Customer Reviews

Playing the Game: The Streetsmart Guide to Graduate School

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book contains some rather useful advice for getting through graduate school. My main problem with it was that it seemed focused on the student who is going to graduate school because a graduate degree gets them a pay raise, or they need the degree for the line of work they're going into. If you are a student (like me) who just wants to learn everything in the world, and perhaps become a professor, a better book is "The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career."

The book has many other flaws, as well. First, it needs an editor. The cover is an eyesore. Many of the sentences seem like they were rewritten, but not proofread, and so they change syntax right in the middle. Each of the quotations gets its own page, which means that a chapter which ought to be 10 pages can end up being 20 or 30. Overall, I felt like the book could be 50-100 pages shorter, just by changing the layout.

The authors' style is also really bad. It's informal enough that I know I would never want to meet these guys in person. Every time they make a joke, they put something in parentheses to point out to you that, hey, they made a joke, and they're really funny, so you should laugh at their joke.

My recommendation is that you check out this book from your library (as I did), rather than buying it. For what you get, it's rather overpriced. (I actually wanted to give it 3.5 stars, but felt that it was more on the side of 4 stars than 3.)

The cover of this book looks like a third grader made it. Inside the book, the text is poorly edited. The jokes are inane. Some of the content is worthless.

So why should you buy this book?

This book gives you a very clear idea of what graduate school is like. It will save you countless hours by showing you how to keep on task and stay organized. The book gives you the authors' opinions on what's important and what's not. After reading the book, I feel much better prepared for graduate school.

I've purchased several other books for graduate school, and their main weakness is that they tell you the advantages of everything, but offer no guidance. In other books, the authors state axioms such as "Grades are Important" without giving you a clear idea of how they might fit into your future plans or how important they are compared to other things you need to do. The Streetsmart Guide explains how grades fit into the authors' plans, and from there, intelligent readers can determine the value of grades to them.

One thing to note, though, is that this book is written for people who do NOT plan on a career in academia. I do plan to be an academic, but I still found this book to be the best thing since sliced bread (inside joke if you read the book) because it gave me a nice picture of how things actually work.

Seriously, buy this book.

This book is great. While the language in the book temporarily increased my personal level of profanity, the ideas the authors present have stayed with me. As a first semester doctoral student, the most valuable lesson I've learned is that the smart kids do research projects linked to their dissertation topic along the way. I definatly recommend this book. Unlike many of the articles I am assigned to read, this one isn't boring. And while I wondered how I'd find the time to fit in reading something "for fun," it was an easy read when I only had 15 or so minutes free, not enough time to get into the "heavy, boring" reading, or when I got tired of reading big words in sentences that seemed to never end.

Embedded in an obnoxious tone, rampant sexism, and juvenile humor, these bad boy authors provide some GREAT advice.

Who needs all this freakin', dumb a** filth? Who needs to read a book where professors and readers are routinely insulted and the arrogance of rowdy white male egos is celebrated? Well, if you are a grad student, or want to be a grad student, you need it. This book is USEFUL.

The main point is that it takes street smarts as well as book smarts to succeed in grad school. Frank 'n Stein will drum into your head that understanding the unspoken norms of grad school, and the navigating the politics of your department, is at least as important as researching your scholarly topic. They emphasize that you should always be thinking three steps ahead to the next phase of your program. I concur enthusiastically.

Frank 'n Stein start with advice for people thinking about grad school and tell them to choose their university well - which means getting into the most prestigious program possible while avoiding dysfunctional departments. Many novice applicants don't realize that the general prestige of a school may not translate into a great graduate program. You may not want to apply to the Ivies.

This is the first book about how to survive grad school that gives the lowdown on the ubiquitous class group project. Frank 'n Stein emphasize the importance of picking the right partner, and being very savvy about your role when you have to do group assignments (gag). Teachers LOVE group projects followed by tedious class presentations. Why? They don't have to prepare for class; it's requires fraction of the grading compared with individual assignments; and the profs can grade during classroom hours at the time of the presentation. Smart teachers like group projects and most students wisely hate them. Now you'll have explicit tactics for surviving these tiresome assignments.

These foul-mouthed sages remind us that grades don't matter in grad school. Just pass and get on with it. Rules for success are quite different from undergrad life and these differences are explained in great detail. GPA doesn't mean much. You can't read everything that is assigned and you shouldn't try. You need to specialize early. Finishing quickly is 90 percent of the game.

Frank 'n Stein point out the obvious: that you should choose your dissertation chair and committee wisely. They give amusing (and accurate) profiles of typical professors and explain in detail what you should be looking for when you choose your dissertation advisor. They point out the often-overlooked importance of making sure your committee members work well together. I've certainly seen defenses gone awry because of professorial infighting. Do your research and think tactically. A supportive committee is essential.

Frank 'n Stein believe that every paper for every class should be related to your dissertation project. If you plan carefully, the majority of your coursework, most of your class papers, and all of your work on your comprehensive exams, can be used towards your dissertation. I agree with these arrogant frat boys -- ideally, you can have your literature review pretty much written before you even defend your proposal. Of course, this means that you need to know your scholarly direction very early in grad school. And you should. If you don't have a clue at the end of your first year about where your're going to focus your scholarly efforts, take time off, make some money, and figure out whether you really want that Ph.D.. People who flounder about with no direction end up taking years longer (which translates into major financial debt and a less appealing C.V.)

Frank 'n Stein's specific dissertation writing advice is targeted towards grad students in the social sciences. The advice will be less accurate for wanna-be-docs in the sciences and the humanities. Their advice is also more applicable to students who are getting their degrees to further an already-existing career rather than students who want to go into academia and become professors. These bad boys both worked full-time while in grad school and their advice reflects that experience. With these caveats in mind, With that caveat, Frank 'n Stein give great tips for writing and defending the proposal, for working on the methods section, and pleasing the IRB (Institutional Review Board). They are realistic about how long it takes professors to read and return material and give great suggestions about the work you can be doing while you wait to get material back.

They point out another way academia differs from the rest of the universe: your CV should be as long as possible - forget about the one page resume favored by business.

Finally, Frank 'n Stein have found funny quotes to sprinkle throughout the book.

By the way, the reviewer "Bill Sr." points out that this book is self-published -- so what? The majority of books published today are done so outside of mainstream presses. The real question is whether their advice is any good. And it is. Many of my coaching clients and students need to keep in mind that grad school is an apprenticeship, and that the dissertation is the first solo project of their career rather than a culminating magnum opus.

I'm a clinical psychologist and professional coach who specializes in working with academics. I teach a class called "Graduate School Survival Skills" at UNC-Chapel Hill and will definitely recommend this book. For years I've been giving much of the advice that I read for the first time in "Playing the Game." I don't use the same language, however.

This is a must read for anyone considering, entering, or attending graduate school. As a graduate student in Anthropology, I can attest to how useful this guide is. Unlike similar books, this guide is both humorous and practical. Drs Frank and Stein will have you rolling in the halls of your current or future program, drinking non-alcoholic beer in class and taking tests in crayon. In sum, you need this book!

This book is an outstanding one that would benefit all students not just grad students. Having taken the time to read more than half of this book in two days it is clear that any student, collegiate level or not, would greatly benefit from the tools and tips provided here, particularly in the studying and paper writing departments. If you master the skills early when it's time for graduate school you will be well prepared.

These gentlemen present their tips in a practical way tempered with enough humor to remind folks not to take themselves too seriously. I have previously used some of the tips provided and can't wait to put the new ones to use. Of course this is to my benefit as should most, if not all, of the decisions/actions you make/take regarding your educational career.

This is one of many great tools to help keep students from meandering through school without a clear goal in sight. The best tip, in my opinion, that all students would be wise to learn early on is that no one cares about your education more than you; be your own advocate. This book is a great place to start learning to be just that.

Life Rewards Action; Make careful decisions and then pull the trigger.

I haven't had time to read it myself but provided it to an office full of about 8 grad students. Even though they are in engineering and the book is written more for non-engineering grad students, they found much to be amused by and reviewed the book as being worth a read.

Amazon.com shoppers find it useful to read "Customer Reviews", and customer-written "Listmania" and "So You'd Like To...". However, sometimes these web store features can be taken advantage of, allowing trickster authors to peddle their questionable books to unwitting customers. This, I am afraid, is the case here.

Playing the Game is published by the authors themselves (iUniverse is a self-publishing press), and I can certainly understand an established publisher being reluctant to put out such a book. The authors' names--FU Frank and CK Stein--are admittedly fake, and I imagine it was considered clever that, combined, the names produce Frank 'n Stein. I was so disappointed after buying this book, that I looked the title up on Google, trying to get more information about the authors. I was able to discover the real name of at least one of them, along with the fact that they both got their Ph.D.'s (very recently) in the field of education from the University of Georgia. (The author, along with some other people, self-published another book that is on Amazon, too. That book is on grading, and is for school teachers.)

Playing the Game is woefully light on content. Truthfully, there is not enough solid material in here to justify a book--a letter might have been more appropriate. In fact, most of the book is filler, and a good percentage of the pages are completely empty save for some useless, one-sentence quote such as: "We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.--H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)." Many of the chapters are only one page (or less) long, and there is lots of repetition. The authors have the nerve to write in one section: "we wanted to use up more space so we could charge you more for this book...but at least we're honest, right?" Yeah, right. The book is also vulgar and crude. It is no wonder that one cannot use Amazon's "Search Inside" feature to glance through some of the pages of the book before purchasing. I believe that it is up to the publisher (or author?) to activate this feature, and it has purposely not been activated for this book.

There are no tips in here for achieving a rich graduate school experience. The sole emphasis is on getting out quickly (how FAST one gets through is the point here, not how WELL). The authors raise the question "Why do grad students need to complete a dissertation or thesis?" and claim the answer is not to become an expert in a field or to learn to conduct quality research--the answer is "to get the hell out." This book might be of some use to those who want to stay at their present profession but need a M.A. or higher degree solely in order to get a bigger salary. For those folks--who wish to go through grad school as effortlessly and fast as possible--I gave the book two stars because of its advice on shortcuts. But it is of little use for thoughtful, serious students who plan to use the knowledge they will learn in graduate school to advance their fields.

Frank 'n Stein intimate such things as: *Research is a bad word. *Academic matters are a "distraction" from "normal life". *Classmates and professors who are serious about their work are "weird". *Students should try to skip or sneak out of classes. *A choice dissertation topic--if you can get away with it-- is to simply replicate an older study to see if the results still hold. *The toilet is a good place to read academic papers.

Yes, they joke, but I can only imagine that these authors were not serious graduate students. Furthermore, the things they have to say about graduate school do not apply to most departments, and may only apply to their specialty--schools of education. I have completed a Master's degree, and I disagree with Frank 'n Stein's insistance that in most grad classes, students work in groups, not individually. I also think that the following sentence is an oversimplification: "Unless you are in a mathematics program, there are only two types of 'meaningful' math that you will encounter in graduate school: statistics and grade point averages."

That all said, how does one account for all the "Customer Reviews", "Listmanias", and "So You'd Like To...'s" on Amazon that describe this book in long, flowery and glowing terms? There are so many of them that I can't count them all, and they certainly helped pursuade me to buy the book. Playing the Game is even described by one customer as "the Bible" of graduate school books, and all reports emphasize how "funny" the book is. You should make up your own minds, but as for me, I am convinced these many comments are as "self-published" as the book itself. It's not hard to fill up the pages of Amazon. I also find it curious that one reader, known as v...4, identifies himself as a Ph.D. Graduate School Professor when he writes about Playing the Game, but identifies himself as a 6th Grade Teacher when he comments on the book on grading that was written by the same author (and why would one individual be reading both types of books??). Similarly, one of the "So You'd Like To..." mentions both Playing the Game and the grading book. Quite a coincidence! All in all, this book is a disappointment.

Great book! Helps to bring the whole graduate school experience down to ground level so that you won't freak out about it. It also teaches you practical ways to get through without losing your sanity.

Appropriately titled book...
I'm trying to read as many grad school books as possible while I contemplate whether or not to take the plunge, and this book definitely had me laughing out loud. There's even a handy list of pseudo-serious definitions for reference (CV, thesis, disertation, etc). The language is potentially vulgar for the squemish, but I got the feeling the authors captured the culture of graduate school - the dynamic - perfectly. I'm looking at business schools, so I also found another book, THE BLUSHING MBA, really funny, too.