Today while compiling a solid portfolio of my writing for some freelance jobs I'm bidding on, I came across a document I made while deciding whether or not to leave grad school. If you've known me longer than five years, you know what an agonizing decision it was for me to leave the University of Virginia before I got my PhD in Political Theory. For those of you who don't know me well or may have just met me since I've moved back to Georgia, I can tell you, it was not something I came to lightly.
The document I found lists out a number of things I considered when making my decision. Specifically I listed out what I liked about academia, what I disliked, what I liked outside of the academic arena, what I do well, and what my concerns about leaving were.
In truth, I did love the graduate experience. Or rather, I liked a great deal about it. I decided to go to grad school late in 2005 and by mid-2006 I was enrolled on a full scholarship and receiving a living stipend from the University of Virginia. I doubt I have to tell you how amazing it is that not only did I get into one of the top schools for political theory, but that they were paying me for the privilege. I was honored, proud, and excited all at once. I was also terrified that someone would figure out that I wasn't nearly as smart as everyone else in the program, and they'd surely kick me out soon. (I found out later that almost every graduate student feels this way at some point.)
It was great. I was paid to work with some of the greatest minds and talk about ideas daily. I was paid to read and write about some of the most interesting things I've ever encountered. I was contributing to the debate on topics of identity, governance, race, and gender. And if you've never had the opportunity to develop a new idea and see it turn into something other people want to learn more about, then you cannot understand what a thrill it is!
On top of all of that, I got to teach and mentor excited and exciting students. For a lot of graduate students this is the drudging price one must pay to do what one really wants to do: research and write. For me, though, teaching was a revelation. I got to work with kids that were hungry for knowledge, and I got to help that student hone this hunger into something greater: a sharp and inquisitive intellect. I loved working with my students to improve their writing, to give them a chance to voice their opinions and help them articulate better what was in their minds, to take the shy girl in the back of the class and turn her into a well-spoken debater. I loved it!
So why did I quit? Why did I just give up after I got my Masters? Why not continue what I clearly enjoyed?
Because it wasn't all hearts and rainbows. I went to the University of Virginia for a few specific reasons. One, it was the alma mater of two of my undergraduate mentors, and they told wonderful stories about the guidance they got from their professors. Two, there was a professor there I was dying to study with and learn from. Three, I got accepted and received funding.
Two of those three reasons failed me pretty miserably. First, the professor under which I desperately wanted to study turned out to be nothing what I expected. He made himself almost impossible to get a hold of, ignoring emails, blowing off office hours, refusing to answer his phone, and generally declining to give me any guidance at all. I was so excited about a few ideas he had introduced in some of his earlier books about individualism in America as defined by Tocqueville, and I was so anxious to ask him about them in one on one conversation in the hopes that I might be able to expand on them in my own research. To my dismay, he had no interest in discussing his ideas. He had tenure; he was close to retirement; he was invited to guest lecture at other universities for lots more money while maintaining his chair at UVA. So he disappeared. For months at a time, he was no where on campus or even in the same state, and as I have already pointed out, he refused to communicate in any way over technology (be it phone or email). He was an utter dead end to me.
No worries. In my first year, I was still learning. I could easily change my interests and explore another avenue for my own research.
As luck would have it, I took an amazing class with a junior professor who had not yet been granted tenure. She was inspiring, brilliant, and encouraging! Everything my last professor was not. She helped me take my ideas on individualism and helped me reformulate them into a more theoretical study on identity and essentialism. She had tons of literature for me, and urged me to read more and decided if I wanted to pursue that for my doctoral research instead.
Boy did I! I was hooked. The ideas were new and ever evolving. This was the perfect avenue for me to lay down the groundwork for a lifetime of research and publications. And here, too, was what my mentors had described: an eager, accommodating, and encouraging mentor at the most beautiful university.
Then she came up for tenure at the same time as her husband. Good for her, she got it. Bad for him, he was denied it. My professor was asked to make a decision: accept tenure and hope her husband can stay on as an adjunct, or look elsewhere for them both to begin a new tenure track. And my masters thesis fell in the middle of this.
My professor had to take me aside and tell me she could not be my advisor for my thesis, let alone my dissertation. I had to find someone else to guide me and accept or reject my research. Alas, there was no one else in the entire department who was willing to take me on as an advisee with my current research interests. I had to abandon my work to this point and find a new topic.
That brings us to my third year. I'll continue the story in the next post as this is getting quite long.
