Living the Dream

Lately I've been thinking that I should write a book about surviving graduate school. So, I poked around a little bit on Amazon and realized that the concept is pretty played. However, what I did find is that most of these books are really traditionalist in course. If I were to write a book, it would be devoted to doing graduate work the "easy way". As our dear President would say, it's all about "Strategery".

For example, I would devote a chapter to the usefulness of picking a theme of your Master's thesis a year in advance and only taking classes that will allow you to write papers under this theme. Of course, you have to already be mature and rigorous. You have to know what you like, like what you know, and be fully prepared to sink into it. But this way, by the time a year of coursework rolls around, you already have three or four chapters written.

Meanwhile, you make sure to take the very maximum of your credit load each semester--normally 18 credits, by allotting three credits to M.A. thesis research. In the end, you've loaded your credits in advance and simultaneously worked ahead so that you can:

a) graduate early
b) get a heck of a lot more bang for your buck
c) take a semester off to shake and shimmer your way through Southern Spain (or what-have-you) before you either have to go out into the real world or return to begin the coursework for your Ph.D.

Ahem.

Because I'm currently teaching a graduate seminar, I am constantly repeating this advice to my 10 bright-eyed, eager beavers all of the time. Who else is going to tell them this? Certainly not the administrators who want their warm bodies and hard money in the system for two full years.

One of my other little secrets that I will share in my book is that I am a huge fan of doing an 8-credit independent study at the end of the M.A. career. Why? Oh, yes, let me tell you why! The reason for this is also twofold:

1) You pick something you're interested in and write a kick-ass, publishable work on it. You're not confined to the droll of weekly classroom discussions with often less-engaging minds, or having to read from an entire syllabus of stuff that you've already read for the past two years. No. You get to make your own syllabus and proceed accordingly.

2) Upon the completion of writing your kick-ass paper in something that makes your heart race, you are given an "A" from the student-friendly professor who already thinks that you can walk on water. But this is not any "A"...no, friends!!...this is an 8-CREDIT "A". Do you have any idea what happens when you get an 8-CREDIT "A" added to your already-stellar G.P.A.? You graduate...um...6 months early....and magna cum laude from your class. Mmmmm-hmmmm. Sha-bang! Mama knows, child, mama knows!

Of course, I could spin out useful tips for making the most of your time and money all day, but I have another book to write first to fulfill the requirements of the Ph.D. Lately I've found myself clarifying this to my family when they ask when I'm going to be done with my "paper" so that I can start producing the grand-babies en masse. Just last night, even:

"Mom, no...it's not a paper...it's a book. Yes, a book! A real book!"

"But I thought it was just a paper."

"Well, yes, I guess you could say that a book is a really big paper."

"How big, honey?"

"350 pages, Mommy."

"Oh, honey, that's so big! That's just too big!"

"I know. It's fairly daunting, but I can do it. I'm ok."

(Hysterically.) "Do you think you're ever going to finish?" (Pause.)

(Long silence from my end as I take a deep breath and try not to hang up on the woman who gave me life.)

"Honey! I worry for you. You're my baby and you're so lost with all of this talk of doing this and doing that! When!...are you going!....to!... settle down!!....and!!!...raise!!...a!...family!!!!!!?"

My mom is in a constantly flustered state of worry that the florescent lights of the library are going to hinder my reproductive capacities. She once sent me an article from USA Today that said that people with more education get married less, have fewer children, and also have less sex...

...But I digress.

Point is, I've also done the research on this. Statistically, the odds are stacked against me with the Ph.D. There's a reason why so few people in the world actually succeed in getting one. The irony of it is that those at "the top" fail to outstretch their hands to those who are coming up behind them. The thought is that if they had to struggle, then so should we, and so the cycle perpetuates. No one is in the business of helping their fellow scholar. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but what I am describing is the general rule of academic counter-intuitiveness.

I've also realized that, just like the M.A., the key to survival is not how "smart" you are, but whether you have what it takes to navigate down so many dark and winding alleys. It's a matter of how well you handle both silence and failure and what you do with it. The prize doesn't go to the most erudite, but rather, to the the most disciplined. It's one thing to say that you want something, but another thing entirely to sit alone, with yourself and your books hours at a time and still have the gumption to connect thought with action.

For those of you wonderful folks who've asked, I'm really doing ok. My committee is now headed by a supportive, student activist who knows and understands my heart. We talk in high, spiritual metaphors when I relate my research interest to my need to do something worthwhile with my life. He gets it, and, according to him, I can do anything I want, even walk on water. In the past several weeks, I've done a great deal of assessing of this process and realized that it is neither a veritable Mt. Everest, nor a doomed descension into Dante's innermost circle. Sure, writing a dissertation is not easy, but I now recognize that it's an honor to be able to do it. This is what I've worked for. This is the fun part!

Like everything, living your dream comes with a great deal of costs. After all, what's the value of anything if it doesn't involve a lot of challenge, enormous personal growth and a little bit of sacrifice?