Typical day as a chemistry graduate student

I have had several people ask me to describe a typical day in a chemistry graduate program. Sadly I cannot do that. There just doesn’t seem to be a typical day. Some days you have classes, some days you teach classes, all days you do research. But that doesn’t really begin to describe anything. Classes are more intense than undergraduate classes but then upper division chemistry classes were more intense than freshman chemistry also. There is an expectation that any problem that is placed before you will be within your ability to solve; you cannot say “this isn’t what we saw in class”. But at the same time if the problem is on a test or in a text you know that there is a fairly easy solution. You know that it cannot be as bad as the same types of problems that you are trying to solve in your own research.
Research is another interesting topic. Some days research is simply trying to find out if you are repeating someone else’s work, you do this by reading manuscripts that have been published in peer reviewed journals. Finding information from journals is one of the secrets that you learn in grad school. Other days you spend trying to get an experiment to produce just a fraction of what it did the day before and scratching your head wondering what is different. You know that you followed the outline ‘exactly’ as you have it in your notebook. Then you realize, or sometimes you don’t, what is missing and you try and fix the problem only to have something different happen. “If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research.” You write and read and do and then repeat. Some days everything works out so well, and you know that a few more experiments will produce wonderful results, those days everything is so nice.
I normally get up around 6:30 and head out to feed the horses. I get back around 7:30, shower and head into school. While at school anything can happen. Monday Wednesday and Friday I have classes in the morning; I try and do homework these days. I also try and get in some lab time or at least some reading time those days. Thursday I teach from 8 am to 6 pm, if there was a test for my students I am here until midnight or later on Thursdays grading it with the other teaching assistants. Tuesdays are my favorite days, they are the one day a week I have nothing to do but research. I try and put in some good lab hours and spend the time necessary working through the difficulties of my current topic. Tuesdays I rarely go home before midnight also, but that is because I get absorbed by my work and lose track of time. Most other week days I spend from roughly 8 am to 10 or 10:30 pm at school. I try and spend as much of that time productively as possible. I am getting better at time management, but my own research is so tempting that I have to make a conscious effort to work homework or grade papers. At least one of my classes is very closely tied to my battery research and so can pretend that I am working on a project in that class. On Saturday I tend to get into the lab around 9 or 10 am and leave by 4 or 5 pm. They are nice I feel that I can focus on whatever I want to. They are my day. Sunday I try and avoid all contact with schoolwork, I try and have a day to clear my head and focus on the other needs of my soul. I take some time on various days to do laundry, or car maintenance; but that is only because I have to and it feels like I am being torn away from what is important.
Those few students who have families here, usually come in earlier and leave earlier than I do. For example our senior grad student usually gets in around 6 am and leaves for home around 6 pm. He rarely comes in on the weekend. He has learned time management well and makes sure to spend the time with his girls that he needs and wants to. He takes a lot of his reading home and does his weekend writing at the kitchen table on his laptop. It is less efficient but it really works out well for him.
I love it here, and I hope that by the time Michelle and the kids move out here I will have better time management. I will make the time for them. Grad school is ruled by the law of the harvest. You reap what you sow. The more time you put into your education the more you get out and the faster you will graduate. In graduate school you are wholly responsible for yourself. You learn to learn. Very little of what you learn comes from course work. For every hour you ‘take off’ you will end up putting in a couple of hours later. If an experiment is going well you stay until it is done, you collect all the data you can while everything is working out. But you also have to have priorities, you can’t stay in the program no matter how stellar your research unless you do well in your classes. It doesn’t matter if you earn a PhD if you lose your family in the process.
Anyway I hope this answers a few questions.
Love to all. Keep studying!

I was so happy when they were here but now I'm sad :(

See the time factor again. Even my little post earlier today was interrupted. Here goes another try.
Ok so Mom, Michelle and the kids came to Lincoln over the weekend! YAY! But then they left yesterday. Whimper. I wish they could just stay here now. I need lots of time in the office to get through chemistry, but I know I could make enough time for them if they lived here.
The weather was nice, but by the time we got to the various touristy places they were closed. We did buy just over 100 books at the City literary programs used book sale. We saw several different neighborhoods and played at a park. The best part was just spending time together. I miss them and want to be there with them. On the plus side I now am re-energized and can make it through the next month or so of classes before Thanksgiving. The kids saw lots of squirrels and even a black one or two. They are a color mutation that is starting to appear around here more and more frequently. Vivi and Reed both got to ride cricket (one of the horses I clean up after in the mornings) and loved it. I hope that once they move out here we will be able to afford to have a horse for them.
Classes seem to be going well; there is so much to learn. I just wish I had time to really learn everything. Oh well I am learning so much everyday. While I am continuing a lot of the original research I was doing I am starting to spread out a bit. Without boring you all to death I am branching out into energy chemistry. I see it as a way to help the world. I am going to be working on ways to use nanotechnology to help conserve and generate useable energy. It is a very competitive field, but there are a lot of rewards to be had. I hope to have a publication or two accepted by the end of the year.
In 4 years I hope I can complete the things which my Adviser has told me that I need to do to graduate. More realistic would be 4 to 5 years with a bit of serendipity on my side. I have had a nice taste of serendipity all ready and am attempting to be prepared each time it rears it’s little head. I have outlined a rough plan for my coursework and research and am going to have it all nicely in place by the end of the month. I have at least 3 more presentations to do by the end of November and each one wears me out. There is so much effort to put into each of them. In addition I have another test on Thursday and who knows what else is coming up. One thing I am not in grad school is bored. No matter what time it is there is always something to do. I am learning to prioritize my schedule and even though it’s hard I am learning to put coursework and presentations ahead of my research.
Love to all

So it's been a month.

Ok so it's been a month since I last made a post on the website. I'm sorry. things have been crazy