The Good Stuff

So, after the past couple of posts about the transition from undergrad to grad school, I feel like I should do a post that is more... positive. I also feel like I should note that I'm NOT saying that the way things are (however that is, and it does vary widely by institution and part of the country) is the way that things should always remain, and that I'm NOT saying that my experience with stuff will apply to every single person who attends grad school or who reads this blog. These posts originated out of the ways that I'm seeing my own student's experience replicating my experience. Part of that is because, like me, this student took no time off between undergrad and grad school. [Aside: one reason why students from institutions like my current one don't take time off is because they can't afford to go into repayment on loans or because they fear that family pressure will mean they'll never go back. Taking a "year off" is a luxury that only a certain type of student can afford, or that only a certain type of student thinks that they can afford.] Part of this is because, like me, this student made a major leap in terms of quality of program between undergrad and grad. So will the experience be different if one has made or makes different choices? Most likely. But I suppose that my impetus to write about my experience in the way that I do is because those were the things that I never heard when I was making my decisions about graduate school or when I was suffering through graduate school myself. And I feel like hearing those things would have made me feel better or at least would have helped me to understand my position in ways that were helpful to me. So am I trying to advocate for grad school being a harsh and horrifying place? No. Am I trying to dissuade people from pursuing graduate education? Well, no, except that the last thing the world needs is more unemployable PhDs, so I'm not encouraging people either. I'm just trying to talk about (and to think through) certain aspects of how one's identity as an academic is formed, and I'm trying to flesh out for myself how those things that have formed my academic identity have affected who I am now. That's it.

But was graduate school a "bad" experience for me? Hell no it wasn't! Was it hard? Sure. Was it emotionally draining and confusing and complicated? Yep. But it wasn't "bad." How can I say this?

• Graduate school gave me the tools to think and speak in ways that I never would have learned had I not attended.
• Graduate school was a luxury. I was able to read widely and deeply, to think long and hard, to focus on things that made me see the world in a new way.
  
• Some of my deepest and most lasting and most important friendships originated in grad school.
  
• Graduate school taught me that I am capable of original and insightful thought and that I am capable of meeting goals that were impossible for me to imagine at 17, when I had to work my ass off to explain to my mother that it was even possible for me to attend a 4-year university rather than "taking a few classes at community college" and living at home.
• Graduate school made my world bigger. It meant leaving my hometown, moving to two different and bigger cities, and making a new life for myself in each of those, without the safety net of family and people I knew for years.
• Graduate school taught me who my friends were and it taught me who I could count on in the life that I had before. People who couldn't hang with me becoming hyper-educated were quickly weeded out. That was a good thing.
• Graduate school meant that I had the option of becoming a college professor - without it, I would not have the life I have now, and I like the life I have now. I like having some control over my day-to-day schedule. I like having autonomy. I like teaching, but I also like that I get to have a life of the mind, too. I like that some of the hardest work I do can be accomplished in pajamas.
• Graduate school, and specifically my years in my PhD program, were not only times of study and stress but also times of Big Fun and Partying and Dating and Dancing and Craziness.
  

So if you need a positive spin from Dr. Crazy, there it is. It doesn't erase the other stuff I've written about recently, nor do I think it's particularly helpful to anybody, but I don't want to come off like some Debbie Downer who only sees only Doom and Gloom in this process or who is aggressively, at one and the same time, reinforcing the status quo about how grad students are treated and discouraging people's dreams or something. I'm not saying that my version of this experience, whether positive or negative, will be everybody's version. It's just Dr. Crazy's version. And the more versions we get, the better off we all are. I really do believe that.