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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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