Things I Learned in My First Year of Grad School

Last month I had my final summer class session (I took a wonderful American Gothic course). I am officially halfway through my MA degree. 18 credits completed and a 4.0 maintained. When you consider that people on my tract tend to spend about 7 years of their life in grad school, 1 year seems like a drop in the bucket. Yet, while I am early in my journey, I feel that I learned a lot in this first year in graduate school:

I started graduate school thinking I knew everything. Now I don't know anything.
I have read a ton of new books, completed a lot of interesting research, and developed a broader vocabulary and understanding of the world. Clearly, I have grown intellectually and I am far smarter now than I was a year ago. Strangely enough, however, I don't feel smarter. I have acquired a greater amount of knowledge, yet I have far more uncertainties and questions. Graduate school has been a humbling experience because it has introduced me to writers and thinkers one hundred times greater than myself. My "intellectual universe" has become a whole lot bigger. With this humbling experience also comes excitement: I am nowhere near complete. There is so much more to learn, so many more questions to be asked, so much more room for growth.

There is a difference between male and female academics.
I should preface this by saying that I love the guys in my program. I think they're enthusiastic, funny, and incredibly smart. That being said, however, there are differences between my male and female grad school friends. The men can't necessarily help it--these differences are merely symptoms of much larger cultural problems that follow us even into the liberal Ivory Tower of Academia. Examples? Female students worry about babies and marriage. Men don't even mention them. I've heard the phrase "biological clock" quite a few times. Women in my program have considered postponing the thesis in light of wedding preparation and have expressed anxiety over what happens when they want to have children. Although not in a serious relationship, I am still constantly torn by family commitments and relationships (Am I being a good sister, daughter, granddaughter, niece, friend?). Meanwhile, men don't seem concerned. Men just do their work. Women feel guilty for their time being so divided. Although women are passionate about their research, they are less likely to argue and speak up in class. They are far less academically aggressive. I've even noticed that women in my class (myself included) are more likely to begin their comments with phrases such as, "I could be wrong..." or "This is just an idea...". Men are more precise and more committed to their opinions--even if they're far from amazing ones. Some of my professor-friends tell me that these are situations I will encounter through my entire career. They're frustrating, but I am glad I am facing them early on.

It's hard.
As an undergraduate, I may have romanticized the idea of graduate school. I'll admit it. Now, after a year, I feel like all I do is complain. I complain about it simply because it's hard. You postpone a decade of your life that could be in the workforce, you make little to no money, all so that you can earn a degree that may never even get you a job. You have an odd, inconsistent schedule and struggle to find the time to sleep. You have to read enormous--almost impossible--amounts of dense material. You're expected to produce quality, individual research. You're constantly under pressure not only to succeed, but to outshine everyone else; to say something new, different, and original; to present at conferences and get things published. You meet some awesome (and also some super egotistical) people, but you're also in a subculture that sometimes makes you feel alienated from your non-academic friends in your society still overwhelmed with anti-intellectualism. In the meantime, you have to juggle some kind of job so you can actually eat. Did I mention there's not much sleeping?

...And yet I love it.
During my undergraduate years, I had many professors tell me, "If you can see yourself doing something else, go do it." Many might perceive this as mean-hearted, but I realize now that they were only being truthful. A career in academia is a long, hard, unreliable road to travel. If there's something easier to do that you also find enjoyable, why wouldn't you do it? What I've learned from being in graduate school is that despite all of my frustrations, there's nothing else I could see myself doing at this point in time. If someone were to ask me, "What's your dream career?" I'd say that I am already pursuing it. I've considered other possibilities (food critic? animal shelter worker?), but when it comes down to it, this is all I truly want. Speaking purely of happiness and fulfillment, it is my only option. There may come a day when this will change, but for now I am where I need and want to be. Caring so much about what you are pursuing is both a liberating and wonderful thing, but also a scary thing. Most days, I find myself juggling immense gratefulness with utter paranoia. What I've discovered in the meantime is that all of these feelings are part of the very experience of a true intellectual journey: you think, you grapple with ideas, you expand, and you question. Somewhere in that messy cerebral venture you strangely find yourself living a more enriched life, both within and beyond the mind.

Small Dreams Actualized

Last week I registered for my last semester of course work for my MA degree (after that, it's the thesis). Along with my own courses, I also officially registered for a Teaching Assistant position in an undergraduate level African American literature course. The chance to be a TA as an MA student was one of the main reasons why I chose my particular graduate program. I grew even more excited about the opportunity when I learned that our university's resident African American literature scholar heard about my work on Toni Morrison and was willing to work with me.

For some, a TA position seems like a very insignificant step in higher education. For me, however, it feels like a small piece of my dream being actualized. Ever since I was on a sophomore in college I have wanted to go to graduate school so that I could teach in higher education. Since then, I have faced immense discouragement and doubt over things such as my ability to truly "stand out" in a program or the difficult job market, but I have never doubted my desire to teach and my sincere belief that, if given the opportunity to run a classroom, I could do a good job and be a great teacher. While all of the other outside factors worried (and continue to worry) me, I am happy to say that my desire to teach literature in higher education has not.

Getting a TA position then, made me feel like I took one step--a small one--towards that classroom. It made me feel that one small piece of my dream was being validated. It made me feel that in some way all of the work, mental agony, and fear had been worth it because I was a little closer to my final destination.

Ultimately, we don't know where we'll end up. But, in the pursuit of a dream we all need those small encouragements that are enough to push us on. Hopefully we'll push on enough to get to the next one that pushes us on again. I don't know what the end holds. Today though, I am encouraged, because a year ago I was worried I would not get into grad school, and today I am signed up for my final courses and my first experience instructing a college-level classroom. I couldn't ask for more.

One Month Update

It has been exactly one month since I started graduate school. I have not blogged mostly because there has been much I have been processing and experiencing that I didn't feel I had the ability to put into actual words. Living in a new place, starting a new school, and a new job were major changes in themselves, but even they were somewhat eclipsed by a recent family situation that has left me rather imbalanced. Until I am able to write something more profound, I will instead offer a basic update on the last 30 days.

I am currently taking two courses: Lit Theory & The Profession of Literature, and Women & Skepticism: Early American Literature. So far both of these courses have been difficult (especially the reading load and level of writing), but also incredibly rewarding. The graduate school classroom has offered me a safe place where like-minded people strive to understand and challenge the complex ideas within our field. It has only been four weeks, and I already feel that I have learned so much about my discipline.

A part from my schooling, I am enjoying my part time job as the head graduate assistant in the university's Gender and Women's Studies department. It is different from my work in the Women's Center during undergrad in that it is an academic department rather than a resource center, but it seems to do a decent job at offering programs that cater to both activism and academics. I help manage the major/minor (which is relatively small at this point), as well as plan/coordinate events that relate to gender and women's issues. Tomorrow, for instance, we have an event that is a joint lecture and poetry reading that focuses on Anna Douglass. I am slowly being given more responsibilities and am especially looking forward to the opportunity of leading a pop-culture book club for undergraduate students. I'm starting with Fifty Shades of Grey. Go big or go home, right?

In closing, a quote in one of my theoretical articles found great resonance with me: "Although time can always be studied scientifically and broken up into equal units, time is also always lived subjectively. As we know, one minute of routine work is lived very differently than a moment of a passionate kiss." Time has always perplexed me, but that mystification has now only grown more profound. In many ways, the last 30 days have felt like years; yet in another breath, like days. For the relatively short amount of time it has been, I have already learned and experienced so much. It is difficult for me to imagine all of what is still to come.

(Until then, I extend an ever-grateful "thanks" to my loved ones who have supported me, cheered for me, prayed for me, listened to my complaints, and stood by me as I continue to adjust. It is no exaggeration to say that I survive--and have any chance at succeeding--everyday in the classroom and in the office because of the people who offer me such steadfast support.)

Beginnings

The months of January-May 2010 make up what I lovingly refer to as my “magical semester.” This was the spring semester of my sophomore year, the 19th year of my life, and it was a time of great awakening, inspiration, and fulfillment. I switched my concentration to Literature. All of my classes were related to my majors. I took a class called Literary Theory that challenged every belief, idea, and understanding of the world that I possessed. Ideologically, I was shaken to the core. I formed a couple friendships that remain some of the most important relationships in my life. For the very first time, I held leadership positions in different activism roles. I also officially decided that my dream was to go to graduate school and get my PhD.

Since that afternoon in March when I sat with my academic advisor and declared, “This is what I want,” I have worked effortlessly to make sure I get into graduate school. After two years of writing, studying, and applying, I was finally accepted into three schools and chose one with the best financial package. Now my reality is that in exactly one week, I will move to a new city all by myself, start a job as a head graduate assistant, and begin work on my MA degree in English.

I mention my “magical semester” because I believe that’s where this journey was birthed. If my academic journey were a narrative, I would say that my “magical semester” was the chronological beginning. Like the most classical beginnings in a narrative, its role is to a set story into motion; it is a catalyst; it is, as the Oxford Dictionary would define, a moment or series of moments that brings something “into being.” While I would argue that life is made up of a constant stream of endless beginnings (many we don’t even realize), my “magical” semester was a markedly conscious beginning that set this new journey of mine into movement.

This upcoming journey is the reason why I felt that I needed a new blog. My older site was full of entries that reflect some of the most meaningful happenings in my life, but I feel that they are a collection of moments that ultimately compose a very different part of my life. A different chapter in my story. I felt that a new job, a new degree, a new city, and a new stage of life called for a different writing “space.” I am dwelling in a new place physically—in an apartment, a city, and different academic community. My writing needs a figurative space in which it can explore, grapple with, and process these new physical spaces.

I wish that I could end this first entry will something incredibly profound or meaningful, but the truth is I can’t. I have many feelings as I enter this stage of life—more conflicting feelings than I have ever had about any transition—and all I can do is feel each emotion as it comes. I have no idea what to expect, and because of that, I’ve decided not to expect much at all. The very most I can say is that I am immensely thankful to have been given this opportunity to pursue my dream, to study what I love, and to be privileged enough to embark on a journey that is fully about my own aspirations. May I take these next few years and live them well.