Thanksgiving of a grad student

callalily13

I am in my first year of Psychology PhD program at Loma Linda U in CA. This is my first thanksgiving as a grad student and I have my fiance, nephew, and the rest of my family that I havent seen since Halloween. I still have so many things I need to do (read about 5 articles, read several chaps of my textbooks, work on a stats lab, etc). I am trying to get ahead of it so that I have time to see and spend time with my family, but its very difficult. How do you all deal with all the work you have to do and be able to spend time with your families/so?

LauraT25

I don't see an issue with doing homework on Thanksgiving Day, unless your family generally does activities for the ENTIRE day.  In both my family and my husband's, people come over for a few hours but before and after that would be a fine time to do HW.  Well, okay, my husband's family overstays their welcome and they hang out for about 5 hours after dessert has been eaten, so I've actually used HW as an opportunity to hide downstairs after a while. 

If you have to get it done, you have to get it done.  I've had exams the Monday after, only got Thursday and Friday off, and almost an entire day of the weekend gets eaten up in travel so your family (or his) kind of has to understand that it's part of being in grad school.  I try and plan out a schedule of the minimum amount of work that I need to get done each day, being reasonable.  Don't over-burden yourself with decorating, cooking, etc.; plan simple dishes to make, accept help from others, and enlist your FI to do some tasks.

My husband and I aren't even going home for Thanksgiving this year because we have so much work to do, and the traveling is kind of a nightmare.  It sucks, but it doesn't seem worth it to spend two days stuck in traffic for one meal, especially since we'll see everyone at Christmas (and we were actually just there last weekend).

callalily13

Thanks all. Unfortunately all my family and FI wants time with me since I havent seen them all for quite a long time, some of them I havent seen in several months. I have tried to get as much done as I could, but I still have a load to do. Thanksgiving Day is out of the question for doing work unfortunately because my family spends the day playing cards, cooking, eating, and conversing...ya no time for homework or I would be yelled at. I have decided I will head back home Sat night, so that I have at least Sunday to have time to study and read my articles.

Thanks for your input to all of you.