When I was in Las Vegas, I met up with a friend I'd made 3 years ago at ICPSR (aka stats boot camp) in Ann Arbor. We had just finished up our 2nd year of grad school. Now, she is finishing her dissertation and getting ready to start an academic job in Texas, and I'm entering my 6th year of grad school. Other stuff has has changed too. She recently got married and moved from the East Coast to Texas. Drew and I moved in together less than a year ago. We've changed in other ways too.
We talked about how different grad school is now, after our 5th year, compared to how it was after our 2nd year. It certainly is. See, you can always distinguish the younger grad students (1st and 2nd years) from the older grad students (about 4th year and above). The younger ones are bright eyed and bushy tailed. They are ambitious, excited, and optimistic. We talked about how we used to be like that. The older ones are jaded. They're tired and worn down. If they haven't left the program by now, they just want to get out and graduate. We talked about how this is what we're like now. She said "When I was younger, I always wondered why the older grad students always looked tired and stressed out." Now, we know.
When I was a 2nd year, I shared an office with a 5th year. She was jaded, worn down, and tired of the bullshit. I wondered if I'd end up like her someday. I did. The thing is that younger grad students never understand that this is how it will eventually end up. And you can't tell them this either. They'll never believe it. If my officemate had told me I'd feel like her someday, I wouldn't have believed it. No, not me. I'll be different. Ha!
And this is why older grad students can't be friends with younger grad students. Like, really friends. Of course, everyone can hang out and play nice. But the thing is that grad school sucks a lot, and nobody wants those older students raining on the younger ones' parade, not that they want to do that anyway. And while the older ones understand what the younger ones are going through, the reverse is never true. To them, our experiences are unfathomable. Until you've been through it yourself, you can never understand.
I imagine that on some level, being in a Ph.D. program must be like the military. Nobody else knows what it's like unless they've been through it themselves (and I mean a Ph.D. program, not MBA, not medical school or law school, and certainly not M.A. programs). Which is sad, because being in a Ph.D. program is already isolating. The last thing we need is for it to be even more isolating. But maybe that's why, when you make good friends that really and truly know what you're going through, you all hang on for dear life, throwing each other life rings and trying to just help each other survive.
We talked about how different grad school is now, after our 5th year, compared to how it was after our 2nd year. It certainly is. See, you can always distinguish the younger grad students (1st and 2nd years) from the older grad students (about 4th year and above). The younger ones are bright eyed and bushy tailed. They are ambitious, excited, and optimistic. We talked about how we used to be like that. The older ones are jaded. They're tired and worn down. If they haven't left the program by now, they just want to get out and graduate. We talked about how this is what we're like now. She said "When I was younger, I always wondered why the older grad students always looked tired and stressed out." Now, we know.
When I was a 2nd year, I shared an office with a 5th year. She was jaded, worn down, and tired of the bullshit. I wondered if I'd end up like her someday. I did. The thing is that younger grad students never understand that this is how it will eventually end up. And you can't tell them this either. They'll never believe it. If my officemate had told me I'd feel like her someday, I wouldn't have believed it. No, not me. I'll be different. Ha!
And this is why older grad students can't be friends with younger grad students. Like, really friends. Of course, everyone can hang out and play nice. But the thing is that grad school sucks a lot, and nobody wants those older students raining on the younger ones' parade, not that they want to do that anyway. And while the older ones understand what the younger ones are going through, the reverse is never true. To them, our experiences are unfathomable. Until you've been through it yourself, you can never understand.
I imagine that on some level, being in a Ph.D. program must be like the military. Nobody else knows what it's like unless they've been through it themselves (and I mean a Ph.D. program, not MBA, not medical school or law school, and certainly not M.A. programs). Which is sad, because being in a Ph.D. program is already isolating. The last thing we need is for it to be even more isolating. But maybe that's why, when you make good friends that really and truly know what you're going through, you all hang on for dear life, throwing each other life rings and trying to just help each other survive.
No comments:
Post a Comment