by Robert Peters
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Product Description
Is graduate school right for you?
Should you get a master’s or a Ph.D.?
How can you choose the best possible school?
This classic guide helps students answer these vital questions and much more. It will also help graduate students finish in less time, for less money, and with less trouble.
Based on interviews with career counselors, graduate students, and professors, Getting What You Came For is packed with real-life experiences. It has all the advice a student will need not only to survive but to thrive in graduate school, including: instructions on applying to school and for financial aid; how to excel on qualifying exams; how to manage academic politics—including hostile professors; and how to write and defend a top-notch thesis. Most important, it shows you how to land a job when you graduate.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Really Helpful, 2008-06-30
I am in the middle of my reading. But everything looks like what I needed to hear. If you are looking for doing a master or a Ph.D. sure it will result very helpful. If you're close to start with your graduate studies... even better!!
Everything is O.K. with the book, but it would be better if R.L. Peters makes different versions for Masters and Ph.D.'s.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 authors humor made my day while grad school was miserable, 2008-06-25
I bought this book during a period in my second year of grad school when I was at a low point. I was unhappy with my research, annoyed at my professors, and coming home everyday crying. While this book did not solve my grad school problem, it did make me feel better. In retrospect it would have been nice to read this book before starting grad school, but much of the second half of the book (about research, dissertations, jobs, etc) has been helpful in my later grad school years. The author has a nice sense of humor and I think much of his advice is pretty good. While there isn't anything in the book that is earth shattering, he gives solid advice that is likely useful to grad students in a variety of fields. I agree with a previous post that I would recommend this book to those thinking about grad school, or those beginning a PhD.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Aging, biased, but useful, 2008-04-06
The book dates from 1997, and the author did not to go into academia. (He went to work for the government.) These facts are evident in the author's perspective and affect how useful this book will be for you. Despite these biases, the book has useful advice for masters students and the first few years of a PhD.
Biases I found most problematic:
- No mention of dissertation formats (e.g. collection of essays) which help a candidate finish sooner;
- Few details on academic job searches: no timeline nor process outline;
- No advice on writing CVs; resume advice needs improvement;
- Nothing on negotiating terms of an academic job;
- Aging information on presentations with respect to technology;
- Nothing about importance of having/managing web presence;
- Outdated advice on usefulness/importance of technology; and,
- Little advice on private sector jobs or effective ways to find them.
Where does the book shine? I appreciated its advice about departmental politics, the early stages of grad school, finding an adviser, and the advice for masters students. I liked that it pointed out often-overlooked resources for students: buying a house and renting the excess space, getting a CS student to help with coding, consulting with a stats student about methodology of analyses, and formalizing group critiques of research and ideas. Most of all I liked the overall tone: that you need to be sure you want the degree and then to focus on getting done.
If you want a book about getting a masters degree or getting through the first half to two-thirds of a PhD, I think this is a great book. For the last third of a PhD and the job search, the book has far less useful advice.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Dated, 2008-03-04
Desperately needs updating. Advice on computers is somewhat laughable, and job situation has likely changed substantially for some Phd's since this was written. Other aspects may be useful, hard to tell without experience...
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Will This Book Give You What You Paid For?, 2008-02-22
As a current PhD student about to embark on the heavy matters required after coursework, several people have recommended Peters' book to me. Apparently a lot of academic heavyweights have noticed this book. But whether that influence is deserved in another story, because the book's supposed usefulness is either an anachronism or an idealization. Other reviewers have noted that the book is severely outdated, with its focus on the admissions environment and job market of the early 1990s, and especially its coverage of ancient software and databases. Granted, no author should be expected to see into the future, and such criticism is unreasonable. But this certainly has an impact on the book's true usefulness, as modern readers will find large portions to be a waste of time.
Regardless, this book deserves some more timeless criticism. For starters, Peters has written for the segment of graduate students who go straight through from a bachelor's program all the way to the PhD without ever leaving school. This is not the case for many grad students including myself, as I was a not-so-uncommon "returning" grad student after several years in the working world. But that phenomenon is glossed over in a mere three pages here, making much of the book nonsensical to a large percentage of its potential readership. During my master's program I was also irritated by academia's lack of concern for master's students in the face of PhD students - an unfortunate phenomenon that Peters generally repeats throughout this book. More generally, Peters' advice on managing time and stress, and navigating the job search process, are essentially the same as that found in any old self-help manual.
Peters' advice on more specific matters of grad school itself is usually more robust. But for every good piece of advice on evaluating potential thesis topics or preparing for an oral defense, there are tidbits of dubious practicality like finding potential advisors years before applying to a school, or joining Toastmasters for six months to practice public speaking; and occasional outright groaners like leaving your office light on all the time so professors think you're a real hard worker. Peters' thoughts on the grad school process overall are rather limited and one-sided, with a focus on ingratiating one's mentors to the point of dependency and taking an overly pessimistic (even bitter) view of degree requirements and the job market. Granted, I detected some good advice here about my own near-future requirements. But I found much of the book to be based on an academic atmosphere and environment that might be in Peters' experience but is much different than my own so far - and I'm sure I'm not that far out of the ordinary. [~doomsdayer520~]
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