Surviving Grad School

I have had more than one student who confided in me about his or her goal of going to graduate school. A few of them have said, "I want to be a professor. Do you have any advice you could give me?"

I try to be as honest as possible without totally crushing their dreams with an emotional sledgehammer. I tell them that the number of people with Ph.D.'s far outnumber the tenure-track and full-time teaching positions that are available. I say that you could spend years working on your degree without any guarantee of a steady job. I say that you can learn a lot in graduate school and gain some interesting experiences, but that graduate school is much more like a job.

But what I really want to say is this:

RUN AWAY! Put down those graduate school brochures and run away as fast as you can! Unless you want to prematurely age, lose the ability to sleep, and have nightmares about Judith Butler and Edward Said threatening to ban you forever from the Academic Hall of Fame because you don't include twenty footnotes per paragraph in your own writing, RUN AWAY AND DON'T LOOK BACK!

Have you ever made a decision that made you question whether it was the right one? Have you ever felt like you've gone so far that it's too late to go back, even though you sometimes wish you could? I have had valuable experiences that I never would have had if I hadn't gone to graduate school. I got to learn from really great professors who inspired me. I worked with several great undergrads who changed my perspective of teaching. I developed new research interests in fields that I used to know nothing about.

But graduate school can be one of the most mind-numbing experiences you will ever have. You may think I'm exaggerating, but you'll think again the next time you see a graduate student. You'll be able to recognize one by the bloodshot eyes, haggard appearance, and the way he or she clings to your ankles, sobbing, "Don't look at me! Oh, what have I become? I used to be human, but now I can only talk in theoretical terms! I constantly correct other people's grammar to the point that they want to jab dictionaries down my throat, and I keep asking myself, 'What would Derrida do?'"

But no matter what I say, there will always be people who persist in their dream of going to grad school anyway. So for those people, I have these words of advice:

1. Don't go to grad school for the wrong reasons. I think that some people go to grad school because they want to put off the "real world" for a few years. They figure they can go to grad school and prolong the college experience for a while, at least until they figure out what their next step is. But here's the thing:

Grad school is NOTHING like the college experience. And you won't be able to avoid the real world, because it is very much a part of the real world. There is no partying. There are get-togethers, but they're not really parties so much as academic showdowns where the main form of entertainment is a game that I like to call "I'm smarter than you are so you should just drop out now, you philistine, you!"

Even during their free time, grad students talk about their work. They talk about the research papers they're working on, their professors, and how they've had to grade so many papers that the sight of a comma splice now makes them cry.

If you do pursue an advanced degree, you should do it because it's what you really want to do and because you know that it will help you in your future career. It's also hard to transfer or drop out of a grad program; it's kind of like trying to leave the Mafia. Even if you leave, you will be permanently marked by the experience, usually in the form of a scholar's name that has been branded onto your skull.

2. Learn to live on a limited income. Grad school is not cheap. If you're lucky, you can get a research assistantship or a teaching assistantship, which usually means that you'll get a tuition waiver and a stipend. A stipend is something that looks like a paycheck but will usually only be enough to buy you pencils to stab yourself with, and maybe a new notebook. You'll probably have to take out a loan to get textbooks.

Even with the waiver and the stipend, it isn't enough to live on. I thought I could just get a second teaching job or a weekend retail job, and I'd be able to make ends meet. And I did...just barely. But I ended up being forced to sacrifice a lot of time that should have been devoted to my graduate work.

I'd be exhausted every night and fall asleep at six P.M., wake up at 10 P.M., and then decide I was too tired to eat dinner; then I'd go back to sleep for the rest of the night. Or I'd try to go to sleep but end up being so tense that I couldn't relax, so that I ended up watching a lot of sunrises. I used to look out the window at the sun rising, and say to myself, "That is beautiful. Now if only I could keep my head from exploding."

No matter how hard I worked, I barely earned enough money to pay the bills, while my friends and former classmates were taking vacations and buying houses. I wore the same clothes and shoes over and over again, and didn't buy new ones unless there were holes in them that were beyond repair. I dreamed of the day when I'd be able to go to Starbucks without carefully calculating what I could afford to buy and how it would affect my budget; I'm still dreaming.

3. Be prepared to work independently, and be prepared to work hard. There is no one holding your hand. You may be lucky enough to get some sympathetic professors who will guide you, but professors are busy and can't always be available to help you (like some of my students expect me to be).

I have lost more than one friend because I spent so much time on my work. I've forgotten birthdays, cancelled outings, and turned down dinner invitations. Even when I went out with friends, I was thinking about all the work I had to do.

It's not enough for me to just have teaching experience and get good grades; it's already expected that I have those things. I'm also supposed to distinguish myself in grad school by coming up with ideas that other people haven't thought of before. But most of the time, I'm just trying to stay afloat.

When I think back of the years that I spent working on my master's degree, and then later on my doctorate, I think of many nights spent huddled over my desk with my laptop open and stacks of books in front of me, while I listened to groups of people my age walk by outside, laughing and joking as they went out to the bars and restaurants. And I kept working, because that was what I was supposed to. I've managed to survive grad school (so far), but I've had to give up a lot. Hopefully, one day it'll eventually pay off.