Today is the last day of the semester, and as of 1am, all my grading and exams and work (except the flood of emails from students arguing grades) is complete. To think, I finished my first semester of grad school in one piece! But in reality, it is mind blowing to realize I am at a point in my life I’ve wanted for so long. High school-me and undergrad-me couldn’t wait to be in this mark on the timeline of my life, and despite the stress and worry it, and honestly everything else, brings me, it really is as freeing and wonderful as I imagined. For a while I’ve wondered “what if I can’t do it?” and “where do I go next?” in regards to jobs, school, and life. Although the pay is low, the hours are long, and each day gives me something new to have imposter syndrome about, I can focus on one thing for now and see where it takes me. It is almost as if I finally feel as though I am not in a transition period of my life. Things feel real again, I am finding ways to feasibly have adventures, and I am working on myself in ways that I really should’ve done before, all of it bit by bit.
As for my takeaways on grad school so far– yikes, it really is a lot to handle. Friends and family warned me that it’s a whole ‘nother beast, and while I understood that, I definitely didn’t grasp just how much it can get to be. Am I managing? Yes. Is it a breeze by any means? No. Sometimes I have no idea where I stand in terms of how good of a grad student I am, but I know I’m not the worst given I’ve been definitely putting in the time and effort. I described it to an applicant to the program that your experience is like a pie chart, where ⅓ of your time is being a TA, another ⅓ for taking your own classes, and the final piece being research. And free time and rest? Ha. It by no means is proportional to how much of yourself you put in, but when you get it you make the most of it, whether that be sleeping 18 hours straight or planning a hiking/bird watching/new tattoo/city touring trip 5 hours away for a weekend to get it all out at once (coming soon, *wink*). Unfortunately that pie chart leaves less time for that movie-perfect “science” and discovery, but it still happens at a slower-than-expected pace. I am looking forward to this summer for that very reason. I’ll be taking very minimal classes and the rest of the time doing lab work. Although my PI won’t be here most of the time, I am determined to make some progress in my writing and experiments. I also want to get better at figuring out the next steps of my projects on my own. I was told that in your first semester you lean on your PI for a lot of it, but it is frustrating to stare at a wall, or a ton of papers online, and not know what you should make of it all.
The other interesting part of all this is realizing you are entering an extremely niche area of study and watching how you approach things change. I used to see friends in grad school and think “I could never just want to study one minuscule detail for the rest of my life like that!” and while I still feel the same way, I understand why it is necessary. In one semester I’ve already learned so much, and with that, I’ve learned how much I don’t know and in what ways… I still have an urge to pursue other endeavors, but for some, I decided I will leave them on the back-burner until it is time for me to enter a new phase in my life. For instance, linguistics? I would love to take actual, dedicated linguistics classes and dive in past the level of basic language acquisition theory I need to teach and learn languages. Unfortunately, I cannot do this now. A once a week orchestra rehearsal almost became difficult to balance, so I can hardly imagine beginning a whole different set of curriculum unless done at my own pace, outside of school. With that, I can afford monetarily and temporally to take weekly Spanish conversation lessons, but I already know I am near my max point of mental capacity for outside hobbies that require daily dedication. And even on that note, my more recent goals have been “have a consistent gym routine” (AKA “please just find time to be active three times a week”) rather than “learn a new topic outside my field.” I guess I am just doing my best to keep up past skills in hopes of having enough time outside work to pursue them further one day.
The question of “what next then?” now comes into play. Do I want a job that gives me that extra time I want sooner, or later? Do I finish my masters and go teach for a while, travel during the summers, have time for my hobbies, and so on? Or do I stick around, get my PhD, but potentially feel stifled creatively and spiritually? I can’t answer that question yet until I hit points in my research where I go through publishing and conferences and all the things I have yet to do. Inside I really do want to get my PhD here, to feel like everything I am doing right now is going to make the biggest difference it can in my life and studies, but I can’t make these decisions yet. To put it simply, I can’t decide what future-me does, and I am not disgruntled by it since so far she has been doing better than expected.
But back to grad school. One semester is done. It’s a lot of work. I have minimum until fall 2023 here and possibly a lot longer (fall 2025 or 2026?). It focuses you on one topic more than anything you’ll experience. If you or your loved ones are considering trying Graduate School, side effects include difficulty falling and staying asleep, headaches, change of home location to your lab and office, a questionable change in diet (vending machine sodapop is not a meal replacement when busy, until it suddenly is), and relatives not understanding what it is you actually do. Consult with your common sense and finances before starting and see if Graduate School is right for you! In all seriousness though, it is worth it for me, but having now spent some time here while still having the memory of teaching in Honduras fresh in my mind, I can more objectively comment on my experiences before they become entirely commonplace for me. So whoop whoop, one semester done, and the centrifuge just beeped so I better go check on my protoplasts!
Happy reading,
-Beppa