I was miserable and fed up with school and life sitting in front of
my computer on Friday night, while everyone else was out with their
friends. I’ve felt this way since I got to College Station—lonely
because I had no friends and lost because it still hadn’t processed that
I was in grad school. Grad school came as a complete shock—living
a careless life abroad and choosing what to do on a whim (literally, as
in closing my eyes and booking tickets to a random country 2 days
before the flight and sleeping in train stations and stuff) was what I
was used to.
An article we received during orientation stated that “As a graduate student, your fate is in your own hands, and every decision you make—including whether to go to graduate school at all, which program to go to, which adviser to choose, and how to conduct yourself while there—can and should be made with an eye to the job you wish to have at the end. To do otherwise is pure madness. I have no patience whatsoever with the “love” narrative (we do what we do because we love it and money/jobs play no role”. The article gives great advice on how to succeed in the academic world but it was very absolute in how things should be done, which is also the way faculty speak about the decisions we make during graduate school—as in, if a person chose to deviate from being an academic after graduate school, they failed in their career. According to them, students must be employed in what they do for their PhD. They make it a huge deal that we are starting on our careers—the term career implies near permanency or at least a significant amount of time spent on it.
This was a poor start to graduate school. I wasn’t motivated and I didn’t have passion— there was too much pressure that I couldn't enjoy what I was learning. I had ambition, but no joy in what I was doing because there was so much stress to be the best and succeed. In short, my motive was to do what the article and all the faculty were saying—get a job in academia and, also according to what everyone else was implying, this was the only thing I could do in my life now that I was a grad student—I had no choice left to explore other options. My life would now be dedicated to ships and I would be stuck somewhere in a little lab drawing artifacts and waterlines and get paid an okay salary for the rest of my life (if I was lucky). And, if I failed at any point during grad school—I would be a bum for life and be unhappy forever.
This particular Friday however, I realized that it didn’t matter what career I would have in the future. Does changing my career in the future mean I’m wasting my time? Does it mean I don’t have enough passion for what I’m doing now? Does NOT getting a future job in nautical archaeology mean I’m a failure? No, those things would simply mean I changed my mind or I couldn’t find a job in nautical archaeology (not that those things don’t matter, money matters and so do jobs, but there are other ways to get those things). All that matters is that I’m studying what I like and I know right now that there is no place I’d rather be than in front of my computer obsessively learning about ships. I can do whatever I want, I could buy a ticket to Benin right now and just never come back (I’m not going to, but it woul--…hm, on the other hand, those national parks sound mighty…nevermind)—but I know that I want to be here. Of course the future matters, I’m not saying I don’t care what I become in the future and more likely than not I will end up doing something nautical archaeology related (because it’s fricking awesome, I’m a nerd, and it’s sexy and cool), but THAT IS NOT PERMANENT and a lot of the time that doesn’t even depend on me or what I do. And hey, even if I DO succeed in my career, that doesn’t guarantee happiness. What matters is that I like what I’m doing now even if I don’t end up doing it forever. If I end up with a career in nautical archaeology and I don’t like it, then I can change my career whenever I want and I won’t have qualms that I wasted time in grad school because I know I didn’t.
Moral: I DO WHAT I WANT. And if someone tries to stop me, I’ll move to Benin (now back to studying…)
An article we received during orientation stated that “As a graduate student, your fate is in your own hands, and every decision you make—including whether to go to graduate school at all, which program to go to, which adviser to choose, and how to conduct yourself while there—can and should be made with an eye to the job you wish to have at the end. To do otherwise is pure madness. I have no patience whatsoever with the “love” narrative (we do what we do because we love it and money/jobs play no role”. The article gives great advice on how to succeed in the academic world but it was very absolute in how things should be done, which is also the way faculty speak about the decisions we make during graduate school—as in, if a person chose to deviate from being an academic after graduate school, they failed in their career. According to them, students must be employed in what they do for their PhD. They make it a huge deal that we are starting on our careers—the term career implies near permanency or at least a significant amount of time spent on it.
This was a poor start to graduate school. I wasn’t motivated and I didn’t have passion— there was too much pressure that I couldn't enjoy what I was learning. I had ambition, but no joy in what I was doing because there was so much stress to be the best and succeed. In short, my motive was to do what the article and all the faculty were saying—get a job in academia and, also according to what everyone else was implying, this was the only thing I could do in my life now that I was a grad student—I had no choice left to explore other options. My life would now be dedicated to ships and I would be stuck somewhere in a little lab drawing artifacts and waterlines and get paid an okay salary for the rest of my life (if I was lucky). And, if I failed at any point during grad school—I would be a bum for life and be unhappy forever.
This particular Friday however, I realized that it didn’t matter what career I would have in the future. Does changing my career in the future mean I’m wasting my time? Does it mean I don’t have enough passion for what I’m doing now? Does NOT getting a future job in nautical archaeology mean I’m a failure? No, those things would simply mean I changed my mind or I couldn’t find a job in nautical archaeology (not that those things don’t matter, money matters and so do jobs, but there are other ways to get those things). All that matters is that I’m studying what I like and I know right now that there is no place I’d rather be than in front of my computer obsessively learning about ships. I can do whatever I want, I could buy a ticket to Benin right now and just never come back (I’m not going to, but it woul--…hm, on the other hand, those national parks sound mighty…nevermind)—but I know that I want to be here. Of course the future matters, I’m not saying I don’t care what I become in the future and more likely than not I will end up doing something nautical archaeology related (because it’s fricking awesome, I’m a nerd, and it’s sexy and cool), but THAT IS NOT PERMANENT and a lot of the time that doesn’t even depend on me or what I do. And hey, even if I DO succeed in my career, that doesn’t guarantee happiness. What matters is that I like what I’m doing now even if I don’t end up doing it forever. If I end up with a career in nautical archaeology and I don’t like it, then I can change my career whenever I want and I won’t have qualms that I wasted time in grad school because I know I didn’t.
Moral: I DO WHAT I WANT. And if someone tries to stop me, I’ll move to Benin (now back to studying…)
