I've decided to go back to grad school in the fall and finish my Ph.D. 
Drawing on jep's example, I want to use Grex to journal some of my
tribulations therewith.

98 responses total.

Good luck. 

This response has been erased.

Cool, Mark!  Hope it goes well.

But if you're not going back until fall, isn't April a little early
for the tribulations to start?  :)

It's obviously been a while since John was in Graduate school. ;}

First, some background.  I graduated from Williams College in 1989 with a
B.A. in math.  During the last year, I wrote an undergraduate thesis with a
professor named Frank Morgan.  It didn't go very smoothly, and I'll say
more about that later.

Though I got several offers for math grad school the next year, I couldn't
face it, so I took a year off and lived with my sister in New Jersey,
working as a programmer at a small software company.  (We were writing
hypertext software for DOS - we programmers thought it was a big waste of
time, and hypertext would never amount to anything.  Heh.)

Then in the spring I reactivated my applications.  Most places were less
keen on me this time; my offers decreased at Michigan and Cornell, and
Princeton turned me down, though they were ready to let me in the year
before.  Go figure.  Michigan offered me the best deal, so I packed up and
moved to Ann Arbor in the fall of 1990.

My first year in school was hard, but I lived with two other grad students
(Paul & Steve) who became my good friends, and together we made it through
the initial sequence of courses they made us take.  In those days, it
worked like this: the department defined 3 2-course sequences, which they
called "alpha courses":

        590-591  Topology and algebraic topology
        593-594  Algebra
        596-597  Complex analysis and real analysis

(BTW, if you're wondering - I don't plan to make this item be about math
per se; just about the difficulties of dealing with grad school.  So if
you're thinking about forgetting the item just because you don't like
math, well, I hope you'll hang on a little longer.)

So the department defined these 3 sequences, and the rule was that you had
to pass a 6-hour qualifying exam in two of the areas, and pass the courses
in the third.  Of course, most mortals couldn't pass the exam without
taking the courses, so in practice everyone had to take all 6 courses
unless they had already taken them somewhere else.  

So Paul and Steve and I took the alpha courses that first year, and helped
each other through.  They were hard, and my work habits weren't very
good, but I got through.  I passed the qualifier exam in topology at the
end of the first year, and the one in algebra (on the second try) in the
middle of my second year.

But then it all fell apart for me after that.  I was badly depressed,
wasn't wild about the idea of being a research mathematician, and Paul and
Steve went in different directions, so we couldn't work together any more.
I also had a teaching assistantship (I had been on fellowship the first
year), which in the math department at Michigan means you teach a class of
undergraduates with very minimal help from the faculty.  (I.e., I wasn't
actually "assisting" anyone.)

I couldn't settle on an area of math that I wanted to work on, and in
retrospect I was just way too depressed and conflicted to have made the
whole thing work.  The second year was miserable, and I only completed two
courses (and in one of them I got a C+, which for a grad course is pretty
bad.)  It wasn't my finest hour.

I stuck around for a third year, but if anything it was worse than the
second.  Again I only finished two courses, and the only thing that held
any allure for me was the teaching.  I quit at the end of that year,
applied for and got my master's degree based on my coursework, tucked my
tail between my legs and got the hell out.

Wow, 4 responses while I entered #5.  I'll try to answer those questions as
I go along.

So after I quit, I bummed around a while, and then got a job working at a
software company called Supply Tech here in Ann Arbor.  Steve had been
smarter than me and left for the Peace Corps after our second year, but Paul
was sticking it out in the department.  He's a hard worker, and he completed
his Ph.D. more or less on time, in 1996.  Paul was my roommate for 10 years,
until he left for Japan in the summer of 2000.  But that's a separate story.

I worked for Supply Tech (which was bought by Harbinger, which was bought by
Peregrine, who closed the office in Ann Arbor - so it goes) for 3.5 years,
from Feb. '94 to Aug. '97.  I as a pretty good programmer, I think.  I
didn't like the business realitites, which reared their heads a lot when the
company started to get into financial trouble.  But I like programming and
I liked working in a team, and I especially liked that someone actually
cared aboutwhat I was doing.  In academia, it seems to me, you really have
to be self-motivated to an almost solipsistic degree, because no one else is
going to give a rip about what you do.  That was one of the things I
couldn't deal with in grad school the first time.  But in the real world,
you do things because people want them done, and - lo and behold - they
actually *thank* you when you do them!  And *pay* you!  It was quite an
eye-opener.

In the mid-nineties, the cold war had just ended, and a lot of things in the
scientific world were changing.  Lots of money that the government had been
pouring into math and science suddenly dried up (Bush called this the "peace
dividend", as I recall), and also a lot of Eastern European and Russian
mathematicians and scientists were suddenly free to move to the U.S. and
market their skills here.

So the upshot was that the job market for academics in math and physics
got extremely tight.  Steve came back from Nepal in 1995, and looked for a
job teaching math at community colleges all over the country.  He couldn't
find anything at all; finally he answered an ad from the College of
Micronesia on the island of Pohnpei, and being an already seasoned world
traveller, when they offered him a job he went without a qualm.  But
that's another story.

Paul, too, couldn't find much work, so he got a short term job writing
statistical algorithms for the Biostats department.  It didn't pan out
very well, but he, like me, hung around Ann Arbor out of inertia.

At Supply Tech we had two programmers, Ming and Xueqing (they are both
Chinese, and speak excellent English) who both had Ph.D.s in physics.
They were obviously overqualified for writing business software, but they
were both good at it, and didn't resent what they were doing.  They became
my friends.

So the cumulative effect of these events and interactions on me was to
make me realize that if you get a Ph.D., you don't have to be an academic.
It sounds obvious - getting a degree should expand your options, not force
you into a particular small set of choices.  But about 75% (last I heard)
of all mathematicians *are* in academia, and of course the people who
mentor you (inasmuch as they *do* mentor you) while you're in school are
academics, so I had absorbed the idea that that's what I was locking
myself into if I pursued the degree.  It was a big barrier to my moving
on, because I felt that by choosing an area/advisor, I was choosing the
thing I was going to work on for the rest of my life.  That's a pretty
heavy burden for a 24-year old to carry around.

Also, I started to believe again that I had the raw material to be a
mathematician, even though the coping skills for dealing with school had
eluded me in the past.

I had a bad year in '96, for a number of reasons, and when Steve wrote to
me that fall and asked me to come visit him in Micronesia, it was all the
excuse I needed to quit Supply Tech.  I hung around for another 8 months
to finish a project I was responsible for (but that's another story).  By
that time, I had messed up my back pretty bad, and was laid up for the
rest of the year.  I had surgery in Feb. of '98, and went to see Steve
that May, so it worked out.  But then I wasn't sure what to do next.

So, this is going to sound corny, but:

Sometime in 1998 I saw Tom Hanks' HBO series "From the Earth to the Moon".
I had kind of an epiphany while I was watching episode 5, about the
engineers who designed the lunar lander:  what I'd always been most
excited about in the world was the space program.  I thought, wow, if I
could actually contribute something to the space program, *then* I'd feel
like I'd done something important.  Then I'd be able to look my
grandchildren in the eye and say I made a difference in the world; that I
didn't squander my talents.

So I thoguth about what I could do.  I knew I could probably get a job at
NASA or JPL as a bottom-rung programmer, but I'd had a friend who did that
who didn't end up working on anything except programs that JPL sold to
other people.  That didn't sound so great.

In any case, I figured, I had better learn some science.  I sudied a lot
of math in college, but almost no science.  (I had read that book, "Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", when I was a senior in high
school, and it turned me off of science.  But that's another story.)  Paul
had been a physics major, so I had heard him talk about physics a little
(and I had taken a high school course), so I thought I should probably
learn physics.  I'd digested about all The Learning Channel had to offer,
so I figured the next stop for me was the University.

Well, that was a big step, as you might imagine.  The last time I was in
school it was a miserable experience, not to mention that it was not my
finest hour.  So I wanted to start slow.

In January '99 I showed up at a 100-level physics class and asked the
professor (Prof. Keith Riles) if I could sit in.  He said sure, probably
thinking that he'd never see me again, or that I would drift away after a
few classes.  I almost did; it was stressful for me just being on campus,
so for the first couple of weeks my attendance was spotty.  But I got it
together and got myself in a routine, and started to go to every class.  I
stuck with it till the end of the semester, much to the professor's
surprise.  I also asked a lot of questions, which at first I thought
wasn't fair, since I wasn't actually paying anything for the class.  But
it turns out most of the rest of the class were freshmen who were too
bored or too intimidated to ask many questions, and the prof *loved* it
that I was so solicitous.  Hopefully, the other students didn't hate me
for it. :)

So that went well, and I did the same thing in the fall, with the next
class in the beginning physics sequence (a 200-level electricity and
magnetism class).  The professor (Prof. Roberto Merlin) was again very
accomodating, and encouraged me to come back to school for credit.  I was
still in "baby step" mode, but I crossed my fingers and enrolled for
winter 2000 as a "special undergraduate" - i.e., a non-degree student.

I took one class, which was the equivalent of the one I had just sat
through.  It went well; I worked with a couple of other students, and I
found that I could handle it.  My attendance was nearly perfect - in the
old days, I had had a lot of trouble with my sleep schedule, and missed a
lot of classes.  But I seem to be over that, and over depression (but
that's another (long) story), so now I go to all my classes.  The fact
that I'm paying for them myself helps, too. :) 

So in fall 2000 I took two 300-level physics courses, and again worked
with other students, which helps me a lot.  In Winter 2001 I started in on
the 400-level physics courses that are required of all majors, and I also
took a math course, Math 450, "Advanced math for engineers".  That may
have been the first really applied math course I ever took, but even so it
reminded me how much different math is from physics, and how much more
comfortable I am with math.

(Sorry for the littany of classes - this probably isn't interesting to
most people.  I'm listing them because I'm trying to show how my thinking
and my confidence has been evolving over the past few years.  Kind of
thinking out loud; that's part of how I'd like to use this item.)

Anyway, last fall I took two more 400-level physics courses and another
math class, about numerical methods.  That was hard, taking three at once,
and I was pretty stressed out.  But I survived, and made a friend out of
my math prof.

This term, I couldn't find any physics courses I wanted to take, so I took
two math courses, one of them a 500-level grad course on Coding Theory.
Both have gone well, though the grad course is certainly harder than all
but one of the undergrad classes I've taken lately.  But I hooked up with
an electrical engineering grad student, and after every class we'd sit
down and go through the notes, filling in all the details that the prof
left out.  That worked *very* well - if we hadn't done that, we'd both
have been pretty lost a lot of the time.

During this term I started to think seriously, for the first time in a
while, about going back and finishing my Ph.D.  I'll try to list my reasons.
Keep in mind, though, that if it was an easy decision, I would have made it
a long time ago.  So after I list the pros, I'll list the cons.

1. I feel intimidated around people with Ph.D.s.  Not necessarily because I
think they're brighter than me, but because they made it through and I
didn't.  I guess you can say that grad school was the biggest thing I ever
failed at in my life, and that failure still nags at my cnfidence in myself.
I want to prove to myself that I can do it.

2. I think having a Ph.D. will incline people to respect me more.

3. I think having a Ph.D. will help me to get a job, first at NASA/JPL, and
then, if I get tired of that, somewhere else.

4. I like doing math.  If there's a chance I can get paid to do math, then
that chance will be greatly increased by having a Ph.D.

OK, here are some cons:

1. It will take at least 3 years, I think.

2. Those 3 years will be hard, and instead I could be making easy money
doing, say, business programming.  Or working for JPL/NASA as a grunt.

3. I don't want to be a math researcher.  A teacher maybe, but not a
researcher.  The problem with math research is that once you get
specialized enough to prove original theorems, only a handful of
people in the world can understand what you're working on, and even they
might not care.  You really have to care a lot yourself if you're going to
enjoy your work.  I don't think I have the personality for that: I like
working with other people, and I like getting thanked for what I do.

While I know now that it's possible to do other things with a Ph.D. than
research, it's still the default course, and I'll have to buck the system
some to do otherwise.

4. I'm not getting any younger.  Becoming a Ph.D. student means putting
other things, like starting a family and a nest egg and getting settled on
hold.  To some extent, this seems like a bigger deal at 35 than it was at
23.  But on the other hand, I realize now what I didn't then - life is
longer than you think, and it pays to plan for the future.

Actually, I think you should go for it.  You sound as if you have really
thought this out and you want it.  Shoot for the moon!!  (so to speak)

i think you should go for it too. 3 years is not a long time and it will lead
you down a challenging interesting road. whereas writing business software
for easy money or being a grunt is probably less likely to do that. my friend
got his last year at age 40 and it was something that made him so proud of
himself. year and a half later he's publishing his first book. i attended his
'congrats you got a phd' party and everyone was so proud of him. not because
it's some elite category of superior people, but because it's something that
people do because they really like what they do enough to go for it, and do
it for themselves fueled on their inner drive. i think 35 is a good age to
really start to know what you want. i have a B.A. and have no idea where i
want to go from here yet. so yea - go for it!

I thought that I'd be constantly defensive and regretful when I made my
decision to officially resign from Graduate school. I have major student loan
debts and an MA, and that doesn't seem like a good use of a decade of my life
(yeh, sure, I did other things while I was in Grad School).
 
Interestingly, I'm not very defensive about it at all. I think that it's
because I passed my Comps with flying colors and got a green light on my
dissertation topic. I was literally all bit dissertation, and I thought about
what I had to do (write a 200 page book), what it would get me (fewer job
prospects, not more, because of the field [Linguistics]), and how much I
really wanted to do it (not really), and it was enough to me that I'd proven
I *could* do it if I wanted to.
 
But I also remember that, before I got my thesis topic approved, I let my
confidence eat away at me, so I can understand that part, Mark. FWIW, I don't
know the other PhDs around you, but I've never gotten the impression that John
would change his level of respect for me if I had a PhD, or that he generally
uses that as a gauge for respect, and that's true of most of the PhDs I've
personally met.

Thanks for the responses, everyone.  Here's more:

So I ran into Prof. Al Taylor, who was the graduate chairman when I was a 
grad student, and I talked with him about getting back in the program.  He 
was very encouraging, and told me to see Prof. Bloch, the current graduate 
chair.  I saw him after a few days, and he looked at my transcript and 
thought there shouldn't be any problem with my being reinstated.  The 
secretaries helped me figure out what the right paperwork was for my case, 
and on the second try we got it right.  So I'm officially a grad student 
in the fall.

I went back to talk with Prof. Bloch again today, to try to nail down just 
where I am in the program and what requirements I have yet to meet.  The 
most important thing I'd like to get settled is whether the qualifier 
exams I passed back in '91 and '92 are still valid now.  He said that he 
didn't see why not, but he sent me to see Prof. Stembridge, the "Chair of 
the Doctoral Comittee" (I think I got that right).  He also looked at my 
transcript again and said that I nearly had enough credits in the bank.

Now we're to the part of the story that prompted me to start writing this 
item this morning.

Unlike everyone else I've met with, Prof. Stembridge was *not* 
encouraging, nor was he much impressed with my accomplishments.  He looked 
at my transcript and said there was only one course on there that he would 
allow to count toward the six I need to finish before I achieve candidacy.  

(After the qualifiers, the next big milestone in a grad student's career 
is candidacy.  Getting there requires a number of things, including 
those six courses, passing a language exam, and taking two "cognate" 
classes outside the department.  Most importantly, it requires picking an 
advisor, agreeing on a course of study, and then taking an oral "prelim" 
exam.  The idea is that once you take your prelim, you are prepared to 
start doing research in your chosen area.)

The document that defines the courses that are acceptable says (rather 
unambiguously, I think) that any 500-level and above course is acceptable, 
though the six courses have to be divided among at least 3 "areas".  But 
Prof. Stembridge turned his nose up at one 500-level course and one 700- 
level independent study course on my transcript, saying they weren't 
difficult enough to count.

Worse, he wouldn't commit to saying my qualifiers were still valid.  He 
said he had "reservations".  He wanted to know what I'd been doing since 
leaving school, and then he asked if I'd forgotten all of the material I 
studied for the qualifier.  (I wanted to ask him if he could still pass 
them himself.  I'm sure most people who pass the exams couldn't pass them 
again a year later without a lot of study.)  I *really* don't want to take 
those tests again - I worked really hard to pass them once, and I feel 
like I paid those dues.

He also wanted me to check with him before I signed up for any courses in 
the future, to make sure they meet with his approval.  This is the kind of 
thing I really hate about school - being treated like a teenager.  I'd 
hoped I'd gotten past that, but I guess not.

So I've felt lousy and stressed out all day.  I went to lunch and ordered 
food, but then I couldn't eat it.

the chair sounds like a real dick. (are ALL chairs dicks?) massage his ego
a little and don't let him belittle you.

  Don't let the old "Good Prof / Bad Prof" routine get you down too much.
  If you're persistent there's usually a way to achieve what you want,
  although you might have to put up with a few extra hurdles.

  A few years ago I went back and finished a long-interrupted degree,
  though in my case it was an undergraduate degree in the College of
  Engineering.  Returning to student life after working for years took
  a lot of adjustment (for me, at least) and parts of the experience
  were quite frustrating.  Overall, however, I'm glad I did it and I
  think it's likely you will be too..

  Good luck..

Mark, where is it you're going to grad school?  U-M?

I left school without finishing my bachelor's degree.  After 8 years of 
being a marginal student (off and on, part-time sometimes) I didn't 
seem to be getting closer, and so it was time to change my life.  I've 
always regretted not finishing and not having a degree.  My employer 
pays for classes.  I looked into Cleary College last year, and I'm 
thinking it may be time to start looking at that, or something, once 
again.  Another possibility is the University of Phoenix, which has on-
line degree programs that might work better for me than attending 
classes.  (Or might not.

Anyway, your return to school is very interesting to me, and I 
definitely wish you well in doing it.  There are a lot of obstacles, 
such as that stuffy professor you mentioned.

Is it possible he just doesn't think you're a serious student?  Maybe 
when he sees you're determined, he'll give you some more support.

I have to say that, if you wanted any more admiration from me than you 
already have, you couldn't have picked a more certain way to get it 
than what you've decided to do.  It's very tough to change your life 
and go for a better one.

As an aside... are you going to post all these other "that's another 
story" stories someday?

Thanks oval, Mike, and John.  I would be interested in hearing ways to deal
with a person such as Prof. Stembridge.  (I don't know how to massage his
ego, I'm afraid.)  I guess I could go and try to impress upon him my
seriousness.  He didn't seem too impressed with my transcript though.  He
hardly looked at the recent part, which is the part that looks the best.

John - yes, UM.  I guess I'll post more stories if people are interested. 

Mark - my friend just got a job at NASA in Houston.  Let me know if you want
an "in".  ;-)

 re #16:

 > Thanks oval, Mike, and John.  I would be interested in hearing ways
 > to deal with a person such as Prof. Stembridge. 

 My chief advice when dealing with someone who seems as if they present
 an intractable obstacle to your plans is to remember that in *most*
 cases professors don't look forward to serving on academic guidance
 committees or in other similar positions and as a result they often
 serve in those capacities for a limited time before the job cycle ends
 and someone else is appointed to serve for the next period..  If you
 find the current occupant of any particular office impossible to deal
 with, the first thing to do is to see whether you can outlast their
 tenancy in the position before requiring a final decision.  If you
 can, then do what you can to postpone or avoid a final ruling until
 the committee assignments are reassigned and another person steps in,
 one who may potentially be more sympathetic to your position.

 In the meantime the worst thing you can do is provoke a final decision
 that conflicts with your position.  It's much harder to get a decision
 reversed once it's official but as long as you can avoid a final
 determination there's always still the possibility of getting your own
 way (or at least a more favorable settlement..)

Go for it, Mark.  Most of the people here believe that you only live once.

Mary thinks Mark has his head screwed on straight, admires his courage,
and believes that whatever decision he makes will be the right one. 

Re #18: Hmmm.  That does make a lot of sense, Mike.  I don't know how long
this guy will be the head of the committee; I wonder if there's a descrete
way to find out.  All things being equal, I'd like to get the question of my
qualifiers settled now so that I don't worry that they'll stick it to me
right before I'm about to defend my thesis.  But all things *not* being
equal, your advice to wait it out may make the most sense.

Thanks Steve and Mary, for your support.  I guess I have a real problem
dealing with authority figures who seem to have infinite power and want you
to do things their way.  Come to think of it, maybe everyone does.  But it
makes me feel helpless and angry and like I have no worth at all.

The last few years I've tried hard to make myself useful to other people; I
thought I'd internalized a feeling of self-worth.  But when I have to face
someone like this, it seems to crumble.  I had a hard time sleeping last
night, and I'm still stessed about it this morning.

Mark, can you talk again to the other professors who were more 
supportive, and see if they can give you any suggestions?  Maybe they 
can talk to the guy, or give you ideas on how to deal with him.

Talk to the prof's secretary.  Years ago I figured out that the old ladies
who do the paperwork are really the ones in charge, and they really only want
politeness in return.  The secretary (or the department secretary, maybe)
won't necessarily be able to change anything, but I'd be willing to bet you'll
learn something useful about the situation.

Another tactic is to find a faculty member to be your mentor/dissertation
committee advisor and let him or her show you how to get through the
hoops.  

Don't let the "rules" get in the way of getting through.  With a savvy
mentor and a good relationship with the secretaries, you can do most
anything.  

I've finished interrupted degrees twice (BA, then MA) and had the setup
for the PhD.  It is more a matter of someone who has stature saying that
he wants you for his student, than your doing things by the book.  

Think of the PhD system as a guild system, with apprentices and masters. 
You need a master to apprentice yourself to, who can tell you which of
the guild rules are really rules, and which ones are just hassles to keep
out the riffraff.  Your master will also be able to get some of the rules
bent for you, if he feels that you've met the spirit of the rule, but not
the picky detail.  

Once I figured this out, it was a breeze to get a mentor who would work
with me to get my degree from the system.  There's _always_ another way
to meet the requirements.  

one thing I've discovered about advisors:  they're finiky.  I'm not always
sure what makes the difference, but they will tell you totally different
things in different time periods.

Last year I went to see my advisor to plan this year's schedule.  At the time
I was in Analysis I, found it interesting, and wanted to take Analysis II.
My advisor told me that class was too difficult for stupid little me who got
a 2.5 in Abstract Algebra, and that I should take something else.  So I signed
up for the easier schedule he recommended.

This year I went back in, and told him that I wanted to take the graduate
level combinatorics course next year.  He told me he thought it was a great
idea.

I'm still confused.

You're getting a lot of good advice.  I think that talking to a faculty member
who's an ally should be your next step.

Thanks all.  I have indeed been talking with the secretaries, and one of
them did tell me not to worry about any graduate-school wide regulations,
because all it takes is a signature and they are waived.

Thanks Sarah, for the offer of an "in" at NASA.  I may call you on that.

Colleen - that makes a lot of sense, to get an advisor on my side.  THat is
the next step anyway.  I know who I want to ask, and I will do so next week.
We'll see what he says.

I'll also see if I can ask one of the secretaries about how to handle the
situation.  Scott's idea that I might learn something useful is a good one.

Sign in an employee-only area of the outpatient physical therapy unit at St.
Joe's:  "Do you want the man in charge?  Or the woman who knows what's going
on?"

Another suggestion might be to get one of those "how to work for a 
jerk" books. The situation is not completely analogous, but it might 
contain some advice on how to deal with jerks who have some authority 
over you.

When I read response #29, I thought this was the item in which Anne was 
talking about her boss, and I thought, "Not completely analogous? What do 
you mean?"

Well, I breezed right through my PhD, and crashed and burned when I 
came up for tenure.  Instead of trying again at another University, I 
reminded myself of all the things that pissed me off about academia and 
swore the whole thing off for good.  So as a source of advice for Mark, 
I'm coming simultaneously from ahead and behind.  I know all about 
getting PhD's.  Did it myself and served as advisor for four other 
people who got theirs.  But when I failed I never even attempted a 
second try, and never will, though in many ways I miss being "Professor 
Wolter".  The title has built in prestige, whereas calling myself "Dr 
Wolter" when I'm not an MD just seems silly and pretentious.

I don't think having a PhD does much for me post-academia.  Mostly 
people either don't know I have one, or have forgotten I have one.  
Occasionally I get some mail addressed to "Dr Wolter".  It's always 
from the U of M Alumni Fundraisers, who seem to be the only people who 
still care.  I do occasionally tromp it out to impress idiots, but most 
of the respect I get in my programming business is for my programming, 
not my degree.

I think part of the difference in our motivation is the fields.  You 
like doing math (but can program).  I like programming (but can do 
math).  Nobody needs a PhD to earn money and respect in the programming 
business.  The math business is not the same.  Maybe you really do need 
the PhD.

Funny, I got inspired my a movie too.  In my case "Hook".  Problem is, 
I've forgotten exactly what I was inspired to do.  It was either the 
idea of taking a year off from work to do some of my own stuff, or to 
dump academia and go freelance.  One of the problems I had with the 
professor job was that once in it, my future seemed all mapped out - 
assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, emeritus 
professor, teach classes, apply for grants, publish papers, maybe jump 
universities a couple times along the way.  A rut long and deep enough 
to contain the rest of my life.  One of the advantages of being 
freelance is that I no longer know what my future will hold.  Leaves 
more room for dreaming.  Anyway, "Hook" was a inspiration for escaping 
the rut, I just can't remember which escape it inspired.

My second cousin graduated with a PhD in Math from Berkeley and got a 
job for JPL.  It had something to do with calculating trajectories for 
unmanned space probes.  She said everyone thought her job was cool, but 
it was actually boring.  She left it years ago.  I have the feeling 
that being at NASA/JPL is kind of like being a forest ranger.  Lots of 
people want to be rangers (outdoorsy, adventurous, authoritative, 
sociable).  So they can get lots of really good rangers even though the 
pay is terrible and the working conditions are awful.  They can even 
get lots of good people to work in crummy stupid non-ranger jobs, 
because they are hoping it will be a stepping stone to one of the few 
really cool jobs.  I'm guessing my cousin had one of the boring, stupid 
jobs at JPL.  Maybe space has gotten unfashionable enough so that this 
isn't as true anymore.  Maybe it was never true.  I'm over-generalizing 
from one data point.

Come to think of it, I had another good friend who worked at JPL.  He 
did a lot of design work on mobile robots for Mars exploration.  He was 
something of a natural politician and soon advanced high enough so that 
he had funds at his disposal.  Whenever I'd see him at a conference, it 
would been nearly impossible to talk because there would be flocks of 
hungry academics fluffing their feathers around him, hoping to attract 
some grant money. He actually seemed to enjoy the robot work, but I 
lost touch with him and don't know what he's up to.

My advisor did a lot of work on the Space Station Freedom project, 
serving on lots and lots of committees, where they discussed all sorts 
of issues about how to handle large space construction projects, until 
the project got downsized into a small space construction project.

Though I always used to think space would be the coolest thing, none of 
these things ever looked all that tempting to me.

Re-take the exams.

The exams serve three purposes.  First, they ensure well-roundedness in 
the students - a student receiving a PhD in math should be pretty darn 
good at real analysis even if his thesis is in topology (some 
universities achieve this with exams, some with distribution 
requirements, many with both).  Second, they ensure that students 
starting on thesis research have a solid foundation of knowledge to 
work on.  Third, they weed out the under-motivated and hopelessly dim 
students.

I remember studying for the exams as an extremely educational 
experience.  I'd had all the courses.  Reviewing and relearning all 
that material for a second time tied it together in my mind much more 
completely than the first time around.  You've been away from this 
stuff much longer that I ever was.  An excuse to review and restudy all 
this material would probably do you a lot of good.

Plus, this is the horse that threw you last time.  Are you still under-
motivated?  Might as well find out up front.  You seem to have doubts 
about your own ability to pass these exams.  That's a much bigger 
problem than some old professor doubting you.  Confront them.  Anyway, 
look at all the dopes who manage to pass them.  I used to make up 
questions for these things, and we'd always bend over backwards to make 
them fair and easy.  Half the purpose of the exam was already served 
before the student started taking it.  And the people we wanted to 
filter out would be filtered out even by quite straightforward 
questions.  Those aren't worth being intimidated by.

You seem to be good at finding people to study with.  I was never able 
to do that as a student - I always worked alone unless an assignment 
required you to work as a team.  I didn't learn about finding groups to 
work with until I was a professor.  Get yourself a study group for the 
exam, so you can teach it as you relearn it.  Approached with the right 
mindset, you could have fun surveying the field with some other bright 
people.

Hmmm.  Taking the exams wasn't the horse that threw me.  In fact they were
the last clear-cut requirement I had before I left, and I worked at it
until until I had passed them. 

I will take them if I have to, but it will require at least a summer's worth
of studying, I think, and perhaps a whole year.  And the content of the
exams has changed some since I took them, so I may have to take another
course (hopefully not all 6) in order to pass them.

I don't know what the ones you made up were like, but the ones I took
weren't easy.  I don't doubt that I could pass them, given enough work.
And yes, I did learn some from studying for them.

But I want to get on with the rest of the work toward the degree, so I can
finish as soon as possible.  I feel like I paid these particular dues,
learned what's required to be a well-rounded mathematician.  If I don't
remember everything I knew 10 years ago, well, who does?  Would that be
any different if I had finished, say, when Paul did in '96?

I still consider a PhD... I got my MA last year. I like the idea of 
being an English professor. I think I'd enjoy it, and I actually dig 
the "Dr" title. I could happily teach, provided I was given a wide 
variety of courses and some eager students here and there.

Alas, grad school killed me financially (I had an assistantship which 
paid my tuition, but the stipend I earned was meager). And the idea of 
scraping by for another 3-4 years does not appeal to me in the least. 
And like Mark, I think about the age issue. By the time I finished, I'd 
be 33/34. And professorships aren't always easy to come by. So being in 
my 30s, then searching for a job for years also doesn't work for me.

But a PhD in math, I think, is more lucrative than a PhD in English. 
Not many English scholars needed at NASA. :) 

Jan - do you mean "Hook" as in the Robin Williams Peter Pan movie?

Yup.  The movie has many defects, and the lesson I drew from it isn't 
actually in it, exactly, but the feeling I was looking for sort of is.  
It mostly just happened to be there at the right time.

I'd missed that Mark had passed all three exams.  I'd thought he only 
did two out of three.  Then I'm less inclined to think the tests should 
be redone, but if the department wants you to, I wouldn't consider it 
any great problem, and even marginally useful.

Do you have an idea of what area you'd want to do a thesis in?  It 
might be time to start building connections with the relevant faculty.

Relevant faculty is what I meant by mentor.  Someone who thinks of you as
"his" student is much more likely to _consistently_ help you around
obstacles, as opposed to an advisor, who doesn't feel the same personal
stake in your success.  

Last I heard, UM paid its graduate student teaching assistants about $18K per
year plus tuition and health insurance.  A friend of ours became a park ranger
and said he spent half his time telling people where the bathroom and the
nearest coke machine were, and the other rangers did nothing with their free
time but watch TV (in the Smokies and Hawaii).  He became an 8th grade
teacher instead.  Hopefully Mark already likes the work he would be doing with
a math PhD.

Re #35: The requirements were, and are, that everyone has to pass 2
qualifier exams, and pass the relevant courses in the other area(s). There
used to be 3 areas (algebra, analysis, and topology) and since I passed
they have added a fourth (applied analysis).  I passed the topology exam
shortly after finishing the course sequence, and the algebra exam (on the
second try) the following January. 

So I did only pass 2 exams, but taking a third would have been fairly
massochistic, since it wasn't required. :)

I've been thinking about what you said, though, Jan, and I could study
this summer and possibly pass in the fall.  The problem is I really don't
know how long it will take me to remember all that stuff, and I'm worried
about new stuff they've added.

I'm thinking about working in coding theory.  Coding theory is about
finding effiicient ways of encoding information to send over a noisy
channel, so that it can be reconstructed on the other end even if there
are some errors in the transfer.  I am just finishing a course in it now.
It went well, and the professor seems like a nice guy.  It meets most of
my criteria for an area I want to work in, which are:

1. I'd like something more discrete than continuous, and more algebraic
than analytic.

2. I'd like to do something that people outside of mathematics care about,
at least a little.

3. If at all possible, I'd like to draw pictures.

4. If at all possible, I'd like to be able to do some programming to
support my research. 

Last semester, we didn't get to draw any pictures, but my understanding is
that there are some codes that derive from geometric objects (elliptic
curves).  I plan to take a course on that in the fall.  I'd also like to
learn some about cryptography, though it seems that there is no one in the
math department who is deep into it.  But the Electrical
Engineering/Computer Science department (EECS) has a course, and I could
take that for one of my cognate requirements.

So I plan on asking my professor from last semester if he'll be willing to
work with me.

Well, I'm coming at this from what may be a whole other world -- as a Ph.D.
student in Culture Studies, which is a bit of a marginalized field in its own
right, but I found that the so-called "real world" of industry (working as an
editor and a part-time comp instructor) didn't allow me to pursue my vocational
passions the way I wanted to. Having earned an M.A. in English back in 1992, I
was still stuck doing donkey-work for a living for years afterward.

Then one day, on a Star Trek mailing list where I had made many good friends, I
joked that I wished I could get a Ph.D. by writing a dissertation on DS9. A
professor on the list wrote back to me privately and said: "You can. It's
called Culture Studies."

Once I found out that Bowling Green State University in Ohio had a program in
American Culture Studies that included Popular Culture and English as options
for areas of concentration, I knew what I had to do. I'd spent around seven
years in the informal "university" of fandom, becoming involved with and
passionate about that culture. I had seen academic work done on the culture of
fandom (most notably Henry Jenkins' fabulous book "Textual Poachers") -- and I
knew this was where I had to go to merge my obsession with my vocation. My
professor friend from the DS9 list wrote one of my letters of recommendation,
and after a slow start in putting together my application, I was tapped for a
teaching assistantship.

Grad school certainly hasn't been all fun and games. I was 35 when I started;
I'm 37 now and have a three-month-old son. Life is only going to get more
complex from here on, but I love what I'm doing. I'm helping to edit a
collection of scholarly essays on slash fiction, and I start on my dissertation
in the fall. I would encourage anyone who wants a Ph.D. to do it. I'm sure that
some schools and some departments are tougher than others, but for me anyway,
this really was something that I felt strongly "called" to do (as weird as that
sounds). I love the idea of writing pointy-headed research on TV shows for the
rest of my life ... in between writing fanfic epics, of course.

So my advice is the old Joseph Campbell saw "follow your bliss" -- and don't
let a couple of cranky faculty members get you down (you'll find them
everywhere). You will find support from mentors in your field when and where
you need it -- if you keep looking.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss