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grad school woes
Oct. 7th, 2014 01:01 pmSo, I’m in writing class, right? We work on scholarly materials, like articles for publication, dissertations/theses, chapters for books, things like that. In the first couple week of classes, we selected partners for writing groups, who we’re supposed to meet with throughout the semester while sharing our works, revising, editing, all those fun things.
I’m the only Master’s student in the class, the rest being doctoral candidates, and they all know each other, have known each other for at least a year. So for the writing group selections, it came down to me and one other person who didn’t have a group, so we were paired by default.
(What’s interesting is that she was a TA for a class I took a year ago. Huh.)
Anyway, so my projects for this class are my Methodology and Literature Review chapters because those are the two I’m having trouble conceptualizing. Our first paper is due next Monday (Oct. 13) so I’ve been focusing on the Methodology.
For our first meeting, I sent my partner what I had, and she sent me something that’s already been published to give me a feel for her dissertation. We’re not going to have a second meeting because she has no time at all to meet anywhere in the city, which, that’s fine. (No. It’s not.) And when I sent her my second-to-final draft, she did not reply that she got it. I sent it to her on Friday (Oct. 3) and finally emailed her again on Sunday, asking the interwebs ate my first email, and when she would be sending her draft.
She replied that evening that she does not have a paper she wants me to read, and that she will return mine with comments. Today (Oct. 7) I finally received her comments. She’s suggesting quite a lot of revision and more theoretical stuff – which would’ve been good to know over the weekend, and I guess what I’ll spend most of Friday doing.
Every class meeting, the teacher asks how the writing groups are going, and everyone is so enthusiastic because they’re so amazing, they’re getting so much work done. My group has met once. I just… am I doing this wrong? Should I talk to my advisor, who is the teacher? What is my partner going to turn in?
I’m just so frustrated.
I’m the only Master’s student in the class, the rest being doctoral candidates, and they all know each other, have known each other for at least a year. So for the writing group selections, it came down to me and one other person who didn’t have a group, so we were paired by default.
(What’s interesting is that she was a TA for a class I took a year ago. Huh.)
Anyway, so my projects for this class are my Methodology and Literature Review chapters because those are the two I’m having trouble conceptualizing. Our first paper is due next Monday (Oct. 13) so I’ve been focusing on the Methodology.
For our first meeting, I sent my partner what I had, and she sent me something that’s already been published to give me a feel for her dissertation. We’re not going to have a second meeting because she has no time at all to meet anywhere in the city, which, that’s fine. (No. It’s not.) And when I sent her my second-to-final draft, she did not reply that she got it. I sent it to her on Friday (Oct. 3) and finally emailed her again on Sunday, asking the interwebs ate my first email, and when she would be sending her draft.
She replied that evening that she does not have a paper she wants me to read, and that she will return mine with comments. Today (Oct. 7) I finally received her comments. She’s suggesting quite a lot of revision and more theoretical stuff – which would’ve been good to know over the weekend, and I guess what I’ll spend most of Friday doing.
Every class meeting, the teacher asks how the writing groups are going, and everyone is so enthusiastic because they’re so amazing, they’re getting so much work done. My group has met once. I just… am I doing this wrong? Should I talk to my advisor, who is the teacher? What is my partner going to turn in?
I’m just so frustrated.