So how hard exactly is grad student's life?

[PhDPlease]

There seems to be a lot of disparity between individuals in this thread, and on pasts thread on this forum. I can recall a similar thread where I asked how much more difficult (or # hours worked) during a ph.D program vs. my current situation (Work 40-50 hours full time + TA + master's grad student). The answer that I got was seemingly congruent that "it doesn't compare, Ph.D is harder." It seems like I am working a greater number of hours now than I should expect to during my Ph.D (assuming an acceptance this cycle).

 

There also seems to be a great difference in the emphasis Ph.D grades play (in terms of placement afterward). Several individuals that I know presently have emphasized the importance of getting A's throughout the Ph.D. Some on this forum have said that it matters heavily, others that it matters little. Obviously your ability to do research matters more (as well it should), but I am still surprised at the disparity among answers. Given this, I would also think that as a master's student applying to Ph.D cycles, that other than first-year students I am likely stressing much more than most Ph.D students would about grades.

 

Re your 1st point, I think there is a lot of variation in people's perceptions depending on what they did previously. I know of a few people who did things like investment banking before the PhD and worked more then relative to while in the PhD. Also as someone who has worked for a while, I've learned skills in how to recognize that diminishing returns to additional time learning are setting in and when to draw the line and call it quits for the day. There are also students who have the ability to primarily focus on the important topics (in terms of what is likely to show up on exams as well as what is important for their research interests) while other people are very adamant on trying to do everything with the highest amount of effort.

 

Re grades, I think grades are of mixed importance. It is important to master a general theoretical foundation as well as expertise in your specific field. To the extent that grades correlate with you learning things that are important, there is value. Grades may serve as a signal to faculty you want to work with, especially if you are taking a course with a professor you want to work with. Some faculty might not be concerned with your grades especially outside of whatever field you will pursue assuming that you are doing well enough to stay in good standing in the program and not drastically below average, but other faculty may prefer students who have higher grades. I do not think that employers (at least assuming you go the academic route) generally look at your transcripts and care about your grades. In the end it is research that matters, but to the extent that good grades signal that you are mastering the material upon which you will build a foundation and/or signal your capabilities to potential advisers/faculty, I think there is some value in reasonably decent grades.

[chateauheart]

It definitely varies program by program. Like a lot of other students I went through the first year PhD of my undergrad institution as well. The typical workload for the first-year cohort I studied with during undergrad was about 80-90 hours a week, including during school breaks (not inflated - I didn't join a study group, but I did work with some students, and I know for a fact that they don't stop working before 9pm). Most of them still can't finish their problem sets for at least one of the three core sequences (micro, macro, metrics), so most essentially choose to "drop" one, and every year a few 2nd-year students have to retake one sequence (if one standard deviation below class average in that sequence - if you get -1sd for two sequences you fail out). It's a constant nightmare for everybody the entire year. On the other hand, the typical workload for my proper first-year PhD cohort (at a higher ranked program) was 30-40 hours, maybe even less for those with a prior master's, and almost everybody takes an extra field class along with the core sequences. There's a huge amount of variance in difficulty of first-year coursework that's orthogonal to rank.

[undecidedman]

It definitely varies program by program. Like a lot of other students I went through the first year PhD of my undergrad institution as well. The typical workload for the first-year cohort I studied with during undergrad was about 80-90 hours a week, including during school breaks (not inflated - I didn't join a study group, but I did work with some students, and I know for a fact that they don't stop working before 9pm). Most of them still can't finish their problem sets for at least one of the three core sequences (micro, macro, metrics), so most essentially choose to "drop" one, and every year a few 2nd-year students have to retake one sequence (if one standard deviation below class average in that sequence - if you get -1sd for two sequences you fail out). It's a constant nightmare for everybody the entire year. On the other hand, the typical workload for my proper first-year PhD cohort (at a higher ranked program) was 30-40 hours, maybe even less for those with a prior master's, and almost everybody takes an extra field class along with the core sequences. There's a huge amount of variance in difficulty of first-year coursework that's orthogonal to rank.

hmmm

I see some endogeneity problems here man

[publicaffairsny]

It definitely varies program by program. Like a lot of other students I went through the first year PhD of my undergrad institution as well. The typical workload for the first-year cohort I studied with during undergrad was about 80-90 hours a week, including during school breaks (not inflated - I didn't join a study group, but I did work with some students, and I know for a fact that they don't stop working before 9pm). Most of them still can't finish their problem sets for at least one of the three core sequences (micro, macro, metrics), so most essentially choose to "drop" one, and every year a few 2nd-year students have to retake one sequence (if one standard deviation below class average in that sequence - if you get -1sd for two sequences you fail out). It's a constant nightmare for everybody the entire year. On the other hand, the typical workload for my proper first-year PhD cohort (at a higher ranked program) was 30-40 hours, maybe even less for those with a prior master's, and almost everybody takes an extra field class along with the core sequences. There's a huge amount of variance in difficulty of first-year coursework that's orthogonal to rank.

 

Let me see if I understand you: Folks at a higher ranked school work half as much? is that because the students are more prepared or the coursework is easier?

[mcsokrates]

I've said it before, but (many? most?) people who are working more than 10 hour days are probably not being optimally productive. Learning to work more efficiently is the lesson grad school is supposed to instill. Some people instead learn to tolerate working soul-crushing hours at low average productivity.

 

(Personal experience: worked no more than 55 or so hours a week the first two years, and I've averaged closer to 45 since then. Never work in the office on weekends, never stay past 7:30. Get 7 hours of sleep a night, and run three times a week.)

[Canuckonomist]

I think mcsokrates has really put it best: it is, in my experience as well, about working productively, and not just working for the sake of working. For those that say grad school is hell, I'd say there is more heterogeneity to it than that. I, on average, loved it.

 

Being at the end of the PhD line now, about to start a TT job in the new academic year, I found that the hardest part of the PhD was finding out what worked best for you, and then not letting the work habits and perceived opinions of colleagues (you'd be surprised how often you infer opinions that are not there) change your strategy. Especially when you share offices, you may get the feeling that so-and-so is working harder than you, and that you should be working harder to keep up, else you look bad. It's up to you to decide how much you want to work (above some minimum threshold), and you shouldn't forget that, lest the stress of over-working burn you out.

 

An advisor once told me that if I managed "6 good hours" a day, 5 (sometimes 6) days a week, I'd do just fine. I liked the sound of that, and thought, "that's it?". So, I took their advice, never working on Saturday, and sometimes I wouldn't work Sunday either. You'd be surprised, though, how hard "6 good hours" can be. It means being conscious of your productivity, staying off the internet, shortening lunches, and knowing when chats with your colleagues are more about wasting time than being productive. It may take you 9 hours to get a good 6 in. But then you get good at it, and you're productive without feeling over-worked. Sometimes you work more than 6 hours in a day because you're on a roll, and that's fine too. Maybe you sleep in a little bit more the next day as a reward (I usually get 7-8 hours of sleep a night, as I can't function on less).

 

As a final note, this thread started with the OP asking how hard a PhD is, and in the end, it really depends on the program, your skills, and your goals. I'll admit that pretty much anywhere the first year is pretty intense, and you might find little time for anything else in your life, save for a good relationship, and occasional commiseration over beers with your colleagues. The research part, however, depends more on you than anything else. I've been able to make time for almost everything else I've wanted to do (similar to people with full-time jobs), and perhaps that means that I could have finished more papers than I have, but that's where trade-offs come in, and as economists, we should know a thing or two about trade-offs. You should also know your utility function, and mine has always insisted on balance.

 

Canuck

Edited January 26, 2015 by Canuckonomist

[Mathew952]

I don't normally Necro-post, but if there's one thing I've learned, both when I was working two jobs as a full time student and as a 1st year PhD student at RAILROAD_MAGNATE University ,quality always counts far more. Yes, the hours need to be there. But if you go in, phone on silent, laptop closed, and really sincerely focus for 6-8 hours a day, you're going to be fine. No playing around on the devices. If you can, find study partners who scowl at you if you so much as sneeze.

 

Develop study plans that work for you. Constantly assess whether something is an effective use of time. For example, I used to read the textbook sections and take notes, then go back later and make flashcards, but I realized I virtually never went back to the outlines I made, ever. So I stopped doing that. But, I realized that forcing myself to do each and every proof/example in the text helped a lot. Avoid the temptation to get stuck on minor details- I once spent 3-4 hours trying to understand what the heck the transversality condition really meant or did, when I could have gotten just as many points by just writing the thing out and quoting Sargent. You get far, far more points for managing to answer everything pretty well than if you get some questions perfect and leave the rest blank.

 

Also, chunking is vital. Suppose you want to spend 12 hours studying for micro and 12 hours studying for macro over the weekend- you're better off going through things once kinda roughly for 6 hours each on saturday, then coming back fresh and reviewing on sunday. Sleep is kinda magical like that. There are many problems where I was tearing my hair out to find the solution, only to realize the next day that the answer was staring me in the face.

 

Finally, what everyone else has said about not worrying about what your classmates are up to is true. Maybe you think you're earning some kind of masochistic swag by showing everyone that you're torturing yourself till 11pm every night in the lounge or your office, but chances are your productive juices dried up hours ago and now you're just limping along. There's a massive variance in study hours at my program, and it seems relatively uncorrelated with performance. I know that's likely due to unobservables, but it also throws a real wrench in the "you need to study 90 hours a week to have a chance" argument. We have some people studying like crazy and still doing bad, some people who barely study (on a relative scale) and do fine, and a lot of people in the middle. Really the key is to just be honest with yourself. Be self-critical, but constructively, and you'll figure it out.