And so she returns...but now what?

I insisted to myself that I would blog weekly about my experiences at the beginning of all this, but clearly I fell off the wagon for quite an extended period of time. However, I've returned for the moment full of anxieties.

The end of the semester is quickly approaching, which also means many major deadlines are quickly approaching. In general, this is a time of anxiety for me (and for many others, I'm sure) because the pressure is mounting. Time is running out and students have to prove themselves to their professors. I think this is amplified even more for graduate students because, generally, we're hyper-sensitive about grades (an A- gives plenty of reason to whine and complain).

On top of the regular coursework, I'm presenting at a conference in a few weeks and working on writing a book review (the draft is due at the end of the month). I also have to manage relationships and, for me, that seems to be the worst part. I've built one good friendship while I've been here and I'm in the process of developing others. All this is reason to celebrate, except I'm beginning to feel obligated to these people. When I really want to be left alone so that I can be productive, I don't say so. I have my study materials at the ready, even attempt to study, but lose focus more easily to chat with whoever is nearby about who knows what. Sometimes it's about the reading, but it's typically complaining about the reading instead of a productive conversation. However, I feel guilty about wanting distance. I'm afraid of it sending the wrong message or hurting someone else's feelings.

In addition to the new relationships I've built, I also feel the need to work at maintaining past relationships. I feel so distant from the people I was close to before. I don't know how to close that gap, and I'm very afraid of how the relationships will be changed after not seeing them for about a 5 month period. Some relationships that were really important when I left, that I wanted so badly to continue to build, might be totally changed because of all that has happened since I left. I'm terrified of going home to "changed" relationships, but I'm also terrified of going home to the "same" relationships and having to go through leaving yet again.

Relationship anxiety is clashing with school anxiety, and I don't know how to effectively move forward except to keep going through the motions without much of a plan at all. Do what demands my attention at each given moment. If possible, discreetly avoid facing those difficult relationships just a little while longer until I can afford to be as contemplative, sad, and scared as I feel right now.

Busy so keeping it brief

It's been a little while since I've updated, so here goes a quick and not-well-thought-out post...

I've been pretty busy. At the beginning of last week I felt like I was right on schedule with school work, so I took a few evenings off and watched movies instead of forging ahead. Cut to Thursday, I felt way behind on my work and ended up spending most of these last few days doing what I should have done sooner. I just submitted my first digital project assignment though, so that's pretty exciting and absolutely horrifying. As for the other class material, generally I'm pretty excited about what we're reading and doing in class. Of course there are always assignments, readings, discussions that are nightmares, but I'm not doubting myself and that's what is most important to me. Although, I'll be really pleased once we no longer have to read a whole book in addition to a few articles to prepare for class each week.

As a contradictory side note, I applied for a job last week and have an interview tomorrow. The job is described as an adjunct position, but I would basically be tutoring students in their writing roughly 10 hours a week. While I'm surviving, in part thanks to my loan money, the extra income would be nice. If I get the job, maybe I won't even have to take out a loan during the spring semester.

And so it (really) begins

Classes officially started last week, but my assistantship hours didn't start until today. That and the fact that one of my classes was cancelled made the "first week" not feel like the first week at all. Although, my Thursday class is cancelled this week because there's a football game, so I guess it's not a full week either.

All that aside, the semester is starting off in a hurry. I had almost 400 pages of reading assigned last week for just one class, so there has been no time wasted. As daunting as that is (and how dismal my last post may have been), I feel pretty good about it all. The students I've encountered in the writing center and in the graduate program as a whole seem really friendly overall. One student in the program with me is actually in all three of my classes and we've already spent a little bit of time talking (and complaining) about what we've experienced thus far (like the 400 pages of reading). It seems like the writing center in particular has a strong sense of community, so hopefully that will help me to get acquainted and start making friends.

As a small side note, I'm learning HTML for one of my classes (so far it's very basic and I'm not sure how much we'll get into it). Maybe I'll learn how to do something fancy with my blog!

I don't have anything else to add for today really, but maybe I'll have something more significant to say after this week is over.

Reality Sinking In

Classes start Monday and the reality of it all has become much clearer this past week. I had a sense of what I was getting into when I enrolled in the program, how life consuming this experience would be, but it really hit me this week as my schedule for this first semester has been finalized.

My graduate assistantship has a 20 hour per week time commitment. This semester that time will be spent tutoring in the university's writing center. Between that and my courses that only meet once a week, I'll be on campus for roughly 10 hours 3 days a week. I may also have to be on campus for a few hours an additional two days. While tutoring is work that I won't "take home" with me (although I am taking a course on Writing Center theory where I will be discussing and writing about my experiences tutoring), my own coursework will be intense to say the least. I'll have three sets of readings for three very different courses in addition to other class assignments and/or projects. It's difficult not to feel overwhelmed when thinking about the workload in that fashion, and adding the cooking, cleaning, shopping, and meal planning that I'll be doing on a daily/weekly basis makes it much scarier.

I think as these first few weeks go by I'll find a routine and learn to juggle my obligations, I'll have to if I have any hope of surviving the program, but it's still kind of terrifying. Will I ever have "me" time? It's not that I'm afraid of hard work (or a lot of easy work), but I am afraid of losing myself in that work. I suppose all that I can do at this point is continue to make an effort to do something (not school related) for myself on a regular basis to give myself something to hold on to. Also, finding an escape or two (like running or maybe cooking) where it's pretty much impossible for me to think about anything except for what I'm doing in that moment will likely prove useful.

As dismal as this post may seem, I want to point out that I still believe in what I'm doing. I know sleepless nights, crying, and uncertainty are in my future because of the path I'm on, but those things do not rule or define me.

Perseverance.

Boring Orientation and Horrifying Tales

There's not much in terms of the latest developments in my experience as a doctoral student, but here's the latest: general graduate student orientation and program specific orientation. Sounds like fun, right? Let's just say the graduate student orientation was less than captivating. Since I'm new to the school and to the area in general, I thought it would be good for me to attend. I still think it was worthwhile, even though I'm not sure I really learned much of anything while there, because it will probably save me some time down the road when I'm wondering about services offered through the university. Lunch would've been nice (I spent $9 on a drink and a burrito I couldn't finish because I was short on time and had no idea what my other food options were), but there were about 500 people in attendance. I can understand why they wouldn't feed us anything substantial. Although, the program specific orientation didn't feed us anything substantial either and it was a much smaller group (granted, we didn't meet until after lunch had come and gone).

Even though food at the program orientation consisted of cookies, chips, and fruit, it was still better than what we were given earlier in the day. The orientation itself was also better, but in a sort of horrifying way. There was a lot of general information about the program requirements and whatnot, but the program director also read to us an essay he wrote on the fly that described what he recalls from his doctoral program (which is actually the program I'm enrolled in, although I'm sure it's changed since he earned his degree). In case anyone had been wearing rose-tinted glasses, he pretty clearly laid out what our lives will be like for the next 3-5 years. When I decided I wanted to pursue a doctorate, I had an idea of what I would go through. The doubts, misgivings, stress, anxiety and how those manifest themselves in a person's daily life. Having gone through a master's program and choosing the thesis option, I got a pretty hefty dose of those negative feelings already. However, listening to the program director describe it was still eye opening. I think what struck me most about what he had to say was that they (faculty) expect us (students) to fail frequently and spectacularly.

Failure is something people are conditioned to fear, as the program director pointed out in his essay, and so hearing him say that is terrifying to say the least. At the same time though, I think it's difficult to learn and grow if we are always the best at everything we do. This was something that he also made mention of. In particular he said that we should seek out the very things that we are unfamiliar, and perhaps uncomfortable, with so that we can be challenged and grow from the experience. The unfamiliar is something else that we have been conditioned to fear. Both of these are going to be challenges for me not only for the duration of my graduate studies, but I suspect far beyond that as well.

Hearing all of this can make a person question the path they've chosen, but do not despair. Over the course of the day there's been some talk about how to succeed in a graduate program, and I'll repeat the ones that stuck out to me here, but I wonder if perhaps they are applicable to being successful in life altogether.

--The faculty of the program want you to succeed. Your failure doesn't just look bad for you.
--Establish close bonds with your cohort. They're going through the same challenges and hurdles as you.
--Be adaptable.

Transitioning

Last week I moved over 1,000 miles in preparation for attending a doctoral program in a few weeks. I have orientations and meetings beginning next week, so I wanted some time to settle before then. So far so good, but being away from home, family, and friends is difficult. At the same time, it's also very exciting to enter a new stage in my life and to see where it's going to take me.

To kickstart this new stage in my life, I attended a workshop on campus that discussed how differing perspectives impact the classroom and/or the workplace (I had free time and it sounded interesting, so I figured why not?). I consider myself to be fairly open to hearing out different perspectives already, but it was still a great workshop. A few points that resonated with me were the issue of stereotyping and how my family, friends, school, and the media communicate particular perspectives, ideals, etc.

The discussion on stereotypes was brought forth from this TEDTalk that discusses "the single story." Chimamanda Adichie does an excellent job explaining that each person's perspective is shaped by their own experiences, which are often furthered by the media in particular, and that someone in America may have a particular perspective of what life is like in Africa that may not be true for many (or any) people. This really got me thinking about how people judge others and put them into a particular "box" based upon physical appearances. Whether it be weight, height, hair color, body modifications, clothing or something else entirely we make note of physical attributes and use it as a way to "figure out" a person. I'm not sure this can really be avoided, except in the sense that we don't allow these perceptions to result in negative or offensive behaviors, but all of these things only tell a "single story" of that person and we cannot allow that to be the only story we learn about them.

Family, friends, school, and media can perpetuate these stereotypes, perspectives, ideals, etc. of people and also of places. As a part of the workshop we did an activity where we had to identify how true or false particular messages (like poor people are lazy) were sent to us in practice (not what was spoken) through those four channels. I never really stopped to think about that before, so it interesting to see what I came up with. It was also interesting to note particular trends among all of the participants of the workshop. We basically concluded that the media in the U.S. sucks and doesn't send the best messages.

The takeaway from both of these points is that "single stories" are all around us, and it's our responsibility to understand that that is in fact the case. It is also our responsibility to be open to differing perspectives in order to better understand where other people are coming from. How can we ever hope to make change if we don't understand what the other perspectives are?

Important! Here's the deal...

This blog is intended for me to log my experiences as a doctoral student in a new/digital media focused doctoral program. My goal is not to criticize the program, professors, professionals, students, or any others affiliated with it, and because of this the blog is anonymous. Instead I simply wish to inform others (friends, family, prospective doctoral students, and anyone else who is interested) what I am experiencing. Also, I don't wish to claim my experiences are at all representative of doctoral studies as a whole, as I believe this varies with each individual.