Re-Graduation Day
Today was Graduation Day for many of the colleges in the Happy Valley. Lots of commencements, and speakers and well-wishes....
I saw a family at Mt. Holyoke, the younger sister about to take a picture of the older sister with their parents. "Be nice! It's her special day!" I heard the younger one say to the parents.
I don't have much sentiment when it comes to memories of my graduation four years ago from Smith. It wasn't necessarily my "special day." I didn't even think of going--and wouldn't if my friend Cathy hadn't made the trip up here from Maryland.
I finished and I did well, graduating with highest honors and all, but I had no idea where I was going and what I would do with my education.
Perhaps it is the commotion of today's graduation stimulating the echoes of my own that has me re-assessing where I am now and why I never left here. Yet.
This morning, as I was reading, I thought about my first college graduation from Middlesex County College in Edison, NJ seven years ago. There, too, I graduated in the top of the class, received the Dean's Award (my name is on a plaque in the Dean's office), as well as a few other awards for my work and leadership on the literary magazine (the first one published after a 5 year lack of interest hiatus).
Yet after that, I had no job prospects and no true plan for myself. Yes, I wanted to continue...but continue doing what, and where I wasn't sure. No counselors had summoned me to their office--as they had my ex-husband, who graduated lower in rank than me--to counsel me as to what I might want to do with my bright brain. And the career counselors were rather adversarial and curt when I told them I wanted an administrative assistant type job. "Your computer skills aren't up to date, so you're not qualified for that kind of job..." but there was no advice on what I might be qualified for.
And, as far as my ex was concerned, I was now finished with education and was there, mostly, to put him thru school. He wanted me gainfully employed and supporting him thru the rest of his education.
Then I could think about where I would go to school to finish up my education. But it would have to be close to wherever he was getting his ph.d.
So, in retrospect, applying to Smith was an act of rebellion. I wanted the better education for myself. Screw him. I wasn't going to be his workhorse.
He left anyway--partly because I wasn't "pulling my weight" in the relationship by supporting him.
Oh, well.
After I made it, with much emotional struggle, thru my Big Time Smith Education, I could not envision myself going to graduate school--even though professors were pushing me towards it. Things weren't right. Alot was incomplete, missing, absent, and off-balance. I was on a floating dock in the middle of a lake being urged to jump into what looked like a rowboat.
And because the dock was floating backward, I couldn't tell that the rowboat was actually a yacht.
So, I stayed put, in one place, tried to figure out what was going on with my life....
and this morning it hit me.
I've spent the last four post-graduation years getting answers to some big life questions--the answers I needed before I could even consider moving forward.
Was I a good enough person, with good enough social skills, to make new friends? Yes.
Did I have any sexual desire any more? Yes. It'd just been killed by years of unnecessary anti-depressants. Once my body purged it, the Urge came back with a vengeance!
Did I really want children, or had my biological clock been stalled by a bad marriage? No, my bad marriage didn't stall my biological clock. I never had one in the first place.
Was I really as smart as my professors thought I was? Yes...and more.
I realized this morning that, because I never wanted children, I'd spent most of my life studying things....most of the time outside of the confines of the Ivory Towers of Academia. In the past four years, I've immersed myself in two subjects--the BDSM underworld, and blogging. I explored and studied BDSM. I continue to study the blogworld.
I study. I write. I go places. I have adventures.
I'm chronically under-employed because I need the time for other things that are Far More Important than making a buck.
But all this ad hock studying hasn't conferred much in the way of credentials. It's kind of tough to convince the world you know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff if you aren't connected in some way to a college or university or write for a newspaper.
So, I'm re-considering graduate school...again...for about the fifth time since graduation. But with an aim--I think I'd like to teach.
Oh, yeah...they suggested I get a job in teaching after I got my bachelor's. But the thought of teaching a bunch of upper-crusty little creeps, or underachieving, middling middle class kids--people who might one day pass me on the socio-economic ladder--pissed me off. The fear of getting stuck someplace because the pay was good and I had a pension and benefits and Everything that Adults are Supposed to Have--pissed me off.
I wanted more for me than the stuff that seems to make up Adult Life--the house, the car, the crappy job, the two weeks vacation, the stressed-out weekends, the catch as catch can dinners, the overwork overload, and the general lack of sleep. Without a need for children, that stuff seems boring and superfluous.
So, I think of teaching theology. At Mom's funeral, I realized I missed the company of priests and ministers. I missed the study of God...not God directly. I never miss God because God's always there in very quiet ways. I think that, maybe, the ph.d. in Religious Studies, or something of that sort, might give me the acknowledged Ivory Tower Credentials necessary to adequately convey all I've learned and the wisdom I've gained from all the strange places I've been.
If anybody can think of another discipline, let me know. I'm listening....
I saw a family at Mt. Holyoke, the younger sister about to take a picture of the older sister with their parents. "Be nice! It's her special day!" I heard the younger one say to the parents.
I don't have much sentiment when it comes to memories of my graduation four years ago from Smith. It wasn't necessarily my "special day." I didn't even think of going--and wouldn't if my friend Cathy hadn't made the trip up here from Maryland.
I finished and I did well, graduating with highest honors and all, but I had no idea where I was going and what I would do with my education.
Perhaps it is the commotion of today's graduation stimulating the echoes of my own that has me re-assessing where I am now and why I never left here. Yet.
This morning, as I was reading, I thought about my first college graduation from Middlesex County College in Edison, NJ seven years ago. There, too, I graduated in the top of the class, received the Dean's Award (my name is on a plaque in the Dean's office), as well as a few other awards for my work and leadership on the literary magazine (the first one published after a 5 year lack of interest hiatus).
Yet after that, I had no job prospects and no true plan for myself. Yes, I wanted to continue...but continue doing what, and where I wasn't sure. No counselors had summoned me to their office--as they had my ex-husband, who graduated lower in rank than me--to counsel me as to what I might want to do with my bright brain. And the career counselors were rather adversarial and curt when I told them I wanted an administrative assistant type job. "Your computer skills aren't up to date, so you're not qualified for that kind of job..." but there was no advice on what I might be qualified for.
And, as far as my ex was concerned, I was now finished with education and was there, mostly, to put him thru school. He wanted me gainfully employed and supporting him thru the rest of his education.
Then I could think about where I would go to school to finish up my education. But it would have to be close to wherever he was getting his ph.d.
So, in retrospect, applying to Smith was an act of rebellion. I wanted the better education for myself. Screw him. I wasn't going to be his workhorse.
He left anyway--partly because I wasn't "pulling my weight" in the relationship by supporting him.
Oh, well.
After I made it, with much emotional struggle, thru my Big Time Smith Education, I could not envision myself going to graduate school--even though professors were pushing me towards it. Things weren't right. Alot was incomplete, missing, absent, and off-balance. I was on a floating dock in the middle of a lake being urged to jump into what looked like a rowboat.
And because the dock was floating backward, I couldn't tell that the rowboat was actually a yacht.
So, I stayed put, in one place, tried to figure out what was going on with my life....
and this morning it hit me.
I've spent the last four post-graduation years getting answers to some big life questions--the answers I needed before I could even consider moving forward.
Was I a good enough person, with good enough social skills, to make new friends? Yes.
Did I have any sexual desire any more? Yes. It'd just been killed by years of unnecessary anti-depressants. Once my body purged it, the Urge came back with a vengeance!
Did I really want children, or had my biological clock been stalled by a bad marriage? No, my bad marriage didn't stall my biological clock. I never had one in the first place.
Was I really as smart as my professors thought I was? Yes...and more.
I realized this morning that, because I never wanted children, I'd spent most of my life studying things....most of the time outside of the confines of the Ivory Towers of Academia. In the past four years, I've immersed myself in two subjects--the BDSM underworld, and blogging. I explored and studied BDSM. I continue to study the blogworld.
I study. I write. I go places. I have adventures.
I'm chronically under-employed because I need the time for other things that are Far More Important than making a buck.
But all this ad hock studying hasn't conferred much in the way of credentials. It's kind of tough to convince the world you know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff if you aren't connected in some way to a college or university or write for a newspaper.
So, I'm re-considering graduate school...again...for about the fifth time since graduation. But with an aim--I think I'd like to teach.
Oh, yeah...they suggested I get a job in teaching after I got my bachelor's. But the thought of teaching a bunch of upper-crusty little creeps, or underachieving, middling middle class kids--people who might one day pass me on the socio-economic ladder--pissed me off. The fear of getting stuck someplace because the pay was good and I had a pension and benefits and Everything that Adults are Supposed to Have--pissed me off.
I wanted more for me than the stuff that seems to make up Adult Life--the house, the car, the crappy job, the two weeks vacation, the stressed-out weekends, the catch as catch can dinners, the overwork overload, and the general lack of sleep. Without a need for children, that stuff seems boring and superfluous.
So, I think of teaching theology. At Mom's funeral, I realized I missed the company of priests and ministers. I missed the study of God...not God directly. I never miss God because God's always there in very quiet ways. I think that, maybe, the ph.d. in Religious Studies, or something of that sort, might give me the acknowledged Ivory Tower Credentials necessary to adequately convey all I've learned and the wisdom I've gained from all the strange places I've been.
If anybody can think of another discipline, let me know. I'm listening....
posted by Tish Grier at 9:06 PM
2 Comments:
Journalism.
Seriously. I wrote all my life, one story after another. As a kid, I wrote plays, poems, fiction, non-fiction. My mother saved every single thing. I loved to write, and it was just what I did.
So, I went to school to become an accountant.
In my junior year, a prof suggested changing my major to Tech Communications (that college's fancy name for an English degree with a technical bent).
The odd thing is this: sometimes we're **already doing** the thing we're meant to do. It's so close to our noses that we can't even see it.
You're already doing journalism. You love it. You do it for free. You research, report, write on things not because someone's saying, "Hey, you! You're on deadline," but because you have a genuine passion for it.
Imagine getting paid to do it. Go to school and get a degree in journalism. Instead of taking your life in another direction, put a rocket on the direction it's already goiing.
Polish your diamond.
Have you considered sociology? It seems that much of what you do/have done is investigate the ways people react and respond to each other.
My oldest daughter is starting grad school this fall focusing on the sociology of technology at U of AZ. They gave her great scholarships plus a living wage stipend. She too hopes to teach at the college level.
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