Why should you or shouldn't you go to graduate school.

So, fair warning here, this will all be anecdotal evidence. I will site no figures because honestly if you are debating graduate school the figures don't mean a thing.

Why should you go to graduate school?

If you have a limited social life and want to spend much of your time doing work you should go.

If you live to work in your field, go.

If you have to get a graduate degree to get the job that you know without a doubt that you need, go

If you have a company paying for you to go, stop reading and go.

Why shouldn't you go?

If you found undergrad easy, and that is your only reason.

If you don't like long hours and weeks don't go.

If you are looking for a nine to five experience don't go.

If you don't know what you want to do with the degree afterwards, don't go. Figure out the barest hint of a plan first.

Caveats

A good portion of graduate students don't finish at all. Many programs will accept anyone just so they can account for the drops. So if you get in and want to get out, don't feel bad. Instead if you want to get out, take a chill pill, talk to people around you to make sure you aren't jumping the gun and then quit.

A good portion of graduate degree holders don't get the jobs they are looking for. That doesn't mean they work in a Starbucks, it means that they aim for jobs which are ultimately unattainable due to limited positions. There are only so many tenure track positions. So while there is no harm in going big, working yourself to the bone for a tenure track position, don't expect immediate success and keep a look out for other things. The same goes for a lecturer position, aim for it but avoid tunnel vision.

You will work hard. It cannot be stated how hard you will work for seemingly little or actually little appreciation and gain. Though people will eventually respect your work if it is good. You will lose sleep and you will look at peers that have normal jobs and feel envious quite a bit. It's normal.

You might not earn that much more or you may earn a whole lot more. There isn't a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. If you get the position you want you may get lucky and it'll pay 6 digits. But remember that PhDs are getting more plentiful and you may not get the position you want. This all depends on your specialization and skillset. Make sure you investigate your field.

Yeah, that's it. Just another opinion out there.

Google Inbox!

I just got a spontaneous invite to Google Inbox! What is Google Inbox?

Hell I didn't know what it was until I started using it. From the name you can guess that it has something to do with email, but after that people generally get lost on what the hell Inbox is.

The Standard Inbox

See how there are a boat load of related emails that you kind of want to see but also aren't important enough to get a notification about?
The worst thing about this is that later you will want to cycle through and get rid of all those emails that are adding to the several thousand total emails you will have received over the course of the year.

Your inbox on Google Inbox

Google Inbox punches that problem in the teeth by "bundling." You might remember labels in gmail, and the tabs in gmail. It is like that but on roids. Bundling groups together emails based on their content, tags, and user settings so that you cab see all your "BIG NEWEGG SALE" and "NEW HUMBLE BUNDLE" emails as part of the same group. Most importantly you can just tell those emails that you are done with them without having to manually select them. That little check mark allows you to banish everything under that heading.

The 'Snooze' function

Better yet, Inbox has other functions, you can put emails off till later! You can define when you want them to pop up again like a reminder. This is perfect for a professional who has actual work to do or anyone else who is busy as hell. You won't have to worry about forgetting an important message until six months later when you are procrastinating by clearing your inbox piece by piece starting in 2005.

Its neat, its invite only and you will probably see those features rolled into Gmail soon, or Gmail  just be named Inbox, we will see.

Also I don't have any invites for this left so don't bother asking.

Domain Problem

Gandi.net is so awesome. Because of .ninja domains. I own two of the freaking things. God help me when they come up for renewal because by then I might even have even more domains. I should just buy a domain for 10 years or something.

blackscience.ninja


Note to self, put credit card in a safe and walk away.

I am blogging again and no one can stop me.

No one but me that is. I'm blogging again just so I can bark at empty space.

Here I will post my rantings and ravings and stories and hopes and dreams and overly long sentences. If someone reads this I am terribly sorry. If no one reads this, good.