I first saw this video around this time last year when I was beginning my graduate school applications. I literally laughed out loud several times while watching and for several minutes after it ended.
I’d almost forgotten about it until a friend and classmate of mine mentioned it before class on Wednesday.
Here it is. Enjoy.
After yet another night filled with anxiety about my chosen path in life, I spent today at the library trying to catch up on reading and to get my head back on straight. After about an hour sitting in a study carrel on the top floor of the library, I was freezing and decided to head outside to read. The sunshine helped me clear my head. What it did for my reading, well, that’s another story.
Later in the day, when I could no longer focus my eyes on the tiny black and white print of my page, I headed to the University Center for some lunch. I got my sandwich and walked outside to find a table. Seton Hall seems to be trying to make the most out of their air conditioning units because everywhere, I mean everywhere, on campus was freezing cold today. Anyway, I found a spot at a picnic table on the raised patio outside the University Center and sat down to enjoy my lunch.
Just as I was starting to relax and enjoy the beautiful day, I overheard a bit of the conversation going on at the table next to me. I looked over to find two kids, maybe first or second year students, dressed in what I can only call classic “teen rebel phase” clothes – ripped up jeans, heavy metal band t-shirts, chains, and dreads – yet it wasn’t so much their outfits that worried me as what I heard them saying.
The one guy was telling his girl friend (girlfriend or girl who is a friend, who knows) that he was so annoyed at being in school, that he saw no purpose, he didn’t care, classes were stupid and a waste of time, and that he could be doing much better things with his time (what those things might be, he did not say). The girl agreed and continued on to complain about the fact that her professor was angry at her for having turned in a paper late and that she couldn’t believe her class was being quizzed on reading assignments. “How juvenile is that?” she asked. “Of course we’re going to fail those.” The guy agreed, shook his head, and started collecting his things. The two left the patio smoking cigarettes and continuing their diatribe about higher education and professors.
As they walked away, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad. Here I was at an institute of higher learning, one prized for its dedication to the liberal arts, and students could not see the value of it. In fact they believed it to be a “waste of time.” I wanted to run after them and ask why they were here at all. They were definitely over 16 and had, presumably spent time and money submitting an application to attend this university. Seton Hall doesn’t just let people walk into classes off the streets. If you think it’s such a waste of time, why come?
Disheartened as I was, I then started to realize the hypocrisy of their situation even further. How could they sit there on those benches and eschew the very system of higher learning they so vehemently believed unimportant while supporting by their very status as students. Isn’t their agreeing to attend, to even deign (as I’m sure they see it) attend class, a willful participation in the very system they wish to undermine? I wanted to ask them all these things and to see if they had considered the fact that their very presence on this campus took that opportunity from someone else. Seton Hall does not have a 100% admittance rate.
I may sound bitter, and perhaps I’m putting too much blame and spite on these individuals, but I simply couldn’t believe the ideas coming from them. From their conversation, I could understand that they are here, receiving a college education, because they are supposed to, because it’s what one does after high school. In essence, they again are playing into the very societal system to which they so, apparently, object. Then I started to think about their professors. I bet that these two students completed (or are completing) English Composition. I bet that some of my classmates were (or are) their professors, some of my classmates who spend their nights grading, their weekends devising lesson plans, and their free time striving to make the material accessible and relevant to students. Had these two kids ever considered that?
Again, perhaps I’ve jumped on to a high horse or a soap box, but I look at the world in which we live today, in which English and Humanities professors, departments, and schools are faced with the task of justifying their existence, in which education has lost its place among valuable assets, and I can’t help but feel a little defeated. We live in a world where people largely feel entitled to receive what they have come to expect yet refuse to work for it. It’s painful, painful to see that by and by our universities are filled with students who admit they have not done the work asked of them, who complain that professors dare to expect greatness and original thought from them, who see the process of education as a burden to bear before they can move forward, who view learning as a waste of time they could be spending on “better things.” No wonder education has lost its standing in this world. No wonder the value of gaining knowledge for knowledge’s sake has lost all value. No wonder we are producing more and more people who cannot read or write. How can anyone expect our universities to survive in such a climate? How do we, as academics, survive in a world that calls us useless and devalues our contributions?
I fear that universities cannot survive the masses of students who view higher learning like the two sitting beside me. Then the scariest question arises: can our universities survive without them?
I logged in to my new student account today to check my e-mail and noticed that one of my professors posted the reading list for class in the Fall. Out of curiosity I downloaded and opened the file, all five pages, size ten font of it. All five pages, size ten font, single-spaced list of novels and articles of it. Now I’m not complaining. I knew that graduate classes would have more extensive reading lists and more intensive work loads than my undergraduate ones. I’m also not complaining that I won’t be able to handle it. I know that I can handle it. I know what I want. I want to get into a killer PhD program, and if reading a five-page, size ten font, single spaced list of postcolonial literature will help me get there, I will spend every minute reading every line of that list. I repeat, I know what I want. I’m also ready to do what it takes to make what I want happen. I will give the adcoms no excuse to toss me aside.
I also know that reading every line of every reading list is probably not what I should be doing. I know that I will have to tackle this intelligently. I am excited to begin, to engage new muscles and develop new skills. I am ready to find a perfect camping spot in Walsh
Library and anxious to meet my new peers. Something about opening this list, thinking back on my visit to campus, wearing my new SHU hoodie, something about all of these things tells me that life is about to get crazy. Life is about to change, big time.
Part of my panic this past weekend arose from the fact that setting foot on my new campus, sitting for my new student ID picture, talking with my new mentor truly closed the door to UCF. I have soaked up what UCF had to offer and am officially moving on; everything is becoming very real. I think most people go through this experience at graduation, but since I left the commencement ceremony and walked home to my on-campus apartment (where I’m still living by the way), the finality of the moment never settled in for me.
I have posted repeatedly about being ready for change, about wanting to embrace it whole-heartedly, about moving forward full-throttle, and these desires are still true. I still crave change, the change I have been waiting my whole life for, it seems. I guess I’m just terrible at goodbyes, at letting go. This is why I am a terrible decision maker. I can never seem to let go; opportunity costs haunt me. Perhaps I fall victim to the age-old “I want to have my cake and it too” mentality. I’ve never thought of it that way before, but I now understand. I want to hold on to UCF while embracing SHU. I don’t want to lose what I had.
I guess the lesson learned today is that UCF and the people and experiences I found here will always be a part of who I am, a part of my foundation. I should enjoy it while it lasts.
Sometimes I am surprised by the timing of events in my life. Yesterday, around noon, I decided to take some books to Starbucks to keep my boyfriend company while he worked on a report for work. As I sat down, I clicked the little envelope on my phone and opened my e-mail inbox. Sitting there, staring at me, in tiny blue letters was this message:
Jessica—I hope you’ve received your acceptance to the program by now. I hope we will have you with us at Seton Hall this Autumn!All best,Dr. Weisl
I read it about 4 times before showing it to my boyfriend for confirmation.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I think I just got into grad school…”
And, indeed, I had. My whole life changed in that moment. My future became real, something I could see and hold and read and begin to craft in my mind. Life has a strange way of coming together when we least expect it. After several celebratory hugs and about 18 more read-throughs of the e-mail, I called my mom who, after hearing the news, said that she just received the best Mothers’ Day gift she could have asked for.
I’m still waiting for the reality of everything to settle in. I was just about ready to start formulating and understanding my thoughts about graduation, but now I have so much more to think about. I will be a graduate student, a graduate student at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, in only a few short months. This is the major life change I was looking for, and strangely enough, this university is the best place I could possibly be. The faculty is currently working in my area of interest, the school is beautiful, and they want me. The more I browse the website, the more excited I get and the more I feel that this is 100% the right decision for me. I feel confident. I know this is where I need to be and can now appreciate all the rejections in a new light. Without them, I would not have found this school. Without them, I would not be where I am right now, feeling absolutely content.
Hooray.
Well according to my handy-dandy survey, rejections have been coming fast and steady this week. I think the survey is dying a little. I’m not sure how it can handle so many rejections. Although, the fact that it at least has some acceptances probably helps sustain its life force. I, on the other hand, have to sit here with nothing but a rejection, a nice 2 sentence letter. That’s it. At least they spelled my name correctly, I guess. It’s the little things?
Anyway, as I anxiously await my notification from Notre Dame which is supposed “to be out by the end of the week” according to the department secertary, here’s some helpful hints for all of you out there who are confused by my endless ranting about grad school, applications, and adcoms.
Courtesy of Latte at the Grad Cafe:
Anyway, this all comes on the tail of my thesis advisor giving me four pages of typed feedback that basically mean I have to rewrite the entire thing by Tuesday. But don’t worry; “it looks promising.” Rejection season it is. Even my Starbucks card rejected me today. All I wanted was to register for a rewards card so that I don’t feel so terrible spending $3.00 in a chai tea latte in which to drown my sorrows. But, nope. Can’t even make that work for me.
If this is a test in will power, I may be failing.
