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April 17, 2006

What's Grad School Like?

For a few months now I've been toying with the idea of writing a post about graduate study in English.

Now, through the magic of Procrastination and the Internets, I don't have to.

First, for your reading pleasure, I give you Dr. Debra Hawhee, who taught briefly at the University of Pittsburgh, where she proved to be an incredibly amazing mentor. In this post, Professor Hawhee riffs on What to Expect When You're Expecting... to be an Academic. Oh, and be sure to read the comments.

But wait... there's more!

sting.jpg

Via Boing Boing, here's Scott Eric Kaufman's Disadventure: The Text Adventure for Dissertators!. And if you act now, you can get this Disaddendum absolutely free!

So, what are my thoughts on grad school? Well, it's pretty much like Debra and Scott say. Only less funny. Sometimes.

P.S. -- I did the math and I'm in my 92nd month of academia. Creepy. What about you?


UPDATE: Now with 100% more working links to Debra Hawhee's blog! Absolutely free!

Posted by reparent at April 17, 2006 11:15 AM

Comments

I wish I were in my 92nd month of academia.

Posted by: coeurlion at April 17, 2006 7:36 PM

Hmmm, I am not sure what month I am in but here is something I can contribute:

1st month-you move to a new place with a cat and are excited.

x month: Preparing for prelims, you notice no one is talking to anyone...you buy another cat.

I suppose if I had the time, I would figure out what month I am in...although since I am a bit behind in the Pitt timeline-is it possible that a month can last for almost a year?

Posted by: jmj at April 18, 2006 11:55 AM

Apropos of JMJ's observation concerning Einsteinian relativism, the Professor and I recently saw a stage production of "Inherit the Wind." Not as good as the film, but it was an interesting adaptation. During the course of examining William Jennings Bryan, Clarence Darrow famously hypothesizes that if God created the universe in six days, couldn't each such day have spanned millennia?

Posted by: coeurlion at April 18, 2006 2:24 PM

Urk. Screw the "normative" timeline. It's antithetical to the proper hygiene of the life of the mind.

I especially liked X Month.

Except that once you've got two cats, then you find yourself talking to the cats. Out loud. Then you find yourself talking to yourself. Out loud. In public.

And then you tell yourself to stop talking to yourself out loud, but you realize you just yelled at yourself out loud about talking to yourself out loud, and the other people at the grocery store are really looking at you strangely.

And it's all the cats' fault. But no one believes you. And no one understands.

Yup. That's totally what grad school is like.

Posted by: Richard [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 18, 2006 7:36 PM