Two days of orientation: check.
Everyone says grad school is going to be waaaayyyyy super busy. “You will have no life.” (I don’t have one in the first place.) I’m not worried about losing my social life.
But training? I’ll have time for this, right?
I have two grad classes, one undergrad math class (calc II), and I teach one undergrad math class (they tell us 20 hours a week of work that we get paid for with this… so there’s class time, grading, preparing for class, office hours) PLUS my own classes and work for that and SWIM BIKE RUN capitalized because they are quite important.
The good thing is I am a morning person.
Tell me your experiences of grad school and training 14-16 hours a week…
When back them I was on a different kind of training but I was not at all wayyyyy super busy (not even close).
Maybe Engineering Mgt is a piece of cake but I was cruising…
I can consistently train, if I had the motivation. I just am so stressed all the time, I just feel guilty if I take time off of thinking about school, that my training suffers. It’s a horrible thing to be stressed like I am all the time. Good luck in grad school. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m getting worried that it might be a freight train . . . .
I’m in my fourth year of grad school, going for the PhD, and I have had a fair amount of time for training. The nice thing is that my schedule is much more open than it ever was in undergrad. The work volume isn’t as constant. its more peaks and valleys. Sometimes you really have to buckle down to get work done, but other times you can coast. And now that my coursework is finished, I pretty much get to set my own hours doing research. Basically, morning workouts at about 6am and evening workouts around 6 or 7, work during the day. you can fit training in. the biggest thing to compete with, i have discovered, is the fact that 99 percent of the folks around you in grad school will be unathletic and unfit and will generally only discuss/worry about school/work.
**Everyone says grad school is going to be waaaayyyyy super busy. “You will have no life.” (I don’t have one in the first place.) I’m not worried about losing my social life. **
Most people I know who are in grad school (in fact all of the people I know who are in grad school) are also working full-time jobs or 2 part-time jobs. Some of them are athletes and train, but not 14-16 hours a week.
Not sure about your major, but I actually had more time on my hands (and a lot more fun) in grad school vs. undergrad (I was an Advertising major). Fewer classes, mostly class discussions, lots of research papers = for me all of this was way easier vs. multiple choice tests .
I wasn’t into triathlons back then, but I did work 20 hrs a week (teaching/research assistant for my dept), and still had a ridiculous amount of free time, especially when I was done with my coursework and was just working on my thesis for a semester. I also had lots of friends in Agricultural Economics and Marketing Research (both Masters and PhD programs), they didn’t seem to be super busy either.
Or maybe it seems that way compared to the corporate world. Enjoy it while it lasts… Grad school is great. If I could keep my salary I’d go back in a minute (I keep dreaming about getting a PhD… just not sure how to justify that financially).
Grad school is like corporate america. They will take you for as many hours as you will give. The key is to not spend too many hours doing work at the beginning or your advisor will expect you to put in that much work the whole time. If you don’t do anything they won’t have any expectations and you can slack off the whole time. Teaching is fun you will enjoy it. Are you doing a thesis too? If not it doesn’t sound like too much work. Calc II is not fun though, good luck with that one
this is probably not the answer you want, but you need to stop worrying about it, and let it come to you.
as mentioned, you should have time to train, but it depends on the semester, classes, and other obligations. if there’s a big research project going on, you may not get much extra. other times classes will fall in a nice pattern to block out training time.
remember, although outsiders don’t understand this, that grad school should be a full time job. it may be more flexible, but it’s not necessarily any less time (with class, teaching, studying, writing, research, etc). Now in my 4th year as a PhD student, I’m very confident i have averaged at least 40hrs a week around the ‘office’.
the bonuses - i can take a long lunch to run (or swim) and also eat. the pools at school have lots of hours, from 6am until 10pm. there’s a 2/5th mile gravel ‘track’ that is lit 24 hours. plus, spin bikes at the gym, weight rooms, and, of course, my bike trainer.
it’ll work out - you’ll figure it out. just relax and let it come to you. and have fun.
Way more than the rest of your life when you enter the real world. If you can’t find time to train during grad school, forget about it the rest of your life. Not trying to tell an “uphill both ways, in the snow,blah, blah, blah” type of story but I worked full time, went to grad school at night and still found time to train. It is all about priorities.
It will likely depend on you. Most grad students are late-risers and nightowls, so if you choose the early morning workouts and work the 9-6 shift, you should be OK (and avoid the partying all the time, although this is not endemic among grad students anyway). I did my PhD on this type of schedule but I was not training for triathlons, just swim/bike/run to keep in shape. After that, as a post-grad then as a prof, even if I wanted to, racing was not going to work as I was away for large part of summers doing research. Therefore, I didn’t start doing triathlons until quitting tenured academia and moving to the govt (9 yrs ago). I work longer hours and travel overseas way more but I can fit training/racing into the lifestyle.
Triathlons are nice but your real life is more important, so put that as a priority ahead of races. If need be, you can take a few years off racing and get back into it without a problem after your grad school. It’s often difficult to predict how “busy” you will be as a student, TA, etc., so I’d wait and see. I only started racing at age 37 and I think I’m still improving, so it’s never too late to get back into the game.
is Grad School going to take a minimum of 40 hours every week, with several additional evening meetings every month, and occasional travel?
And then having to pay bills, do family things, take care of the house, yard, pets, cars, bikes, etc? Schlepping offspring to various functions as well?
If not, then the correct answer is - “more time than ML has to train”.
You’ll be fine. Worst case, you will train a bit less; which for you, would probably be the best case.
i have discovered, is the fact that 99 percent of the folks around you in grad school will be unathletic and unfit and will generally only discuss/worry about school/work
+1, id rather have someone talk about triathlon and their training all day rather than hear about that.
If something is deemed to be important & worthwhile to you then you will find the time.
I started my PhD in '02 while in the heavy section of my Kona training. That first semester was challenging, but once the routine was established it all worked out. I was also able to create a triathlon class through the PE department & would often times run with the class & get the class together for an occassional weekend ride. At my heaviest load - taking 2 classes a semester, teaching 2 classes & the tri class, supervising 50+ interns & working on the PhD - I was still able to get in 10-12 hours per week. 0600 swims, noon runs, WT sessions & weekend rides.
You will have way more time to train then you ever will again. Now if you were in grad school on top of a full time job and had couple kids then maybe not. Trouble is that you will not realize how good you have it til it is over
“MST” program. It is a masters program for teaching mathematics. DIfferent from a masters in math itself – those guys know a lot more content than we do. We learn about how students learn and then how to TEACH.
Beware of Calc II if you intend to succed with it. It will require more time than you may have given many other courses.
Your math world will gain another dimension and you’ll be forced to finally get good at trig.
Fantastic. I am terrible with trig. I can never remember the antiderivatives of trig functions, then throw the chain rule and stuff in there and I just get so confused.
Fortunately I will be around people who are very
very
very
good at high level math
