An accurate description of graduate school. |
I
just got a text message from a classmate that says “I can see the finish line!!! Have a great day!”
I
rarely get texts (I don’t have them included in my phone plan because I’m a
poor graduate student) but this one made me smile. It was sweet for my
classmate to send out a message to us all, reminding us how far we’ve come and
how close we are to the end.
I’m
not super close to anyone in my cohort, but I still see them as comrades, as
sisters and brothers in arms, so this was a nice reminder that we’ve all been
in it together, that we’re thinking of one another, and that soon, we’ll all be
parting paths, following our own destinies.
This
journey has been simultaneously long, fast, quick, hard, difficult, crazy, and
amazing, and while I’ve enjoyed being a student, I’m incredibly excited for my
future life that waits beyond that finish line.
After
finishing my undergraduate degree in journalism, I thought about graduate
school off and on. When I first moved to North Carolina I was torn between
studying folklore at UNC or finding some place to study sex therapy or sexology
online (yes, these are real degrees.) I even went as far as buying at GRE study
book, but decided that graduate school was too expensive.
It
wasn’t until many years later after I suffered from some health problems and
some pretty serious depression that I thought about graduate school again. I
went through an obligatory mid-life existential crisis and my bishop gave me
some great advice. He said “you know, if you really want to help people and
integrate these different areas of your life, you should study counseling or
therapy.”
What?
Me? A therapist? But I’m crazy!
And
I thought about it and then he and I talked about it some more, and I did some research
into area programs and degree plans and decided that social work was the way to
go.
So
of course when I told people I wanted to be a social worker their minds went
immediately to working for the Department of Social Services or working in
child welfare or Child Protective Services. “Are you sure that’s the job for
you?” someone asked skeptically. And he was right to be skeptical. Those aren’t
jobs for me. But the great thing about social work is that there are lots of
options, so many options.
I
found programs, I let my boss know I was applying, I told my husband I was
applying, I studied for the GRE, I took the GRE, I filled out applications, I
waited, I waited, I waited, and finally I was rejected from one school (which
wasn’t a good fit for me, anyway) and then I was accepted into two others. Two!
Grad schools! Who wanted me!
So
I had a great summer and bought some new clothes and a new laptop, and then
went to orientation and freaked out.
There’s
this thing that happens to some people where they don’t feel like they belong,
that they are imposters, and I felt that big time my first semester. I was
going to fail! I was a journalist, not a social worker! Why did they take me?
Were they gonna kick me out? Why did I ever think I could do this?
That
first semester was hard. And the second semester overall was a bit easier,
aside from HELL WEEKS in April. But I soon came to realize that graduate
school, and especially social work, were the perfect places for me. Social work is this great mix between social
justice and care and helping. You look at the individual, their families, their
communities, their societies, their world. It’s policy and analysis and
attending behaviors and non-verbal communication and theory and psychology and
women’s studies and racial justice and all of these wonderful, important
things.
And
while I’m not done yet, I’m almost there! We can see the finish line! There it
is!
I
just finished my third semester of graduate school, which isn’t bad for someone
with my background. I’ve changed so much as a person, and I know I’ll keep on
changing. I’m happy and I’m excited and I have a healthy dose of stress and
anxiety, and I think I’m a better person than when I started, too. It’s been a
wild, crazy, wonderful ride, and just after a few more months it will be over,
and I’ll be starting another new great, wild, crazy, and wonderful adventure.