ABSTRACT
A woman may choose to start a family as an acceptable way out of graduate school. Stresses impinge on men and women differently, and it is not clear which factor or combination of factors is more likely to lead to completion of graduate school. Some families are willing financially to support sons but not daughters, which conveys a strong message in addition to the actual aid. The graduate school of art and design provides other of challenges. The work is by definition creative and personal for the student, so the judging faculty should be sensitive to the fact that discouragement only increases the difficulty of being creative. The fact that the curriculum is inevitably linked to the grading system poses particular problems in the arts. A student completes a project on an assigned problem, puts the finished work on display, and tries to explain and defend it before a committee of individuals actually called "critics".
