Something graduate school prevents: reflection.
So, I have some important updates! After committing to a graduate assistantship that began in July, beginning my graduate program in August, becoming a representative on the graduate student council…I have officially walked away from my graduate program and school. Yes, that’s right. I left graduate school this past week.
Some of you may have read my prior post(s) about graduate school, when I was considering the option and getting information on the realities of being a grad student. It was probably clear from my previous writing that I was skeptical about the whole process from the start. Turns out I was extremely, utterly correct about the strain of it, and completely wrong about its “intrinsic value” I assumed and ultimately relied on.
The short answer as to why I decided to leave is for my marriage, but the long answer is a serious one.
I began to realize that I had no idea why I was in the program I had committed to. I had no specific goal to accomplish, no connector between the degree and a career. One thing I was fairly sure of was that I didn’t want to become an academic cog, because I enjoy teaching too much. I came into the Journalism and Media Studies program with what I now understand was a vague idea that getting the Master’s meant I wouldn’t have to start from the absolute bottom in my future career search. I thought the program included active elements of practical education in broadcasting and media production. The reality was that it was a typical, thesis-driven research program which I felt mainly facilitated future academics. Ironically however, it wasn’t a welcome place for someone like me who was eager to do some “real” work after years of a boring, unchallenging undergrad education. My eagerness was apparently a “warning sign” that I didn’t really understand how the graduate program functions: years of coursework –just like as an undergraduate degree- with doing the research and work of a thesis as the dead last goal; not the result of two years of rigorous and quality work. It is a slog; not an intellectual exercise but a test of bureaucratic institutionalization. If you become fully socialized into the system, you will succeed. If your family, hobbies or non-academic life matters more even by one shred, you will have to walk away before the institution claims everything. How else would anyone submit to being toyed with by instructors who deliberately give more work than students can handle as a lesson in “time management”, or make students guess what information they will be tested on in a smattering of information overload, unless they were utterly, hopelessly institutionalized? When -in any other industry- would that be OK to do to anyone?
I spoke with both my advisor in my program and a high-ranker of the graduate college about my concerns and ultimately, my decision, and I was surprised and disappointed and their inability to articulate a real value to remaining in the program. The value is entirely self-applied; not intrinsic and inevitably better than not having the professional degree. Not that I am saying that having the degree doesn’t move you into a higher tax bracket, but this can be accomplished in the same way through experience. Professional degrees apparently lead to more opportunities, which is about as clear as mud. Which leads me to my final point…
Experience seems to be the real pathway to career success, not the endless pursuit of degrees and education as the institution suggests. For a career, experience is what is essential. And unless your program is ultra-specialized to get you this invaluable resource, such as the required hours of work necessary for a Master’s of Social Work, you are not going to get it in graduate school. Well actually, what you get a a huge amount of academic experience – a world of difference from work experience. If not starting a rock-bottom in a career is the reason you are continually in school working on a professional degree, just stop and face reality. Without experience, you will not be paid what you are worth nor will you be simply placed in an ideal career that you will fit into like a glove. There is no easy way out.
Now, I am engaged in the war that is job searching. The current work market is ruthless; a dearth of jobs with a surplus of workers translates to companies with the power to discriminate highly against candidates. Everyone wants experience, even for entry level, and they can wait for the preferred applicant in an economic climate like our present one.
In the end, I don’t regret experiencing graduate school for myself. I’ve learned a great deal about the reality of making your own opportunities. I have been relying on school to provide me with easier career and life experiences, which is a total crock. I realize now that we all have to carve out everything we want in life: career, marriages and love, happiness and your sanity. It isn’t easy and there are no cheat codes. You do it yourself, will full effort, or it doesn’t happen. A very valuable lesson…maybe one I should have learned long ago, but better sometime that never.
Of course, graduate school may be a real, viable option later in my life, who knows? If I get a good job I enjoy and find myself needing a
Madelinetosh: Steam Age. A true luxury!
Master’s in order to keep growing professionally, that is just the clear-cut goal needed to make it through a sadistic, life-wrenching and unreasonably expensive program such as graduate school. However without a real, applicable goal that I can clearly see the benefit of, there was no way I was going to put myself or my marriage through one more day of that merciless, unreasonable institution (such as being assigned nine books to read in a semester and only being tested on two). Yeah…..no thanks. Of course, another little-known or perhaps unadvertised fact is that learning and education can continue, with or without the institution’s permission. Even publishing articles or writing can occur outside the university; it takes the same amount of rigor and peer-review, and is just as legitimate.
Well, I will keep you posted on the career search! In the meantime, I have begun weaving and knitting again (in your face, grad school)!
I am working on a scarf on my rigid heddle loom, using 5/2 Pearle Cotton, alternating floats over a weft of natural cream. I love the way it’s turning out! Also, I’m working with my favorite or favorite yarn, Madelinetosh on the Raha Scarf from Knitted Lace of Estonia, by Nancy Bush. Its going to be gorgeous after blocking. Check them out! The colorway on the Madelinetosh is called “Steam Age”; I found it in a LYS while in Denver, CO several months ago. What a gorgeous find! Honestly, the pictures do not do it justice.
Another shot of the weaving!
This is a deliberately weft-faced textile; I love how subtle the floats are!
Raha Scarf from Nancy Bush’s “Knitted Lace of Estonia”
As someone who spent 7 years total in graduate school and then became a professor (left that career 2004), I think I am in a good position to respond. First, from what you have shared, you have made the best decision for yourself. If you had no plans on begging a PhD and being a professor – that’s certainly okay!The best reason to stay in non-professional grad program (professional programs being, e.g., MPAs or JDs) is for the love of the process – the research, writing, intellectual reasoning, discussion etc. You hone amazing critical analyatical tools – unrivaled by the non-academic world – skills that you can apply to whatever you set your mind to – whether you’re in a 2 year masters program or a longer doctorate program.
After I left academia, I ended up working for a governmental agency. After years in academia, I was appalled and very surprised at not only the derision people had for attainment of higher education but how ill-educated and unread people were (seriously – not even People or Reader’s Digest). Certainly interest in political-ethical questions, though I heard long conversations about tv serials. I saw people promoted depending on how well liked they were or because of their job tenure. People joined the ranks of managers and simply created their own management “theories” … it would have been laughable if it weren’t for the reality that they were being paid with government money and that the public was their customer base.
I am now doing some consulting and working with 3 partners in a startup company. I have drafted the job descriptions of people I have to hire. Because I am incorporating succession planning from the ground floor that we’re currently at, I am requiring my assistant, for example, have at least an undergrad, preferably a masters. Why? Because I want to make sure employees have the breadth – as well as some depth – of knowledge that will serve as the foundation for their success within my company. I will expect them to be able to read, write and speak without having to send them to trainings about using punctuation! I want to see critical analysis and intellectual curiosity at all levels … and that I found – after 6 years in a public institution – quite rare.
Also, keep in mind that “institutionalism” exists in every institution.
All this said, I’ve read many of your blog posts, and I think you’ll be a success at whatever you turn your hand to! I wish you nothing but success in your endeavors!
Thanks so much for your comment! I appreciate your perspective on this, you certainly have the history and experience with the system. I definitely agree that institutionalization exists in all institutions; I suppose we have to pick our poison and grad school was not the potion I could swallow…not just yet anyway.
Besides what I mentioned in my post, I had some other disappointments in the program. My GA, as it turned out, was far too demanding. The position was actually a full time, 40 hours a week position which was previously run by a grant-appointed VISTA. When the grant was denied unexpectedly, my position was hurriedly constructed. I’m sure you know that GA positions are supposed to be 20 hours a week or less, but this one was a doozy; and much of my work was very time-sensitive, meaning that the emails I was getting at all hours of the day needed attention most of the time, no matter that I was busy studying. I was unable to mitigate the GA problems and had to leave it, resulting in a massive tuition hike and making the entire grad program a huge financial burden. Unable to maintain a GA, I didn’t see how the program was feasible.
Plus, I was disappointed at the lack of intellectual rigor I had encountered thus far. I admit that I was only with the program a short while, but when I began to uncover that most of my cohort came from non-research backgrounds -many of them communications majors as undergraduates- I started to wonder when the program would really get challenging, if ever. I came from a very research-strong undergrad in sociology; I did my own independent research, did applied sociology in an internship, attended conferences and presented my work. I had even lectured and done peer-education. I was under the impression that that kind of caliber was necessary in graduate study (which is why I put such effort into my undergrad), but I felt like the real challenge in the program was actually remaining sane while given too much work to handle or managing your time in nearly impossible ways while proving your “dedication” by neglecting your family and yourself. Even since I was an undergrad, I asked my most liked instructor, “when does the challenge begin?” When will be the last time that I begin a new class with “what is culture?” and instead discuss the perspectives of Montesquieu or tackle unanswerable questions of epistemology?
Well, in the end I do feel like I made the best decision right now, but I am still disillusioned with my experiences. It was a very difficult decision to make.Up until now, being a student has been my main source of identity…even before fiberarts.
Thanks again for your comment and your support, I really do appreciate it.
Some of what you mention – namely the idea that “good” -insert title here-s place the work above all, and that the more you neglect your personal life the more worthy you are, happen in teaching too. The idea that I could be a “lesser” teacher because I usually “only” put in 10-15 extra hours a week outside of my contract, and the almost battle-like debates I see other teachers have over who spends more time on their schoolwork (the winner is the one who gives up the most time to schoolwork, of course) do depress me. Interestingly that’s not something I encountered in my graduate program, but that may have been because I was already teaching and so were most of my classmates. Either way, those sort of expectations are a strain. If it’s not a necessary evil in order to reach some other goal (in my case, getting to hear a student say, “Oooooh! I get it now!” as often as possible) then there’s absolutely no reason to put yourself through it. Take care of yourself and enjoy some extra knitting time!
Thanks for your support; it seems that all professions and industries have their bring-me-downs. It can be difficult to find that balance -or what would be a balance to you- and not give in to all the pressure of competition and giving too much of yourself to your work.
I’m in danger of too much self-reflection…suffice to say that life is a real struggle of competing forces. I suppose since there are no “right” answers we really have to be sure of why we make certain decisions, and try not to let other people’s circumstances sway us to do what is unhealthy. I think you sound like a perfectly busy and effective teacher, thoroughly engaged in what matters most in your work: the “ah ha!” moment.
Having a reason why is one of the main things I teach my students. There’s an awful lot of grey in the world; it’s easy to get swept into something just because it’s what you’re “supposed” to do, or what “everyone else” is doing. Doing what’s right for you is a surprisingly tough skill.
I just found your blog today, but as I have gone through and read a few posts this one really caught my attention. I left my master’s program this past May, even though I was in an entirely different field as I read your post I couldn’t help but to mentally check off all the similarities you listed for getting out. Thanks for sharing, congratulations on realizing it was time to leave, and best of luck moving forward.
You’re awesome; thanks for the support and I hope you have enjoyed the blog so far. Its always great to get new readers and I hope to hear from you again!
I’m not sure yet where I will find myself…I spent many years in university before leaving suddenly and my identity became wrapped up in my work there. Its been an up and down kind of experience so far in the job search, but as feelgoodknitting said, at least I have some unhampered time for fiber arts!