Now that I’ve been in graduate classes and on both sides of an undergraduate classroom, I want to apologize to most of my undergraduate professors. Experiencing classes as an undergraduate is very, very different than the classes I sit in now.
I’ve heard the contrast referred to as the difference between being a consumer of knowledge and being expected to be a producer of knowledge; in my graduate classes, I am expected to retain and regurgitate things that already exist, and in much more detail than I had to for my undergraduate classes.
I am now expected to put together and execute a research project that makes new material for the rest of the world. This material will be judged by my peers and used to provide a reputation for me, for better or worse, which, if it’s a bad reputation, I will have trouble escaping.
What this means is that I have to go out, find something that has not yet been researched but that is popular enough to allow me to get a job with it, design a way to research it, find already written and conceptualized work that is close, but not too close to what I’ve already done, try to figure out who might be interested in my work, find funding that can pay for my education and experiment, publish enough to get a job and build a reputation, locate a committee willing to sign off on my work and write a book-sized manuscript. If that sounds like a lot, it is.
I can’t graduate until I’ve done these things; it’s not enough to have taken the credit hours and done well. I have to produce something a committee judges worthwhile, by their own standards, in order to get out of graduate school.
This means a bunch of things in the classroom. First, in graduate classes, it means that I am essentially an investment in a future peer for professors. I have much more access to my professors to ask questions, access to more sources for funding (this does not mean I get the money, only that I get to ask for it) and access to an office and other physical facilities on campus. I am more trusted as a student, and I am also given greater responsibilities, like teaching.
Along with those perks, it is expected that graduate courses can cover massive amounts of material very quickly. For a single class, I have covered as many as 600 pages of dense theory and critique a week. For another class, I produced 230 pages over the course of the semester on the readings given.
A full-time load for a graduate student is three classes, so that output is reproduced three times, in addition to other duties.
I also have to earn the attention and distinction of my professors, which doesn’t just mean coming prepared to lead and significantly participate in a discussion which can be on any subject the professor thinks is germane (and they do notice, since the classes are very small).
It also means that I have to go to social events, to seminars, get additional certifications, offer to staff department event tables, do additional unpaid work (like giving talks), and perform well in my studies.
In addition to that, for graduate students, the future looms. Many of us have student loans, and graduate school is quite expensive.
The job market is very competitive, and we have to be fairly exceptional to move directly into employment, especially as someone who might get tenure and not be forced to teach a 4/4 or 5/5 load (four or five classes per semester.)
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The unemployment rate is considerably less for people with a doctorate degree, but the continued cuts to education make finding a college job difficult, at best, and are causing the best students to hemorrhage to the private sector, where they are better paid and have a more humane work day.
Your professors, thanks to retirement and budget cuts, work a 50-hour week. They, too, are expected to distinguish themselves in public service, publications and by accruing honors to the university, in addition to filling in for deficits in hiring as the budgets fall.
I complained rather a lot as an undergraduate about the amount of work I had to do. Despite the fact that I worked full time cooking and unloading trucks, and carried a 12-credit hour schedule, I can confidently say that I worked much less.
That’s the difference between a graduate and undergraduate classroom. Professionals are expected to work until the project is done, and done to be judged by your peers, because the project is more important than you.
We are not a group inclined to be charitable; we’re competing for the same positions.
