r/waynestate • u/notnijiatall • 7h ago
First year PhD student observations.. pretty disappointed(rant)
Ok so I just started my poli sci PhD at WSU in September and right off the bat I found everything to be so cold and unwelcoming. Our “orientation” in the poli sci department was basically an hour long slideshow going over some campus resources, never actually took us around campus, gave us a map, introduced us to any of the actual things or people that would be useful as a student. Didn’t even tell us how to register for classes or which classes we should be looking at for the first semester? Didn’t tell us anything about how to be a GTA or things we should be preparing for..Then the “lunch” we were meant to have ran out of food before I could even get to it because I had to go get my key for my office as a GTA..
This was a total contrast to my master’s at USC(IPPAM program) where we had like 3 days of orientation with campus police, advisors, professors, IT and more coming in to talk to us and tell us useful things, show us how to register for courses, set up our student IDs, show to utilize blackboard(our online system) and just making you feel welcomed and part of a family. We attended a concert at the Hollywood bowl, had lunches and just really helped to ease into the program and LA.
It feels like Wayne state really threw me into the deep end without any sort of guidance, I don’t know where 90 percent of things are campus, I wasn’t even told how to get a parking pass or student ID, how to make prints in the office, set up office hours, just really basic stuff, almost as if there’s an assumption everyone coming here has been here before or used the same systems. Then when you ask people(in department) or tell them you don’t know, they look at you like you’re crazy.
I understand a GTA position kinda being the errand person for a professor, but the professor I GTA for wanted me to set up a scantron test for the midterm because he didn’t know how to do it(you’ve been here 20 years?) one google search showed it going thru the testing center in the manoogian building. I went there two weeks ago and got all the information he needed and gave it to him(involved setting up an IRB which is above my pay grade and authority), I come to class last week and dude still hasn’t done it and doesn’t even know how to get the sheets in advance when I gave him a sheet from the office going over all that info?? As of today we still don’t have it set up and the exam is Thursday? He only just today confirmed the test structure so I can relay to the office? So I guess I’ll just come in early Thursday to pick it up which is fair, 20 hours of availability per week and all that, but man he’s as messy as this whole experience.
And to top it off, last week I found out that the required graduate research methods online course I only found about the week classes started, had two in person sessions that I missed and so I emailed the person in charge of that and he was somewhat sympathetic to me not being taught how to use canvas or anything and said he’d reach out to my graduate advisor to see if it’s ok if I pass it with just the online modules, otherwise I’ll have to redo it next year.
It’s funny because my mom and sister went here and I always kinda looked down on WSU since I did my undergrad in Scotland and master’s at USC, but to their credit Wayne state were the only school who gave me a shot for my PhD after 6 years of applying, so I do have a degree of gratitude to this place.. but now my mom feels a bit embarrassed by how they’ve been acting.
TLDR: just been a mess so far at Wayne state. Anyone else had similar experiences?
