PhDing: justification

One month from today, I move to Montreal in preparation for starting my PhD in English at McGill.

I read daily about the state of academia and the PhD process, and as anyone else who reads such material knows, the vista awaiting grad students, adjuncts, and scholars trying to get tenure and grants can resemble more of a zombie wasteland with the half-alive bodies of our former comrades stumbling about and just trying to make it a few more steps than the ivory towers and grassy knolls of campus.

An exaggeration? Perhaps. However, resources like 100 Reasons NOT to go to Grad School,  Pannapacker's Graduate School in the Humanities: Don’t Go, Schuman's controversial Thesis Hatement, and Skallerup's excellent and unapologetically honest College Ready Writing series exist for a reason. And these texts are hardly the beginning; Googling "should I go to grad school" is overwhelming.

I feel, therefore, like I need to justify my choice to go to grad school. This decision isn't just because I'm scared of doing anything else! I've thought it through! In a way, I feel like a truant child; I want to be part of my favourite adults' party, but they're telling me that for most of the members, the party is actually pretty wretched.

I don't necessarily want to be at this party for the long term, but I think I could at least hang out for a little bit.

I did both my undergrad and MA in English at the University of Saskatchewan, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Saskatoon, the largest city in the province at about 240000 people, has been my home during my degree; before that, I lived in small towns of around 700 people.

I did well in my undergrad, due in no small degree to the excellent faculty at USask. In particular, Dr. Allison Muri took me under her wing, recruiting me to English during my first year, helping me get a job in the Library in my second summer doing digitization work, and hiring me as an RA for my senior years of my undergrad. I can say, quite frankly, that I would not be where I am today without her mentorship.

Because of my high marks, but also, I suspect, because of the amount of research I had built up by the time I applied to my MA, I was awarded a SSHRC to do my MA. After living on student loans, scholarships, and a bit of money my (lower-middle class) parents had saved up for me and my siblings' education, SSHRC felt like an outrageous amount of money.

During my final year of undergrad and my MA, I was planning on going to do a PhD, except for the few months early in my MA when I had an existential crisis (WHY am I here, what am I even doing, does this matter, am I good enough, ack!). With a publication under my belt, a clear research goal going into my MA that built off my undergrad research, and, of course, good marks, I applied to SSHRC for PhD and to 6 institutions in Canada.

I was accepted to five of the six institutions and, as I discovered a few months ago, awarded a SSHRC.

I had better financial offers from other institutions, but chose McGill for a couple reasons. First, I will be supervised by one of the top scholars in 18th century literature. Secondly, they have a solid digital humanities group developing. And, third, McGill is in Montreal.

For a small-town prairie girl who hadn't been on a plane until last summer, Montreal is a big deal and a big draw.

So, summary: I can live in Montreal (where, as an anglophone, it would be very difficult for me to live otherwise), study at one of the best institutions under an amazing scholar, and be making more money than I have ever before. I will be able to live well above what I have in the past.

Well, but what about after? you ask. And a good question it is.

My answer? I will take it when it comes, just like I decided I would after doing English as a major in my undergrad.

I know the state of academic jobs. I am not going into this commitment expecting to get a tenure-track, or even adjunct, job afterwards. My tentative plan if I have no job prospects after is to go teach English overseas. My identity is tied to academia right now, but I know I've done enough volunteer and summer work in other areas to know that there are other things that I would also be happy doing the rest of my life.

Grad school can be isolating and competitive, but I am outgoing enough and am so oblivious to drama that I think (hope?) I will be fine. I know only my supervisor and a not-yet-met cousin in Montreal, so I know it will be lonely at times at the beginning - but isn't making new friends and groups part of the adventure?

Nobody will read your research, you say! Well, nobody read my material during undergrad except for professors and I was the only person doing 18th century and, to a lesser degree, DH in the grad program at USask. I'm used to my research not being understood or relevant to my friends, never mind my cohort.

Grad school is full of angst and depression and doubting oneself. Maybe. It is for some people, and isn't for others.

Grad school can drag on, though - what if you go on past your funding period? What if you are a grad student FOREVER? Well, my supervisor is retiring four years after I start and will supervise me one year from retirement, so I have extra incentive to finish it on time. I finished my undergrad in four years and my MA in one, so I have some good precedents set, at least?

Hopefully, I won't look back at this post in future years and shake my head at my naïveté.

Or, rather, I will, but I will also recognize that it was worth it.

Applications and Waiting

I've expressed this sentiment before: grad school is just a series of applications.

First, in the autumn of the final year of undergrad, start working on my MA SSHRC grant.
Then, apply to get into my MA program.

And then, the fun really beings. Applications breed as though they have a little brothel under my desk. This conference, that conference, this series of workshops. And, of course, the two most stressful aspects of my grad career thus far: PhD SSHRC and applying to PhD programs.

You get a little breathing room early in September. Then PhD SSHRC can easily take over your waking (and sleeping) life. (Yes, I have had a nightmare about a bunch of scholars looking over my SSHRC.) Then, it's out of your hands and you are into final papers and submitting PhD applications in December and January.

The waiting after those were done? Blissful. I didn't have to fill out any more forms or make the choices that the forms brought back; I could just read comics for my course and think about literature in the 18th century.

That lasted for about a month, and then schools started getting back to me. This period, my friends, is the trickiest.

You have a decision looming, and not all the cards have been dealt. Some of them might not be dealt until you've removed yourself from the game. I feel like there's a poker metaphor in here somewhere, but I don't really understand many card games beyond whist and rummy, so forgive me for the crudeness of my figurative language.

I've been accepted to two schools. I haven't heard back from the other four. According to GradCafe, some have heard back from school that I applied to but haven't heard from. And now I'm on tenterhooks, because sometimes it's better to know than to be in a state of angst and I really just want to know if I got in and, to quote GOB Bluth, come on!

What I keep having to stop myself from doing now is worrying about making the wrong choice. If I go to A, will it be better than B? What will happen to me at B if I don't choose A? Of course, I can't really know (maybe virtual reality will be done by the time I'm done my PhD and I'll be off in a world with Digimon), and there are more practical factors like living expenses and funding, but that doesn't stop me from getting distracted from my coursework.

Speaking of getting distracted from coursework, I better go work on my proposal for the upcoming CSECS conference. It's due this Friday, 18thC friends, don't forget! I would really love to go again; it was a great time, both academically and socially, last year.