to a crush as you walk them through the rain to their next class; you can wave your umbrella in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course, keep yourself dry with it if it doesn’t seem too worn out.

More importantly, an umbrella has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a Prof discovers that a student has their umbrella with them, they will automatically assume that they are also in possession of a notebook, pencil, pen, tin of biscuits, water bottle, phone charger, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, homework assignment etc., etc. Furthermore, the Prof will then happily lend the student any of these or a dozen other items that the student might accidentally have “lost.” What the Prof will think is that any student who can walk the length and breadth of the campus, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still know where their umbrella is, is clearly a force to be reckoned with.

Find out what programs your school uses, and get acquainted with them
The appropriate time to learn about the format your school requires for assignments is not the night before your essay is due. The time for that is now, before classes, or at least, before you get bogged down in work. Figure out your school email account, and whether that comes with some kind of subscription to Microsoft or google or whatever; if so, those are the programs you’ll be expected to use. Learn how to use them, in accordance with whatever style guide (probably MLA or APA) your school and departments prefer.

You can, of course, keep using a private email or service for non-school stuff. In fact, I recommend it, because sometimes school networks go down, and it can be difficult to figure out what’s happening if your only mode of communication is down. But don’t risk violating handbook or technology policies by using your personal accounts for what’s supposed to be school business. And if you’re in a group project, don’t be that one guy who insists on only being contacted only through their personal favorite format despite everyone else using the official channels.

Try not to get swept up in future problems
Going into college, you are an adult now. You may still have the training wheels on, but the controls are in your hands. If you’re like me, this is exhilarating, but also immensely terrifying, because you’ve been under the impression this whole time that adults were supposed to know all the answers intuitively, and be put together, and you don’t feel like you meet those criteria. You’re suddenly in the driver’s seat, and you’re worried that you never got a license, or even know how not to crash. If this is you, I want you to take a deep breath. Then another. Get a cup of tea, treat yourself to a nice cookie. You can do that, after all, being an adult. True, it might be nutritionally inadvisable to have, say, a dozen cookies, but if that’s what you need, go ahead. You need only your own permission. Take a moment.

Despite the ease of analogies, adulthood isn’t like driving, at least not how I think of driving. There aren’t traffic laws, or cops to pull you over and take away your license. I mean, there are both of those things in the world at large, but bear with me. Adulthood isn’t about you being responsible to others, though that’s certainly a feature. Adulthood is about being responsible as a whole, first and foremost to yourself. In college, you will be responsible for many things, from the trivial to the life altering. Your actions will have consequences. But with a few exceptions, these are all things that you get to decide how they affect you.

My college, at least, tried to impress the, let’s say, extreme advisability, of following their plans upon freshmen by emphasizing the consequences otherwise. But to me, it was the opposite of helpful, since hearing an outside voice tell me I need to be worried about something immediately plants the seeds of failure and doubt in my head. Instead, what helped me stay sane was realizing that I could walk away if I wanted. Sure, failing my classes would carry a price I would have to work out later. But it was my decision whether that price was worth it.

Talk to Your Professors
The other thing worth mentioning here is that you may find, once you prove your good faith and awesome potential, that many items you were led to believe were immutable pillars of the adult world… aren’t so immutable. Assignment requirements can be bent to accommodate a clever take. Grades on a test can be rounded up for a student that makes a good showing. Bureaucracy can, on occasion, be circumvented through a chat with the right person. Not always, but often enough that it’s worth making a good impression with staff and faculty.

This is actually a good piece of life advice in general. I’ve heard from people who work that no one notices that you’re coming in late if you come in bearing donuts, and I have every reason to believe this is true. I’ve brought cookies in to all of my classes and professors before exams, and so far, I’ve done quite well on all of them.

Looking Smart

How do you appear smart? I get this question, in some form or another, often enough. I try very hard not to brag about my abilities, for a variety of reasons, but most sources agree that I’m smarter than the average cyborg. Being the smart guy comes with quite a few perks, and people want to know what my secret is. Why do professors wait to call on me until after other people have struck out, and offer to give me prerequisite overrides to get into accelerated courses? What gives me the uncanny ability to pull bits of trivia about anything? How can I just sit down and write a fully formed essay without any draft process?
Well, to be honest, I don’t know. I’ve tried to distill various answers over the years, but haven’t got anything that anyone can consciously put into action. Given the shifting nature of how we define intelligence, there may never be an answer. Shortest post ever, right? Except I don’t want to leave it at that. That’s a cop out. People want advice on how to improve themselves, to reach the same privilege that I’ve been granted by chance. The least I can do is delve into it a bit.
Sadly, I can’t tell you why I’m able to pull vocabulary and facts out of my brain. I’ve spent more than two decades with it, and it still mystifies me with how it will latch onto things like soldiers’ nicknames for WWI artillery pieces (Miss Minnie Waffer was a popular moniker given by American doughboys to German mortars, a corruption of the German term “Minenwerfer”, or mine-thrower), but drop names and faces into the void (My language professor, for instance, whom I’ve had for nearly a year, is still nameless unless I consult my syllabus). Why does it do this? I don’t know. Is it because I’m brain damaged? Yeah, actually, that would make a lot of sense.
The reason I’m good at writing, for instance, is that most of the time, the words just kind of… come together. In my brain, they have a certain feel to them, like a mental texture. They have a certain, I’m going to say, pull, in one or several directions, depending on context, connotations, mood, and so forth. A word can be heavier or lighter, brighter or darker, pulling the sentence in one direction or another, slowing the sequence of thoughts down or accelerating them. As I reach for them and feel them in my brain, they can bring up other words along with them, like pieces of candy stuck together coming out of a jar. This can continue for entire paragraphs of perfectly formed language, and oftentimes if I allow myself, I wind up writing something entirely different than I had intended when I first went looking. This is actually how most of my posts get written.
I used to think that everyone had this sense about language. I’ve met a few people who I am definitely sure have it. But I’ve also been told that this kind of thinking is actually limited to people with irregular brain patterns. So when people ask me how I write and speak so well, I have to answer that, honestly, I just do. I get an idea of what I want to express, or the impression I want to give, and I find the words that match that description, and see what friends they bring along with them. This ability to write full sentences competently, wedded to a smidgeon of poise and a dash of self confidence, is in my experience all that it takes to write essays, or for that matter, give speeches.
If there’s a downside to this, it’s that by this point I’m totally dependent on this sense, which can desert me when I start to feel under the weather. This sense tends to be impacted before any other part of my health, and without it I can become quickly helpless, unable to string more than the most basic sentences together, and totally unable to apply any degree of intellectual effort to anything. In extreme cases, I will begin a sentence assured that the words will come to me, and halfway through begin to sputter and stare into space, as in my mind I try to reach for a word or concept that just isn’t quite there.
This sense works best for words, but it can work with ideas too. Ideas, especially things like historical facts, of principles of physics, have a similar shape and pull. Like an online encyclopedia with hyperlinks riddled on every page, one idea or fact connects to another, which connects to another, and so forth, making a giant web of things in my brain. I can learn new facts easily by connecting them to existing branches, and sometimes, I can fill in details based on the gaps. All brains do this, constantly. This is why you can “see” in parts of your vision where you’re not directly looking, such as the gap where your nose should be. Except I can feel my brain doing it with concepts, helping me learn things by building connections and filling in gaps, allowing me to absorb lessons, at least those that stick, much more easily.
But there’s more to it than that. Because plenty of people are good at building connections and learning things quickly. So what makes me good at using it? Is there a key difference in my approach that someone else might be able to replicate?
Let’s ask the same question a different way. What’s the difference between someone who knows a lot of trivia, and someone who’s smart? Or possibly intelligent? There’s not a clear semantic line here, unless we want to try and stick to clinical measurements like IQ, which all come with their own baggage. The assumption here, which I hope you agree with, is that there’s something fundamentally different between having a great number of facts memorized, and being a smart person; the difference between, for instance, being able to solve a mathematical equation on a test, and being able to crunch numbers for a real world problem.
There’s a now famous part in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, wherein (spoilers follow) mice attempt to build a supercomputer to find the answer to life, the universe, and everything. The answer? 42. Yes, that’s definitely the answer. The problem is, it’s not useful or meaningful, because it’s for the wrong question. See, “life, the universe, and everything” isn’t really a good question itself. An answer can’t make sense without the right question, so the fact that 42 is the answer doesn’t help anyone.
So, what is the difference between being knowledgeable and being smart? Asking good questions. Being knowledgeable merely requires being to parrot back key points, but asking good questions requires understanding, insight, inquiry and communication. It also shows other people that you are paying attention to them, care enough to ask them, and are interested in learning. And most of the time, if you start asking questions that are novel and on-point, people will just assume that you have a complete background in the area, making you seem like an expert.
Unlike natural talent, this is a skill that can be honed. Asking really good questions often relies on having some background information about the topic, but not as much as one might think. You don’t have to memorize a collection of trivia to seem intelligent, just demonstrate an ability to handle and respond to new information in an intelligent way.

Conference Pro-Tips

So every year, my family comes down to Disney for a major conference related to one of my many diagnoses. Over the years I have learned many tips and tricks that have proven invaluable for conferences. Here are a few highlights:

1) Invest in a good lanyard
Most conferences these days use name badges for identification purposes. Although most places provide basic cardholder-on-an-itchy-string accommodations that work in a pinch, for longer conferences especially, a proper lanyard with a decent holder is more than worth the upfront investment. I recommend one with plenty of space for decoration and customization, and lots of pockets to hold things like special event tickets, and all the business cards that inevitably accumulate.

As an added bonus, if you plan to spend most of your time at the conference site, you can quite easily slide some cash and a credit card into your holder, and do away with carrying a separate wallet altogether. This is especially nice for large conference centers that require a great deal of walking.

Sidenote: Many security-minded people will advise you to take off your conference lanyard when venturing offsite, to avoid looking like an easy mark to potential ne’er do wells, and so using a lanyard as a neck bound wallet may have some drawbacks if you plan to come and go.

2) Dress for walking
This is one that gets passed around a lot, so it isn’t exactly a pro-tip, but it still bears repeating. Modern conferences require a lot of walking. Depending on the size of the conference center, you can expect the distance to be measured in tens of kilometers per day. While this is still spread out over a whole day, it’s still a decent amount of walking, especially for people who aren’t used to being on their feet all day. Dressing for the occasion with comfortable shoes and clothing will help reduce the strain of this, and advanced planning can cut extra walking out of the schedule.

There are two main schools of thought on packing day bags for conferences. One school of thought is to pack as little as possible, so that the amount of weight that needs to be carried is as small as possible. The other school of thought is to carry with you everything that you think you might need, so as to avoid having to detour or go back to your place of lodging to pick up needed items. There are costs and benefits to each of these strategies, and it depends primarily on whether one is more comfortable with walking long distances, or carrying a heavier load.

Whichever strategy you choose to abide by, it is still a good idea to find a good, reliable, and comfortable bag which you can easily carry with you. This will ensure that you have plenty of space to carry all the trinkets which you will inevitably accumulate during the conference. I usually recommend a nice backpack with separate pockets and a water bottle pouch, which also will help stay hydrated.

3) Be cognizant of nutrition
I’m not going to straight up prescribe a certain number of meals or carbohydrates which you need to fit into your conference day. The exact number will depend on your individual health, metabolism, how much you’re doing, and your normal diet. I will say that you should at least be cognizant of your nutritional needs, especially if you are being more active than usual.

4) Download all the apps
Most major conferences use some kind of mobile schedule platform, in addition to hard copy schedules. This can help you sort through sessions and panels, and often will let you set reminders and get directions. If the host location has an app, go ahead and download that as well. In fact, go ahead and download the app for the local tourism authority.

Go ahead and grant them full permission for notifications, and location data if you’re comfortable. This way, not only will you have the most up to date information about your conference, but also about anything else happening in the area that might be of interest.

5) Have an Objective
For attendees, conferences exist in this strange space somewhere between leisure and business. There’s lots of fun to be had in traveling, staying in a hotel, meeting new people, and possibly exploring a new city. And conference activities themselves often have something of a celebratory air to them. Even for work-oriented conferences, sponsors want to encourage attendees to take away a hopeful, upbeat attitude about their product and the future in general.

At the same time, conferences with sessions and panels tend to hone in on trying to educate and edify attendees. Modern conferences are by their very nature, a hub for in-person networking, both professionally and personally. And sponsors are often quite keen to ensure that they fit in their sales pitch. So conferences are often as much work as they are play.

Having an objective set beforehand does two things. First of all, it clarifies the overall goal of attending, reinforcing the mindset that you want to keep. Second, it helps mitigate the effect of decision fatigue, that is, the gradual degradation of decision-making capacity from having to make too many decisions during a short time. Knowing that you’re here for business rather than leisure will make it easier to make snap judgments about, say, where to eat, which sessions to attend, and how late to stay out.

Objectives don’t have to be quite as targeted as goals, which generally have to be both specific and measurable. Objectives can be more idealistic, like saying that you intend to have fun, or make friends, or hone your communication skills. Objectives aren’t for nitty gritty planning, but to orient your general mindset and streamline the dozens of minute decisions that you will inevitably encounter. Having an overarching objective means that you don’t have to spend nearly as much time debating the relative merits of whether to go with the generic chain burger restaurant, or the seedy but well-recommended local restaurant. If your objective is to make career progress, stick with the former. If your objective is to have an interesting travel experience, go with the latter.