Who Enjoyed Graduate School More than Undergrad?

Academically my M.A. was better but socially my B.A. was much, much more fun.

Paul Osborn wrote:

...and eschewing the ephemera,

Are you an English major?

Definitely had more success with the ladies in Grad School, so my social experience was better than in my undergrad days.

I had a much more fun in grad school too. Bonded better with friends and had a lot more action with the women, too.

Graduate school was easy compared to undergrad. Being on athletic scholarship and getting top flight grades to get admitted to a top graduate school leaves no room for really anything but studying and training. I was in shock in grad school at how much time I had, and how little work I had to do to do well - a highly ranked and competitive grad school, too. In retrospect, it was not that grad school was easy, it just seemed like it when the only real responsibility was school. Ironically, given the lack of support for our sport, it was one of the few tangible advantages of pursuing it seriously.

Socially, the grad classes themselves are much, much better. But overall, undergrad was better socially because I was living on campus, or next to campus. Plus I was part of the party scene.

medical school sucks the life out of you.

Looking back some 25 years ago I have to say I certainly was more confidant and did better with the ladies in graduate school. I was more centered and goal oriented.

However, undergraduate times were crazy, intense, immature, but I can only look back at those times with great fondness and joy.

I pick undergraduate times.

I went to undergrad at sound, private liberal arts school in a big city. then I went grad school at a second rate, big, state directional school in the midwest and I certainly feel stupider for it. the social scene was terrible and consisted of 7 bars in a 3 block radius. I did run a lot though.

I was sexually harrassed by the director of my program, who was also my main professor in undergrad, starting my junior year. It was hell. By the time I got my bearings, I was a senior, and it was too costly (time wise as well as financially) to transfer.

I graduated a bitter, angry person. I have virtually no good memories from undergrad outside of my freshman year. All I remember is fear, anxiety, and hopelessness. The university administration refused to help me and blamed me for "the predicament I was in." What a bunch of self-preserving pricks university administrators are.

I got a master's degree ten years later and I generally enjoyed it. The graduate school workshop environment is certainly a more enjoyable way to learn than sitting through boring undergrad lectures. I was also very well liked by my professors and especially by the chairman of my master's program--and treated very well.

In between those two degrees, I decided that I got my bachelor's almost without any math at all, so I went to a different school--a community college!--and studied mathematics for nearly four years, starting with college algebra and finishing with differential equations. I did not enter a degree program, and only took the classes for fun and self-fulfillment, one after the other. Two plus two always equals four, and no stifling professor could claim it was 5 and grade me down and force me to grieve my marks afterward, as happened twice, with the burden of proof on me.

I enjoyed my years studying math more than undergrad or grad school. My sexually harrassing undergrad professor, who never got his way with me, did a litany of cruel and harmful things to me: fouled up my GPA, slandered my professional reputation (put out the word I was "emotionally unstable and mentally undependable"), and published my senior thesis as his own work in an respected journal. He is still a tenured professor to this day.

So, surprise! Community college rocked. I got away from him eventually, got married, established my career, and now I make triple his pathetic academic salary.