Fred's Fifth; Trying a Comeback
I'll let you guys in on a little secret, maybe something that isn't obvious from what you might read on this blog or any other blog by IR/PS students. I know what I'm about to tell you is something many IR/PSers are trying to keep quiet ~ maybe because of personal pride or maybe they're inclined to think otherwise but here's the secret anyways:
IR/PS is hard.
I don't think there is any one variable that alone can explain this for the whole of the IR/PS student population (that'd be thesis material right there) but there you go. Sooner or later I know each one of us is going to realize it.
Maybe it's the string of number-crunching QM courses or the unnerving feeling you're going to be cold-called next in PMP. Maybe it's the sudden rapid realization that there are only 24 hours in a day which are all overstuffed with paper-writing, readings, group studies, language practice, email-checking, and oh yeah those other things like sleeping and eating. In my case it was a combination of all of the above: a quarter-long experiment in balancing difficult classes and acclimating myself to grad school life.
I suppose some people can get through the program on sheer genius and learning aptitude; their minds and experiences so in tuned with the rhythm of econometrics and language acquisition that the challenge will be staying awake in Accounting or churning through chapters of politics blah blah blah trying to remember anything cold-call worthy. Others might get through the curriculum simply through pinpointed, focused effort and willpower; they have so deep a desire, such determination and drive to succeed that they overcome any academic weakness.
Unfortunately I've got neither of these gifts in such a concentration that success is guaranteed (if I did, I'd share). I just might have enough of each though to make it here at UCSD, to come away from last quarter and this one and all the future ones with everything I can get out of it ~ enough smarts and enough drive to get me the degree that I and 130 or so of my peers know we're capable of. Until 2008 though...
IR/PS is hard.
IR/PS is hard.
I don't think there is any one variable that alone can explain this for the whole of the IR/PS student population (that'd be thesis material right there) but there you go. Sooner or later I know each one of us is going to realize it.
Maybe it's the string of number-crunching QM courses or the unnerving feeling you're going to be cold-called next in PMP. Maybe it's the sudden rapid realization that there are only 24 hours in a day which are all overstuffed with paper-writing, readings, group studies, language practice, email-checking, and oh yeah those other things like sleeping and eating. In my case it was a combination of all of the above: a quarter-long experiment in balancing difficult classes and acclimating myself to grad school life.
I suppose some people can get through the program on sheer genius and learning aptitude; their minds and experiences so in tuned with the rhythm of econometrics and language acquisition that the challenge will be staying awake in Accounting or churning through chapters of politics blah blah blah trying to remember anything cold-call worthy. Others might get through the curriculum simply through pinpointed, focused effort and willpower; they have so deep a desire, such determination and drive to succeed that they overcome any academic weakness.
Unfortunately I've got neither of these gifts in such a concentration that success is guaranteed (if I did, I'd share). I just might have enough of each though to make it here at UCSD, to come away from last quarter and this one and all the future ones with everything I can get out of it ~ enough smarts and enough drive to get me the degree that I and 130 or so of my peers know we're capable of. Until 2008 though...
IR/PS is hard.
posted by --Fred-- at 9:28 PM
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