Grad School Anxiety

[TsPoet]

You are all making me reconsider graduate school



No, not really

But I am disheartened to discover that this feeling is "normal" It just seems like it shouldn't have to be that way

I'm not so sure that 50% of these feelings are self-imposed. Those of us who chose this way have a worry/mentality about it and stress ourselves out a lot. The other 50% is the why its designed to be.
I loved graduate school - up until the last 6 months or so. Worked my tail off, though.

[Possegal]

It's been many years since I got my degree, but this thread brings back so many feelings (few of them good) . It really is a tough time (hey, if it were easy, everyone would do it!). Hang in there, know that you aren't alone, and know that 'this too shall pass'.

When I taught some nursing grad students, one of the things I had to do frequently was remind them that although they were all 4.0 students as undergrads, odds of that happening in grad school were slim. Now they had jobs and families and life getting in the way. A 3.0 wasn't that bad a thing. Plus, I can say that at no point in time once I had that degree, has anyone asked me what my GPA was. Sure, it was hard to let go of the desire to have a 4.0. But once I let that go, it was liberating. And I got my degree and went on to a nice career, with no one thinking I was less a person because I didn't have a 4.0.

So sorry about your grandmother. That is just one more thing you didn't need right now. I lost someone very close to me about 9 months before I finished. It was tough, but I knew that she was so proud of me the day they put that hood over my shoulders. Your grandmother will still be so very proud of you. And that wanting to call thing - yay, that kinda never really goes away. My mum's been gone 10 yrs now, and I STILL reach for the phone to call her. Less now than the first few years, but I do still do it.

Good luck. I do hope it helped you some to hear so many of us say - oh yeah, been there, done that.

The day I defended my degree, called my mother to tell her. She told me, and I quote "I'm going to call your siblings and tell them. Then I'm going to bed, because this has been the longest 5 years of my life." See, it's even a very tough time on some Mum's out there.