When do you know things are actually going poorly in graduate school?

Question

When does someone know things are actually going poorly in graduate school? Each time folks post about being behind, it's always assumed that graduate students are such high achievers that they have imposter's syndrome. However, I have always pondered instances where things do actually go poorly. To be clear, I am not including the obvious instances like a Master's student never finishing their thesis, low grades, or not passing doctoral qualifiers twice. I'm referring in this instance to those who may graduate with a resume and/or CV that is lackluster for one reason or another and they may have been oblivious to it or were actually doing the bare minimum.

Using myself as an example, my master's grades were quite low, but it wasn't until I got feedback from the program director that said my GPA and GRE scores weren't ideal, and my thesis defense committee spoke about their concerns for me at length, that I finally realized I wasn't getting the typical "even the best students get criticized to smooth them out" treatment. It was legitimately indicated that I was somehow not material for moving on to the next level. I did anyway, but I continued to struggle.

I get there are program specifics in some instances, but what are common signs graduate school isn't going well? Furthermore, why does this only come up after results are in?

Answer 1

For most of us, the signs are nearly invisible until they are obvious. You "know" things are bad when you are told so. Failing comprehensives or having a stern lecture from your advisor are obvious signs.

But many (most?) of us aren't especially good at self awareness or self diagnosis. Burn out can be hard on a person. Poor study habits (cramming for exams, not taking good notes) might not be obvious to a person who has done well without much effort previously. And, everyone is different. And nearly everyone reaches their natural level of ability, after which only hard work leads to success.

The best advice I can give, and I wish I'd gotten it earlier, is that if you have suspicions or doubts about your progress and standing, talk to a professional. That might be your advisor or another faculty member, but it might also be someone in an office of student support; even a counsellor or psychologist.

Answer 2

Like many things, communication is key. My experience with my own master's, and working with other grad students during my degree and after was that those students who had good constant communication with someone did best. Sometimes this was their advisor, or generic person within the department, every school and program is a little different. But you WILL hit setbacks, they could be in classes, in research, or just in your personal life, but it impacts your academic life. You need to be checking in with those people whoever they are. They will know what you should be focusing on, and help you navigate different challenges.

Additionally, what you want matters a lot to a grad degree. If you just want your master's degree and to move on, then a C probably isn't a big deal. If you want to get into a top PhD, then sure grades might matter a lot more. If you are doing research at the same time, you might have to have a conversation with your advisor along the lines of "Hey, my classes are really piling up right now, and it's important that I do well for what I want to do after this. I might need to do a few less hours of research the next couple of weeks". Additionally, if research and publishing papers are more important sometimes it's fine for classes to take a bit of a hit.

In my own time, I also found professors of classes I was taking to be pretty understanding if you are actually putting in work. I had a child during my MS and professors were really understanding about giving me an extra day when I needed it or letting me reschedule things to be able to help my wife. Sometimes this meant getting assignments or tests early to make sure my weekend was clear etc... Showing that you are willing to "give", not just take, goes a long way.

Answer 3

You can compare to your peers. Your peers are those other students enrolled in the same graduate school. It's relatively easy for courses: if you're consistently scoring lower grades than them, then things are going poorly. Research is more difficult to measure, but there are still things you can look at: are they making more progress in their projects? You can gain some sense of this during your research group's meetings. If they regularly have new results to report to your supervisor, then they are doing well (are you?). Another metric is if they are publishing more papers.

In your case, it seems to me that the poor grades are a warning sign. C is not a good grade, and getting more than one C in core courses is a red flag; in fact if your goal is to do well, I'd say getting B's is not good enough either.

Answer 4

This answer is very long (sorry!), so in brief: things "going poorly" often depends on the subjective goals of the student, so it's important to figure out what those are and what's needed to achieve them. Being as proactive about communication as possible, and forming clear plans can give you a way to track your progress.

---

I get there are program specifics in some instances, but what are common signs graduate school isn't going well? Furthermore, why does this only come up after results are in?

Aside from the egregious cases mentioned before, "going poorly" depends a lot on the students' desired outcome- did they just want to get a Masters as a terminal degree? Make themselves competitive for top PhD programs? Finish the PhD and off to industry, or are they aiming for academia? This is made more difficult by the fact that "good" grad students are expected to be self-starters. The onus is on them to figure out what success looks like with respect to their goals, program and subfield, and then proactively aim for it.

So what can a grad student do to figure this out?

Talk to people - your advisor, any senior academics you have a report with, postdocs, gradating students who are pursuing the career path you want (!)- anyone who seems remotely qualified in your field and enjoys holding forth on what makes a successful grad student. Talk to your fellow students as well, just take their advice with a grain of salt. Before starting my PhD, I read "The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research" and "A PhD is not enough", both of which I'd recommend (especially the former). All of this should give you seem idea of what you need to accomplish during your program, which should be sanity checked by your supervisor, and then roughly sketched out. In my specific case, I befriended all the outgoing PhD students, and built my goal list based on (what my supervisor wanted) + (the program requirements) + (the outgoing students's advice) + (what I wanted my CV to look like to be competitive for applications) + (peer-recommended whimsy).

Once you have these goals, you can use them to determine warning signs that things aren't going well:

• You're feeling persistently upset/frustrated/stuck for an extended period of time
• You're not keeping up with benchmarks (skipping group or supervisor meetings, not publishing on schedule, falling behind on assignments,...)
• You're getting close to failing a goal

These aren't signs that you're a failure, or are failing grad school: just that you should talk to someone, and possibly adapt some plans.

Each time folks post about being behind, it's always assumed that graduate students are such high achievers that they have imposter's syndrome.

I would like to offer an alternative perspective: it's normal for grad students to experience setbacks and overcome them. Arguably, things have "been going poorly" for most students at some point. Most supervisors will expect this and be understanding, and/or assume that their student is doing their best under difficult circumstances (especially if the student indicate that they recently had medical issues). Your grad school experience will survive things going poorly for a bit: the key is to try and avoid that going so far as to derail your plans.

Answer 5

It is very easy to know if you are doing poorly in graduate school, because "doing poorly" is arbitrary, outside of major milestones (finish or not finish). And because it is arbitrary, you compare your progress to the expected progress and actual progress of your peers.

By comparing, you should look into, first, the status of reaching milestones and deadlines of your projects, feedback from advisors, the frequency of engaging in academic discussions, collaborations, publication count, and lastly networking.

You would look into this and compare your current status with a known student of the previous year, maybe through your supervisor. This is the expected progress. Then you can look into peers of yours in the same year and see how they are doing; this is the actual progress. You will, of course, see some differences that indicate you are falling behind either the expected or actual progress.

For example, you lack feedback, but it was because the feedback came in late. Or if you have a lesser number of publications but your publications have high quality of work. Or you don't attend seminars often, but you spend the time on your research and work on publications. If those logical explanations can't really balance all the factors and still get you a negative overview, then you are doing poorly, at least, compared to your own standard.