Please Consider a Pot Roast

To quote Stephan Pastis's Pearls Before Swine: How many roasts must a man wok, Downs, before he is called a nan?  If you're unaware it's a pun playing off the question "How many roads must a man walk down before he is called a man?" which Bob Dylan used in his song "Blowing in the Wind" as a philosophical statement.  Yes dear reader, I I did just explain the joke, you're just going to have to deal with it.  

So, what's all this rambling mean about grad school?  Well, not much, other than that the pun fits well into the analogy I want to make.  Consider a pot roast.  They make fantastic meals, but they also take a fair amount of time to cook.  Generally, you follow the rule of about an hours cook time per pound.  So a 4lb roast takes 4 hours in the crock pot.  There is no speeding it up.  It takes as long as it takes.  And that idea does have a lot to do with grad school.  

Anyone who's ever taken a chemistry lab knows that reactions take as long as they take.  Thawing frozen reagents take as long as it takes. Your experimental protocol takes as long as it takes. Writing and editing a paper takes as long as it takes and then some (my lab has a paper that's been in review for 18 months in large part because of COVID but still).  Perhaps most importantly, your degree takes as long as it takes.

More than just taking as much time as it takes, your degree may take more or less time than the people around you, even those working on similar projects or with the same advisor.  A lab mate in my cohort (same advisor) is trying to plan her pre-lim exam.  I don't even have data for my first committee meeting yet.  It's the difference in the projects we work on, and the problems that have come up.  I have another friend from my cohort who has even less to show for the last year than I do, but I know has been in the lab working just as much if not more than I have.  

If you are or have been in grad school, you already know this, but if you haven't, or your family hasn't, you need to understand that grad school isn't like college.  There is no specific number of credits you need to get and then you're done.  It's a work of scholarship, and you keep working on it until your committee decides what you have done is sufficient.  Oh, there are guidelines, and trends, but these aren't actual rules (Welcome aboard the Scholar Ship, Ms. Turner!).  

I've sure you've heard this advise time and again, that we cannot measure our progress against someone else's.  I know I've heard it plenty, but it's hard.  We like to have standards, and benchmarks to measure against.  We need a certain validation on how we're doing, and the only things we have around us are other people.  I don't have an answer for where to find that validation.  Not for you, and not even for myself.  But I can tell you where it's not.  It's not in the progress of those around you.  And I'm gonna keep on telling you that until I start to believe it myself.  Your degree is like a pot roast.  It's going to take as long as it takes.

There was one other idea wrapped up in this when I first started.  I don't know about the rest of you, but when I talk to my family, worried about getting everything done, and worried about meeting deadlines, I usually get a response something like "I'm sure you can do it."  The intent of course is to be supportive and affirming, but sometimes that comes across really hollow.  It doesn't matter how much my family believes in me, if I only have two hours until guests arrive, I don't have time to cook a pot roast.  So, instead of saying "I'm sure you can get it done." Try something like "What you can do is enough."  Maybe you can't fix a pot roast, but burgers, or a frozen pizza still gets everyone fed.  Understand what the priorities are (in this metaphor, that everyone gets fed), and do what you can to meet those goals.  It doesn't have to be perfect, just do what you can, and it'll be enough.  

Any, that's enough of my incoherent ravings for one post.

So be well, 
and always check the meat thermometer.  
Faxe MacAran