Time Off

[spillsomepaint]

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Question for those of you already in programs:

I know every able moment is spent doing grad stuff, but what kind of time can you take off for holidays or parts of the summer?

 

[Ollie123]

I think of it as a job and not school. Week for Christmas, likely a week or so in the summer. I left Wednesday evening for Thanksgiving and was back for class Monday.

Generally speaking, if faculty are expected to be working, I expect to be working. Depression/eating disorders/substance use don't disappear for the entire month of December, so I'd feel bad cancelling clients, stopping research etc. at that time. Then again that's my own rule, not really a school policy. Though I think if say, you wanted to leave for a month at a time, it better be due to some crisis somewhere. It also may depend on whether you are funded or not. I think a school you pay to attend probably has less say in how you spend your breaks than one that is continuing to send you paychecks over winter break. Of course, even at those schools if you're slow getting your thesis/dissertation proposal written because you dont work on breaks, they won't be happy either😉

I know even at my school, different people have different ideas of what breaks mean. Some people abuse it, but those people are usually not terribly successful students anyways. I'm probably on the conservative end of things, but I figure its better to plan on this and if I can take an extra week at some point, so much the better.

 

[RayneeDeigh]

I'm in first year and one of my cohort members and I were just talking about this issue over dinner last night.

I'm not taking any time "off" but I'm certainly prioritizing. I will have client reports to be drafting and editing over the holiday and I need to get to work on my conference poster for February, and I'll probably be working on my lit review for my thesis but that's about it. I'm only doing things I can do from my hometown 8 hours away because I want at least 3 weeks with my family/friends.

 

[psychwanabe]

This will depend on your program, and your year in the program at least to a certain extent. I'm a first year in a PsyD in which we do not begin working with clients or have practicum until 2nd year. We don't have classes on Fridays (I think this is standard in a lot of programs), so for Thanksgiving we had two days of classes cancelled. However, I had so much work to do, that I did school work two of the five days I had off.

We will be off for about 3 weeks for winter break. Other than doing my volunteer work (required by my program at about 5 hours/week) I am NOT working on school work, unless it's my own research ideas.

Spring semester ends in early May. We have one week off and then we're back for about 4 weeks of classes. Depending on when our practicum starts, we *may* have the month of July off. Some start practicum in July, some not until late August. Again "off" is relative, because if you're doing any research at all you'll still be at school at least some of the time. But no formal classes again until fall semester starts up.

After the beginning of your second year, you don't have any complete time off: as the person before me stated, it's more like a job than school. At the very least you'll be working at your practicum site (10 hrs/week 2nd year & 20 hrs/wk 3rd and 4th years) year-round. After year two you'll also be working on dissertation all the time.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I think where it gets challenging is when you start seeing patients and/or have looming research deadlines. I did a rotation that allowed me flexibility, as long as I saw my patients and did my reports. I did another rotation where I HAD to be there unless I scheduled things weeks/months in advance. My research deadlines were sometimes set by me, but the 'biggies' were not, so I had to work around them.

The most time I had free was the summer after my first year, since my practicum didn't start until that fall, and I didn't take a class in the second session of the summer semester, so I had that time 'off'....though I still had plenty of other work to do, but it was on my own schedule. I still was doing research, but outside of the data collection (which had set times), I could do the rest of the work whenever I felt like it, so I could take a week to go visit my folks and just have to take a few hours here and there to do some updates.

(4th yr. Psy.D.)

-t

 

[razzled]

In my program, students get stipend through the summer to do research. We supposedly don't get time off for vacation but let's face it, no one does 40 hr weeks of research for all 4 summer months. Lots of people take time off and the beauty is that you get to pick when you take it. I like to work 10-3 during the summer, but I don't really travel. Others work full-time and then take off for a month for travel.