How to get into graduate school in ten thousand not-so-easy-steps:
Summer 2005:
-Have first panic attack when studying for the GRE.
-Memorize first 200 vocab words for said test.
Fall 2005:
-Begin remedial math class to prepare for GRE. Have panic attack and fight back tears the first day.
-Memorize 200 more vocab words.
-Begin to think that academics are psychotic. Begin to rethink PhD.
-Attempt to study for GRE whilst finishing thesis, raising small child and yielding drama from said psychotic academics.
-Begin looking into masters programs instead. Professors complain that I would be wasting talent and money. Draft verbal response to incredulous people when I mention that I am going to go for a masters instead.
-Waste inordinate amounts of time online researching masters programs. Need to find schools in liberal areas abundant with queers, single moms, poor people and coffeeshops with soy milk.
December 2005:
-Memorize about 600 more words.
-Finish college.
-Take GRE after xmess and before new years. When other people ask about it, try to downplay metaphor about it being almost as painful as childbirth.
January 2006:
-Begin hounding professors for recommendations. One comes back ambivalent and reaffirms convictions that academics are psychotic.
-Undergraduate registrar won’t release final transcript because one professor didn’t submit paperwork. Leave frantic messages and emails. Become convinced this will never work.
-Begin to write statement of purpose. I keep calling myself an activist but all I seem to do is put up with graduate skool application BS. Who has time for activism? Try to be ambiguous about the fact that my previous research is about motherhood while not revealing the fact that I have a kid, which is an apparent liability to potential graduate schools.
-Realize that between admissions fees, transcript costs and overnight postage, applying to graduate school is mighty expensive. Begin to think the people at the post office are sizing me up for my potential as a candidate for graduate study.
February 2006:
-Unemployed and bored, drive 8 hours to go on ineffectual tour of one school. Spend time in mall with friend counting the number of women per minute who are wearing stiletto heels. Learn nothing about the program and decide that I’ll go there if they give me enough money.
-Get first acceptance letter from first choice school, 9 days from the receipt of my application. They want me for my brain!
March 2006:
-Director of one program calls me up to say that my GRE math scores suck (they do) and they want me, but only in the liberal art track, not public policy. Right, I already have an expensive undergraduate liberal arts degree; like I need another. Interesting: the director of the first graduate Women’s Studies program in the
-Get acceptance letters from all the other schools. Call up the first to accept.
-Accidentally discover that associate program director did NOT receive my fellowship application. Quickly fire off another one with updated resume and less typos. Pay extra to mail it overnight with signature on delivery.
March 2006:
-Put kid’s name on waiting list of every area preschool, regardless of cost or quality.
April 2006:
-Begin freaking out. I have five months to find affordable housing, quality childcare, people to help me move and devise a way to pay for all this.
-Discover that the first year required courses in my program are at night. The morning ones start before daycare centers open. Really freaking out now. This is never going to work, I am going to be stuck in my shit job forever. Drown sorrows in gin and tonic and contemplate whether or not I am going to promise myself to make this work.
-Receive fellowship acceptance letter the next day! I am rich! Resolve to make this work.
-Tour preschool where my child’s name has miraculously surfaced near the top of the list. The children look happy enough, and since it’s likely to be the only one that he gets into, I give them a $300 deposit.
-But where will I live in this small town inhabited by 20,000 undergraduates? Post ad on house sharing message board. Do I really want to live with a Non-Newtonian Fluid Dynamics person? What does that even mean?
May 2006:
-Officially graduate from college.
-Continuously call Family Housing office to see where my name is on the waiting list.
June 2006:
-Kid’s name comes up at University child care. After visit, decide that it’s more working class and diverse. Plus, unlike the other place, they’re open year round and take holidays with the university instead of the public school system.
-Class schedule gets amended and it looks like I only need to hire a babysitter one night a week. Everything is coming together.
-Call family housing again. Get conflicting responses on waiting list: I’m either number 22 or 26. Freak out. I can’t afford market rent in this town, plus, I can’t deal with the sounds of partying frat boys.
-Get email from family housing director. They have an apartment for me. If I want it, I am to show up at the office the next day at 11am with a check.
-Show up with check. Apartment is awesome—community living situation, well below market rent, tons of kids, quiet and well maintained. Now I have two apartments.
July 2006:
-Secure friends to help me move.
-Finally tell crap job that I am quitting.
-Post ad on message board for babysitter. Instantly get response from a woman in my complex who raised two kids as a single parent. Bitchin’.
August 2006:
-Fill out paperwork for new daycare, which takes over an hour.
-Begin packing. Do I really need to keep these pants that haven’t fit me in seven years? What about library books overdue circa 1991? How about three magazine files full of zines? Or a hair dryer for my ½ inch long hair? (answers: no, yes, yes, no.)
-Get letter from program that should have been sent months ago re: skills I should acquire before program starts. Begin attempt to learn microeconomics out of textbook. Pack, average fixed costs, pack, marginal revenue, pack, opportunity cost.
-Also find out about “math camp” I will be attending to brush up on my (non-existent) math skills. They call it a ‘camp’ like we’re gunna be paddling canoes and reciting formulas.
-Slowly move things into new apartment. Driving back and forth is taking toll on the kid, who says our new house is “as far away as
-Begin applications for childcare subsidies and foodstamps.
-Realize all that’s left in my house is some furniture, some food, some toys and a box full of vibrators.
-Move! Realize I have entered bizarro world: college students drive the public transit buses and the liquor stores have signs that say “welcome back students.”
September 2006:
-Begin weird journey into big campus culture, mainstream childcare and structured academic programs.
-Begin fights between department, bursars, financial aid and assistantship offices about where my money is.
-Wonder if I should have started doctorate program or MSN/CNM program this year.
-Begin looking at graduate programs for fall 2009.
1 comment:
this is great, absolutely brilliant
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