The Life of the Mind F&%k

The biggest lie about graduate school and the Professoriate is the bull they feed you about what Benton (2010) calls the Big Lie of the Life of the Mind. This narrative paints a picture of the academy as the only worthwhile place for those who value intellectualism, and one worthy of so much sacrifice as to justify the lowest of salaries.  The academy is presented as a place of respite from a stupid, ugly world where you can go to ruminate on ideas.  While everyone else is proving themselves smarter than a fifth grader, or out grubbing for money, you are thinking peer reviewed deep thoughts.

I don't know where you are going to graduate school, but I constantly feel like I am in a cubicle with those guys at Inotech.  My department is all about increasing graduate student productivity, and running us through every benchmark of degree progress as quickly and efficiently as possible.  There is little time to explore ideas, follow your passion, or even develop your own work.  In my nightmares, I see Lumbergh hanging over Peter's desk asking "How's that conference paper coming?" and telling me "I'm going to need you to come in on Saturday."  There has been a speeding up of life as a graduate student. In scarce funding environments, increased enrollments, and budget cuts, graduate students are expected to work longer, harder, and faster.  We publish more, and fight harder for the jobs that are out there.  As one of my faculty observed (not with compassion so much as cheerleading) "Students are graduating with the CVs of second and third year Assistant Professors!"  I feel like an early 90s office worker whose life has been turned upside down by outside forces shaping society in ways we can only begin to comprehend.

How to Get a Job Out of Grad School

My entire graduate school career has been oriented toward keeping the back door open. Deep down I secretly knew that the odds of my putting up with this shit finishing were pretty minimal.  This was evident from a number of choices I made as I consciously straddled the world of academia and the outside world:

• I kept my individual health insurance through my M.A., even though it cost me a chunk of change in case I left to go back to self-employment.  This was particularly important since at the time the economy was so bad that good jobs with insurance were hard to come by.  It was only when they jacked my rate, and I knew (ha!) I was staying that I gave up my insurance for my department issued health plan.
• I worked the entirety of my graduate school career.  The reality is that I have never had less than two jobs: either some consulting work I retained from before I went back,  a part time super flexible job I picked up before I went back to school doing grant writing, and occasional paid research assistant positions, fellowships, etc.  This is all in addition to my working as a teaching assistant 20 hours per week, making normative progress on the insane time table mandated by my department, and doing research and course work. While it made me something of a crazy person, between all these jobs, I essentially doubled my yearly salary as a grad student, didn't take any loans, and got great additions for my C.V.  For JC of From Graduate School to Happiness, a part time job simply became the first post academic job.
• For me service meant work outside the department, as well as within it.  This is important since your department will likely completely discount outside service, when in reality it is your golden escape hatch.  While I have served on various volunteer committees and positions at the University in case I wanted to pursue an academic job (again, ha!), I made sure a lot of my volunteer time and energy went into work that would be relevant outside of academia.  Particularly, I looked for volunteer opportunities that would translate to contacts in fields I wanted to work in, and filled holes in my resume.  I actually pulled job postings for the types of positions I thought I wanted after I finished the Ph.D. so I could prepare to be a good candidate.  In fact, enough people knew about my background that last spring I was actually recruited to a job that I turned down (but told them I might accept after I went ABD) which I am now reapplying to.
• I kept my resume current, and added new details as they developed. Writing a resume from scratch is excruciating   I know because as an undergraduate who hadn't kept good track of my volunteer work, and didn't have any sense of what gaps on my resume I still needed to address, I ended up listing course work and saying things like "I'm an outgoing person who likes to talk to people."  I cringe typing that.  Not only did I really do that, but I have received resumes from other people who have done that.  It happens--but one way to avoid it is to create your resume as you go and check postings so you can give yourself the time to get the relevant experience you need, even if it is as a volunteer.  Plus, as every teaching assistant stresses to their charges, you must write in drafts and time gives you the perspective to organize your resume so you can fully leverage your experiences in ways that make you stand out to employers. 

Now that I am planning on leaving, these things make my job hunt much easier. I haven't yet gotten my first job on the outside, but I do have four really good leads that are in my interest area and would be great fits.

And not a single one requires an M.A. or a Ph.D.

A lot of this probably sounds really annoying.  "Great," you are thinking, "lucky you having the foresight and the ability to spend all this time preparing."  The reality is that most of us who leave spend months if not years preparing to exit. The nagging doubt in our mind grows to a voice we cannot ignore, which eventually turns into racking sobs, which finally gives way to sighs of relief (and maybe even shrieks of terror because let's be honest, leaving graduate school is hard). If you found this post because you aren't sure about your program, start preparing now.  Even if you finish and decide to go for a tenure track job, these strategies will make you a more interesting person more likely to get access to community sample.

If you are one of the unfortunate many who has been cut loose from funding by your department and are now scrambling to fend for yourself, start working on your resume and think about how to frame those volunteer experiences.  Pull some job listings and see where the gaps are in your experience, and even if you have to take a job for now that isn't that great, at least devise a strategy regarding how to get the experience you need for the career you want.

Sunshine and Unicorns

Emotional work is hard.  Being in the early stages of leaving graduate school is bringing up a lot of emotions for me. Just when you think everything is ok, something new hits.  These revelations are painful, but are also necessary. Each day brings up more issues, but each day also get me closer to the source of my problem.  Today I realized that a big reason I don't like being in graduate school is how constantly critical it is: your work is constantly critiqued, criticized, scrutinized, and torn down.  That's not mean--it's just the process.   But under certain circumstances and for certain people that process is death to creativity.

This type of criticism is not new, and its not confined to the profession. I recognize it a lot from my childhood, where fairly or not I constantly perceived my mother's critique in every response.  It's particularly harsh when I want approval and a safe space to share and create, but don't seem to get it.  I have a very difficult time putting my emotions and my creativity out there.

Where is the Green Grass?

Since I decided to leave my program, I've felt moments of soaring freedom, alternating with worry, fear, and concern for my future.  The other day I confined to my husband I was scared I wouldn't be brave enough to leave.  "Brave?"  he told me, "What exactly is brave about leaving?  This is a sinking ship, leaving is a GREAT thing!" Staying would be brave, he implied, only because it would be so foolish in face of the odds.

I'm a Type I leaver.  I don't like teaching, don't want to do research anymore, and just don't fit in the university system.  However, I recognize that academia is broken in ways that extend beyond my own personal dislikes of the profession.  For the Type II leavers who came to graduate school because they wanted to be a Professor, the market is increasingly tough for a variety of reasons.

As many have pointed out, it's a terrible time for new Ph.D.s.  Only seventy percent of current jobs are now tenure track , and the experience of tenure is increasingly brutal.

Leaving Graduate School--the Soundtrack

So one way I have been trying to reconnect with my interests, passion, and sense of self is through music.  My favorite song right now is "I am not a Robot," by Marina and the Diamonds.  It speaks to the ways in which I have walled off my emotions to get through the day.  Very robot-like!

Some of the lyrics I can really relate to... 

You're vulnerable, you're vulnerable
You are not a robot
You're lovable, so lovable
But you're just troubled

Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot

The video is kind of cool, too.   You can watch it here. 

In fact, her star body paint reminds me of sparkle pony, so for good measure I'm linking to that awesome clip from Portlandia, too.

A Little Passion for a Project

Now that I have starting moving toward the exit, I find it harder and harder to focus on the work I need to finish up.  Realizing you have no passion for the majority of what  you do makes it difficult to keep slogging forward.  There's one project on my plate that I took on when I still thought I wanted to go the research route, and I am actively avoiding it. Today I cleared my schedule to work on it, and I just can't concentrate.

Part of the challenge is that I spent all day yesterday grading undergraduate essays. That kills both brain cells and soul cells--it's all I can do to mark margins in an exercise I no longer believe in. More and more my comments veer toward: 1) general, useful writing advice that will carry students beyond a course assignment (two page paragraphs, really?); 2) elaborate drawing illustrating my comments, such as "hit me over the head with your argument," complete with stick figure and mallet (will my point get through?).  This can't be my only creative outlet.

Things got so bad regarding my inability to concentrate on grading that I resorted to writing my essential self a letter:

Dear Essential Self,
I hear you loud and clear--and I totally GET IT!  You hate school, and you want out. While I facilitate our exit (escape?), please have some patience.  We really need to finish this damn grading!  We need to walk away from school into gainful employment, not slink off with a box full of our office belongs and a big fat FIRED stamped across future references.  Health insurance remains a valuable tool to access all those mental health services we need!

On Leaving Academia--or Getting Out While You Still Can

I've spent the last several months reading and rereading leaving academia blogs. In fact, I have been lurking in comment threads, escaping into the fantasy world of leaving, and mentally and emotionally checking out of my life.  This is my coming out post.  I think I am finally ready to leave.   But I didn't get here overnight.

First, there was this classic piece from Professor is in. It IS ok to quit, and graduate school is a psychological prison of our own making:

"It is ok to decide that’s not what you want.  It is ok to make another choice.  There is life outside of academia.  But academia is a kind of cult, and deviation from the normative values of the group is not permitted or accepted within its walls.  You will be judged harshly by others and, to the extent you’ve been properly socialized into the cult during graduate school, by your own inner voices.  Making the decision to leave involves confronting that judgment, working through it, and coming out the other side.  It is long and hard and involves confronting profound shame.  I went through this.  I know."

Of course, Leaving Academia (with its promise of "From Grad School to Happiness") served as my guiding light for months.  During dark days and nights, I would read and reread the posts and comments, emboldened by the idea that there is employment, a life, and a future out there. I admit to sitting in a huge lecture hall as a TA (in the back dark corner so students couldn't see my screen), reading blog posts about getting out.   JC has been like the graduate student mentor and friend who wants you to know that it will be ok.

JC also introduced me to mama nervosa, which spoke to a whole other dynamic of my wanting to leave: my desire to start a family and move on to having a life.  I struggled with whether graduate school would be a more forgiving place to get pregnant and have my first child, but the reality of graduate school as a parent on TOP of the experiences of these ladies in dealing with an unrealistic job market, low pay for adjuncts and TAs, getting through comps, and the bullshit suckiness of graduate school has been illuminating beyond words.

During fantasy escapades through blog land, I luckily stumbled across Plan B Nation's recommendations for advice books and quickly snapped up Martha Beck's Finding Your Own North Star.  This book speaks to me in a way that no book has in a long time:  her concept of the essential self and the social self has helped me strip away the bullshit I routinely fed my therapist and myself to get clarity on what it is I really want.  I hate teaching, hate grading papers, hate writing papers, hate sitting alone and isolated in front of a computer, and hate going to lectures, and academic conferences (where great titles hide horrific and unwatchable panels).  I realized that getting the PhD and walking away to a non academic job would essentially assure me of having to write papers, and sit alone in front of a computer, when I could quit now and do something else.  Why was I staying again?

In my moments of rage, I found Penelope Trunk's hilarious and brutal take down of graduate school, which lifted my spirits and helped me feel ok about walking away from a program even though it is paid.  As she points out, the lost opportunity costs, and lack of benefit to staying are just too much.

So where does this leave me?  I feel like after several false starts (I even interviewed for a job and almost left  last spring), the reality of my situation is apparent.  There is no longer any rational for staying beyond fear and ego, a fact that I admitted for the first time a week ago.

I'm terrified of getting a job and worried I won't like my options. I am also terrified I will not get a job and be stuck here writing my comps next semester.  Now that I have decided to leave, I resent all the more every paper I have to grade, while still meeting with my committee about exams I hope never to take. I don't want to tell my adviser in case I can't get a job, but need to get the word out I am looking.

But mostly, like an addict, my deep-seated fear is that I won't and can't change: that I will stay, and still be here even though I know it is the wrong thing for me.  Now that I have started down this path, I hope I am brave enough to continue.

photo credit: temporalata

Dreams of My Future

A few weeks ago  I woke up from a strange dream:  I have been logging into student health lately to follow up on my physical, and in my dream our former Department Chair contacted me to say that he had received a notification from the system that I had dropped out of the program. Everything was fine, I should just turn in my key.  

Apparently I had pressed the wrong button, and inadvertently unenrolled from graduate school.  I couldn't believe such a snafu had occurred, and explained to him, “No no, I’m not dropping out.  I must have hit the wrong button.” He  didn’t try to argue with me, and didn’t even feel we needed to have a discussion.  Just like that, he alerted me that the system had informed him of my decision and by clicking a button by mistake, notice was considered given. 

In my dream I kept explaining to him it wasn’t intentional, that I had just accidently pressed the wrong button.  I was neither relieved nor upset, just surprised at the kafka-esque notion that a button pressed by accident and without any intention on a seemingly unrelated website had been interpreted as my leaving.  Leaving seems like such a big, hard, challenging and dangerous taboo prospect: this was anti climactic to say the least. 

Insanity is Doing the Same Thing and Expecting a Different Result

"These people are lunatics!"

They certainly are.  Sometimes, we get so immersed on our own brand of crazy that we lose sight of how insane the world swirling around us has become.  The frog in the pot doesn't realize the water starts to boil--or a watched pot with a frog--hell, I can't remember! Bottom line, if you are a frog, stay the hell out of pots!

Hands down, the craziest time in a PhD program is comprehensive exams.  In talking to fellow grads in my department, advice given out for passing and coping is particularly revealing of the stress and crazy endemic to my graduate program. I have spoken with ten students about the comps process, and through informal survey research, and open ended interviews I can report that only two answers consistently emerge

To pass quals, you need:

1) Drugs (preferably RX) and Alcohol
2) To give yourself up to a higher power, a.k.a. God

That's right, the prescription is basically an all inclusive ticket to a 12 step program.  First, you have to horribly F&5k yourself up, and then you need to give yourself over.  The cycle is complete.

I Just Can't Take It Anymore

Entering my fourth year of graduate school, I just don’t know if I can do it anymore.  I look at the draft of research questions I wrote for my project, and the lines mean nothing to me. I stare at words on the page and they stare right back at me.  They seem to have discovered the secret invisibility of ink so boring you won’t notice it is there.

“What am I doing?” I think to myself.  Why am I still here?

I’ve wanted to drop out of graduate school since I arrived.  My first day of class I was late, and showed up unprepared having not done the reading.  To be fair, it was a surprise.  My department likes to start classes before the official start date of the semester, tacking on an extra session because “a semester is just too short to get it all done.”  I thought I was coming for orientation, but got a surprise lecture on epistemology instead. (Side Note: surprise epistemology, episiotomy, why are the words and their meanings in that context both so painful?)

I’ve always been the reluctant graduate student.  Maybe that should tell me something.