I received an email from Andrew, my nephew-in-law, this morning asking about my experience as a graduate student so far. Specifically, he asked,
Just wondering how you are doing? How is your program and such?
Usually this kind of question elicits a very short response along the lines of,
Good! I’m having fun and doing well.
Today the response was unusually long and opinionated. I felt I answered his question honestly and to the best of my ability. As you’ll read, I have had some disappointments as I started the master’s program. I still am dedicated to my goal of earning a master’s degree, so don’t read into this email too heavily. Instead I wanted to give my raw answers because I think they will help those looking into a master’s program. The following is my response to Andrew’s inquiry. Thanks go to Andrew for prompting me to record these thoughts and feelings.
Your questions are not easy to answer. The short answer is I’m doing great and like getting paid to go to school. I think you want a little more detail than that, so let me try to distill some of my thoughts and experiences.
I felt uncertain as to what direction I wanted to take with my career during the last semester at BYU. I still felt uncertain when I graduated, so I thought it was a no-brainer to take the offer to get a free master’s with a fairly generous monthly stipend. I thought that the master’s program would help me figure out my career path. I don’t think that this is the right approach to a master’s program. I believe that I would be getting a lot more out of the program if I had confidence in a career path.
The geography program is dwarfed by the geology program at the University of Arkansas. Both programs are in the Department of Geosciences. This is unfortunate because it makes the geography students feel like the proverbial red-headed step-children. All departmental emails and notifications are meant for geologists. Most of the outside speakers and job interviewers are from energy companies looking for geologists. This casts doubt on my chance for networking with a more broad spectrum of fields.
BYU really does have a great undergrad program for geography. My current classes are basically review and are not extremely challenging. That said, the quality of education here is really great; I’ve just covered the material before.
Even though I got to know my adviser a little before I started classes, I still feel like we have slightly different expectations. He is heavily slanted toward remote sensing while I feel drawn more toward GIS. At BYU GIS is a legitimate subject of study, while here at the University of Arkansas I have been told that it should only be a tool for your “real” research. I believe this is true to a degree, however I also believe that there is a legitimate need for people who are experts in GIS that aren’t ethno-botanists or geologists or whatever the physical geography one chooses to study. Because I am not a physical geographer I feel that I am an incomplete student, or one that hasn’t really discovered what he’s passionate about. I’m just passionate about different things than everyone else here. This is kind of related to my first point.
My workstation at the University of Arkansas
One of the best things about the program for me is my work. I get paid to research NDVI patterns in the Middle East (Fertile Crescent). Even though it’s a physical geography topic, I am focusing more on coding and GIS models. This is also my thesis. I am lucky that I am literally being paid to work on my thesis.
So, these are my thoughts and grievances up till this point. All of these could have been mitigated by a few simple things I could have done. 1. Decide if you want to get a master’s degree. If yes, commit yourself to it. Really make it your goal. Don’t just go along for the ride like I did. 2. Research master’s programs around the country. Each master’s program will have a bias toward one aspect of geography (or geology in my case). I would recommend ranking schools with independent geography departments above those with geosciences or similar departments. 3. Research the course offerings. If it seems like there are a lot of interesting courses, that is a good thing. I know, this sounds like a “no duh” thing, but here at the University of Arkansas I am a little worried that I won’t be introduced to a lot of new concepts in my classes. 4. Get to know some of the professors at your top school choices. First, before contacting them, get to know their work and interests. A lot of schools post this info on their websites. When you contact them, let them know you are a prospective master’s candidate and are very interested in their field of study. Tell them your interests and requirements of a master’s program and ask their opinion of their program with respect to your interests. Ask some specifics like how many students are currently working on their master’s at the school. 5. Don’t settle for less benefits than waved tuition, and unless you want to work in the industry while going to school, a graduate assistantship (research or teaching). I think these are really common. Sean has a teaching assistantship while I have a research assistantship. He has to help teach the lab portion of a class while I work on a coding GIS model to analyze NDVI of the Fertile Crescent over the last 30 years.
There you have it. I’m sure things will continue to change and evolve as I go through the program, so feel free to ask my feelings any time.
Do you have any questions about anything in this post? Leave me a comment and I’ll try to answer.
So, we woke up at 3 am for our 6 am flight. We needed to drive an hour and a quarter to the airport and then drop off the rental car and then get through security. We accomplished all of these things and were feeling good about the trip, ready for it to be over. When we got the the boarding gate, we found that the flight was oversold and we would not be able to get on that flight. No big deal right? There had to have been another flight to Salt Lake leaving soon. Wrong. The next flight was at 6 pm. And it was oversold as well. Not only that, there was a major snowstorm in SLC which was messing up the flight schedules. We did some investigation and found out that the next possible chance of us actually catching a flight (standby or not) was 6 pm on Friday. Mind you it’s now Wednesday at 6 am.
Frustrated and perplexed at our situation, we decided it might be good to rent a car and drive home. Upon consultation with the parents, we decided that their peace of mind was more important than getting home a few hours quicker than a Greyhound bus. We choose to catch the bus in Oklahoma City(OKC) and ride on it’s circuitous route through OK, TX, NM, CO, WY, and UT. All told, we planned on getting home at 11 pm on Thursday – a 26 hour experience. Because we had not gotten much sleep the night before, we got a ride with Sean’s brother and sister-in-law back to OKC and slept/relaxed until the departure time of 9 pm. Sean’s brother and sister-in-law then were kind enough to drop us off at the bus station in downtown OKC. They were lifesavers for us on the trip!
The immediate impulse upon arriving at the bus station was to hold on to all valuable possessions as tightly as possible. There was quite a variety of travelers, from two wide eyed BYU students to an Indian cowboy to those who have destroyed their lives through drugs and alcohol. We gingerly, yet quickly made our way to the ticket counter and picked up our tickets. We then immediately turned around and waited for the bus to load outside of the building.
When we boarded the bus, it seemed nice enough. It had WiFi, electrical outlets, and plenty of leg room. At this point, the passengers were fairly calm and the first leg of the trip was uneventful. We made it to Amarillo, TX at about 1:30 am and just had to wait until 3 am to catch the transfer bus. 3 am came and went and the transfer bus did not show up. People started getting worried and grumpy. I was just standing against a wall waiting, with my backpack at my feet. That is when the dirtiest, nastiest man sat next to my backpack. He had blood smeared across his cheek and every time he sneezed, the entire front of his shirt would be flecked with liquid. His leg slowly got closer and closer to my backpack, eventually touching it slightly. I picked up my backpack at that point and basically held it for the rest of the trip. I’m all for compassion, but I don’t need the sickness this guy had.
Also during this wait time, a man who had been sleeping in the corner woke up and started freaking out about how he is bipolar and schizophrenic. The Greyhound worker had to stand next to him until he left the station because he was “a threat to the safety of the other passengers”. The bus eventually came at 4 am which made everyone stressed out because we had another transfer in Denver which we knew we were going to miss since the bus was so late.
When we got on the bus we noticed that it was nothing like the nice new bus we had done the first leg of the trip on. It was old, dirty, and cramped but we were just happy not to be in that nasty Amarillo station anymore. By now, I was exhausted and it was still dark outside. I slept intermittently until 7 am when we stopped at a McDonald’s for breakfast. The redeeming quality of the old bus was that the seat cushions were so broken in that I was able to get comfortable enough to sleep – something all the other buses lacked.
We eventually made it to Denver around 1 pm, an hour after the transfer bus was supposed to leave. Amazingly, they had held it back just for us. (I think 90% of the passengers were on my bus – that’s why they held it back.) Denver was just getting the snowstorm that had messed up our flight plans, so the drivers immediately put on snow chains (which we lost about an hour and a half later). We started out from Denver on I-70, a major highway but before I knew it we were winding our way down mountain roads covered in snow and ice heading towards Steamboat Springs, CO. That was the most tedious portion of the trip because it was near white-out conditions on a narrow road whose markings couldn’t bee seen. Yeah – not fun.
We slowly crawled our way to Kremmling, CO where we stopped at Subway for dinner. There was one poor girl working that night, and 40 ravenous, grumpy bus passengers. She quickly called in backup and, although we were there for an hour or so, we all got served. While there one of our fellow passengers fainted while in line to buy food. Thus, an ambulance was called and the man had to be treated while the rest of the bus waited. All I can say is that it was unwanted excitement. I know that sounds callous, but if you’re going to judge me, ride a Greyhound bus across 4 states first. (Plus, he was just fine after about 25 minutes.)
The going was slow from then on. There was just too much snow to drive fast safely. The drivers did a good job of keeping us safe, if not entertained. We provided our own entertainment: watching Terminator Salvation on Sean’s iPad. We weren’t supposed to play music/movies without headphones, so we shared a pair. About 3 minutes into the movie I sense a presence near my left ear (between Sean and me). At about the same moment, the man behind us says, “Hey guys what’cha watching?” We told him. “Well, turn it up then!”, was his response. We explained that we couldn’t and he understood but decided that he wanted to watch it anyway, so for the next hour and a half we had an old guy peering over our seats watching a soundless movie. Weird.
About 2 am we rolled into Roosevelt, UT and the bus driver unabashedly announces that both he and the co-driver had run out of hours for the day. That meant that we were stuck for who-knows-how-long in the parking lot of a convenience store. We found out how long who-knows-how-long is. It is almost exactly 6 hours. That’s right, we sat on the bus for an additional 6 hours while it did not move. That might have been the worst part of the trip because we were so close yet so far.
Eventually a backup bus driver arrived and drove us the rest of the way to SLC. If you do, after reading this story, decide to take the Greyhound bus anywhere I would recommend starting at SLC and ending in SLC because the SLC bus station is BY FAR the nicest bus station we stopped at. I made it to my apartment approximately 39 hours after boarding the bus in OKC. Ugh.
Sean and I came up with these titles as we were on the last leg of the trip yesterday at about 3 am. I don’t know when I’ll get to actually writing the tragic events of the past week, so enjoy these for now.
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round…and Round and Round and Round
How Many Smoking Breaks From Tulsa to Salt Lake City?
Words That Should Never Be Spoken In Front Of Or To Children
The Scream of the Cat-Child and Other Long Stories Which Will Keep You From Sleeping
If You’re A Californian or A Mormon, Prepare to Be Insulted
Eye For An Eye, Tooth For A Tooth: Greyhound Owes Me Its Back
Why I Never Want To Be A True Frugal Traveller
1001 Diseases Unique to Greyhound Riders and Where They Fester
Giving the ‘People of Walmart’ a Run For Their Money
Bad Parenting 101
Life or Death? Choose the Opposite of Greyhound
Ripening With Strangers: A Fruit of the Loom Tragedy
My Phone is Not the Only Thing That Died on the Bus (Sean)
1000 Miles on 1000 Calories: Giving Ghandi a Run for His Money (Sean)
Like the Hogworts Express with Herpes Instead of Magic (Sean)
Like the Hogworts Express but Strands You in the Middle of Fricking Nowhere (Sean)
Like the Hogworts Express but People Bring a Different Kind of Magic
Like the Hogworts Express Except the Puking Pasties are Puking Children
Greyhound, Almost as Much Fun as an Enema (Sean)
Please Get Me Back to School So I Can Do Something Fun Like Homework
How I Learned That the Sickly, Emaciated Dog for Which Greyhound Was Named Refers Less to the Service as Their Poor, Unsuspecting Cargo (Sean)
Greyhound Is Named After the Racing Dog to Make You Think ‘RUN’
Want to Know What It Feels Like to be Treated as the Scum of the Earth? Ride a Greyhound (Sean)
How I Made One of the Worst Decisions of my Life
Brians Theory of Time Dialation: The Closer You Get to Your Destination, The Longer it Takes to Get There
We woke up early on Tuesday morning to make the 4 hour drive from Oklahoma City to Fayetteville. The drive was fairly uneventful; the most interesting thing was passing trough Ozark National Forest, which is just outside Fayetteville. Upon entering Fayetteville, I was not very impressed with the cleanliness or tidiness of the homes. There were some nice neighborhoods, but I imagine we just saw the poorer properties because they were right next to a main road. The town is not that large, just about 70,000 people.
It was fairly easy to find the University and meet up with the professor who extended the assistantship offers to us, Dr. Jason Tullis. After meeting, we toured the building that the Department of Geosciences is housed, Ozark Hall. It’s a good thing that building is scheduled for major renovations next year because it doesn’t look like it has had any modifications since the 1950’s. I wasn’t planning on spending any time in that building if I went, so that won’t affect me if I go. Next we walked down to the 3 year old JB Hunt building which houses the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST). This is the building where I would work on research and take most of my classes. It was a super nice facility. We met up with the director of CAST, Dr. Jackson Cothren, and both he and Dr. Tullis briefed us on the center, it’s future direction, and how we can best prepare to be successful graduate students there. Both Sean and I were greatly impressed with their approachability and genuineness. One of the neat things they showed us was the “bullpen”, or a room full of nice desks separated by 4 foot tall partitions. This is where all the graduate students are given their own designated workspace. There will definitely be perks to being a grad student as opposed to an undergrad. After we toured that building we were treated to lunch at a local grilled cheese restaurant. Sound odd? I though so too until I saw the menu. In my book, there are enough variations on the grilled cheese sandwich paired with soup or salad to warrant the existence of such a restaurant. The main benefit of the visit was to get to know the professors that we would be working for. I think I am comfortable with both of them now and the perk of getting to know the University did not hurt.
After we were done at the school, Sean had orders from his wife to check out an apartment complex in the area. It was just about a 10 minute drive from campus (with no traffic). The apartments were nice, but the one bedroom version was pricey for me, a guy who has stuck with really low-rent apartments for the past year. When I say pricey, I mean compared to sharing utilities and having 4 roommates which drops the rent to $250. There the rent was $500, not including utilities. It will be interesting trying to find a balance between nice/comfortable and affordable on a student’s budget. I definitely don’t want to end up in the wrong neighborhood either.
We headed back to Oklahoma City after that. Once again, the 4 hour drive was not a problem and I noticed that the Arkansas portion of the drive was more scenic than the Oklahoma part. We arrived back at Sean’s brother’s house around 10 pm and went to bed. We had to be up and ready to leave the house by 3 am to make our 6 am flight which we had standby tickets for. I was glad for the trip and was ready to get home to Provo, but little did I know, that was just the beginning of the trip.
Surprise! I’m in Oklahoma City, OK. Why? Let me give some background. In the waning weeks of the fall semester I was recommended to a professor at the University of Arkansas for a research assistantship by one of my professors at BYU. Another student also was recommended for an assistantship. He and I both corresponded with the professor at the University of Arkansas and were both offered an assistantship. Before outright accepting the positions, we both wanted to visit the campus and get a feeling for the school. The best time for a visit was this week, the break between semesters.
So why Oklahoma? The other student, Sean, has a brother-in-law who is a pilot and got discount plane tickets and a brother in Oklahoma City who we could stay with. So we are now at the brother’s house in Oklahoma City.
We flew to Tulsa, OK this afternoon on stand-by tickets. That meant that we could be seated anywhere on the plane. We ended up in the first row in business class. It was so nice to have leg room and a large seat. Not only that, the drinks were served in a real glass, not just a plastic cup. Plus we got the deluxe selection of in-flight snacks including Reeses’ Peanut Butter cups and Sun Chips.
Once we landed in Tulsa, we rented a car and drove about 2 hours to Oklahoma City. Once here we just relaxed and watched the movie Legend of the Gaurdians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. Yeah, weird name but it was surprisingly good. After a good nights sleep, were off to Arkansas, only 4 hours away.
Bribunk 