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[NOTE: I posted this because some may find it useful to point out to their
graduate students, and because there are some grad students on HES. --
RBE]
H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by [log in to unmask] (August, 1997)
Robert Peters. _Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide
to Earning a Masters or a Ph.D._. New York: Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux, 1992. xii + 386 pp. Illustrations. ISBN 0-374-52361-4.
Reviewed for H-Grad by Gretchen Reilly
<[log in to unmask]>, George Washington University
As a doctoral student in History, I picked up this book with a fair
amount of skepticism, especially after I learned that the author had
earned his Ph.D. in Biology. With all the differences between
various academic fields and between institutions, how could a book
meant for all graduate students give anything but vague
generalizations? Yet, after studying graduate programs in the
various fields and interviewing students, professors,
administrators, graduates and grad-school drop-outs, Peters presents
a firm course of action that could indeed be valid for all students,
whether in the Humanities or Sciences.
As might be expected, there are chapters on choosing a school, the
admissions process, and financial aid. Peters begins each of these
topics with a general description, outlines the basic strategy for
achieving success, then discusses how conditions vary from field to
field. He readily acknowledges that some of his advice is less
relevant to certain fields. He stresses at those points that
students need to do further research, and backs that recommendation
up with references to other books and organizations that can assist
the student and an extensive bibliography. After noting the
differences between fields, he identifies the universal truths
applicable to everyone, often using quotes from both science and
humanities students and professors to emphasize how his strategy
could be applied in various fields.
Peters pays special attention to women, foreign students, minorities
and students returning to school after years in the workforce; he
identifies the special challenges that these groups face and
suggests ways to deal with them. Of importance to these students,
but also beneficial for mainstream students, he devotes considerable
attention throughout the book to the institutional culture of
American universities and to the student's position within it. He
discusses bluntly what university handbooks often ignore:
interpersonal relationships and politics in Academia.
Students already in graduate school might wonder what this book has
to offer them. The advice this book has on how to survive the
minefields of graduate school will be helpful even to experienced
students. His chapters on writing a dissertation not only demystify
the process, they offer excellent advice on how to prepare in
advance for the work. For anyone who has felt isolated and unhappy
in graduate school, the chapter on stress and depression shows not
only how typical such feelings are, but also how to deal with them.
If nothing else, the quotes from other graduate students provide
comforting proof that we are engaged in a common struggle.
Copyright (c) 1997 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work
may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit
is given to the author and the list. For other permission,
please contact [log in to unmask]
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