Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning a Master's or a Ph.D.

One needs three things to succeed in any graduate program, and they are an interesting topic for research, the necessary facilities and resources to pursue the topic, and finally the money to pursue the topic of interest. Although I agree with Peters when he says that one should attend grad school only if one needs an advanced degree for career advancement, he neglected to mention that having an interesting, doable topic for your research can make the difference between a heavenly or hellish grad school experience.In twenty-four highly detailed, readable, and often (darkly) humorous chapters, Peters shows the reader an excellent way to play the academic game as a traditional graduate student. Bear in mind, however, that there are other options to obtaining the graduate degree. When considering the decision to obtain a graduate degree, one can choose from a variety of colleges and universities. Furthermore, one can obtain an advanced degree in any number of ways, thanks to advances in technology and a changing social and corporate climate. In today's red-hot economy, many companies offer continuing education for free, and will even foot the bill for an advanced degree to retain workers. Rather than quitting a good job to attend grad school and put up with a lot of stress and abuse for the prospect of making peanuts (if you're lucky enough to get funded) and an uncertain career future, one could, depending on the field of study, work while going to school. That way, you get the education without sacrificing the salary, experience, promotions, networking opportunies and career contacts. By paying for your degree yourself or having your employer pay for it for you, you more often than not get a better education, and you most certainly avoid all of the abuse and exploitation which unfortunately pervades many grad schools (Peters is absolutely right here).This four hundred page book is designed to help the traditional graduate student get through the academic meat-grinder with a minimum of physical, mental, and emotional turmoil. The first three chapters of the book give you a good idea of what you are really up against, and the picture really is not pretty. The fourth chapter helps one to decide whether or not to take a break before going to graduate school, and if you do, what sort of job to take to increase your chances of getting into grad school.Chapters five through eight offer a lot of extremely useful information on the grad school admissions process and good ways to get accepted by the school of your choice. Chapter nine gives a brilliant, very detailed, though a bit dated discussion of the most important concern among grad students- financial support for grad study.Chapters ten and eleven give a brief background and history on the master's and doctorate degrees. Chapters 12 through 19 go through organization, time management for grad students, and selecting, completing, writing and defending a thesis topic. Chapter 20 deals with oral presentations, and being the bread and butter of academic life, should have come before the chapters dealing with the thesis.Chapters 21 and 22 talk about coping skills specifically for graduate students, and emphasize the importance of having a life- something many grad students simply do not have.Chapter 23 gives very general advice to students who do not happen to be white and male- most of this information can be skipped, as it is not very helpful. The 24th and final chapter outlines some practical steps to landing a job on your own, and covers such things as resume preparation, the informational interview, and optimizing the use of various resources to find a position worth having.Peters also appends a couple of chapters on buying a good computer and useful education related web addresses, both of which may be of some use but are pretty much dated given the speed at which things change in the computer and internet space. Finally, he includes a useful bibliography which contains a plethora of good references for further reading.If anything, this book serves as a sobering eye-opener for those who are either thinking about making the plunge, or have made the plunge. Keep in mind that some schools are changing for the better by offering grad students other experiences and career options (though not fast enough) outside of research and academe, and some are getting worse. A briefer, blunter treatment of much of the material in this book can be found in P J Feibelman's book, 'A PhD Is Not Enough'.

I bought this book when I was preparing to apply for Ph.D programs in the social sciences. It is a good source, and is actually the most detailed account of graduate school I ever received, including things that my professors said to me. This book details graduate school from beginning to end, starting with the admissions process and ending with the job search. It's rightfully thick and will be quickly devoured by anyone who's really, really interested in getting a Ph.D. It's a good read, too, not boring or stuffy.I only have a few complaints with the book: one, it's outdated. I believe it was published in 1992 and it really showed how much the world has changed in 15 years. The admissions chapter talks about organizing paper application documents; one of the chapters on research speaks of buying a huge file cabinet and organizing hard copies of journal articles into this cabinet; another chapter on organization explains what a personal information manager is and speaks about older, outdated models or versions of that kind of software. I'd say for that chapter, you'll definitely need to supplement by asking current grad students and new/young professors about the methods they use(d) to keep themselves organized in grad school (a lot of grad students use Zotero, a free Firefox add-on, or EndNote [which is expensive; check to see if your school gives it out] to organize their materials. There are a lot of free, open-source ones on the 'net).Second, a lot of the information is peculiar to the natural/"hard" sciences. Peters admits that to himself, noting that his book will be most relevant to those in the natural sciences, next the social sciences, and finally least relevant to those in the arts and humanities. For example, Peters advises avoiding teaching responsibilities at all costs to try to facilitate getting through graduate school faster, whereas in the humanities and some social sciences this is equivalent to career suicide, particularly if one wants to go into academia/university teaching. Many of my humanities colleagues have cited that the book is worthless or of little value to them and recommend "Graduate Study for the 21st Century" instead.I think if read with common sense and the realization that the book is now 16 years old and written from the perspective of a science Ph.D holder, it contains good advice and a realistic description of graduate school life, including highlighting things that students would never think about (such as Peters' retelling of how some professors/advisers defrauded their students by stealing their work and passing it off as their own, or how some students who ingratiated themselves with the department secretary fortuitously earned fellowships when their late or disfavored applications mysteriously rose to the top of the pack).

This book can come in useful for grad students. However, it is strongly focused on the US universities. The later chapters of the book can be used at any university worldwide. It offers some very good planing ideas how to avoid pitfalls. I would recommend it to prospective and current PhDs.

Subject says it all!

This book contains some of the best tips and advice for those looking into graduate applications, whether a masters, doctoral, or professional degree course. It even begins the book with discussing the merits of each stage of graduate school and whether or not they are necessary and how to assess that.While this book is focused on those already IN graduate school, as mentioned above, there is quite a bit of information on the process before entering: application and admissions. If that information is what you are after, I highly recommend "Graduate Admissions Essays" by Donald Ashers. That book is an exceeding great reference for aiding in the writing process for your personal statements, whether AMCAS, MBA, or any other type of graduate statement. It also give you a clue about what admissions committees are looking for.If you need ANY help in your progress during graduate school, BUY THIS BOOK.If you more info about the application and admissions area, with a focus on your essays, buy "Graduate Admissions Essays"If you can, BUY BOTH! These two books are WORTH your time and money.Good luck with your applications!