Graduate School in a Pandemic
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I’m going to share the story of why I decided to go to graduate school, the discovered risks involved, and why it seems to be panning out for someone like me. My goal is to give you a learning guide (a single reference point), based on my experiences and a global pandemic. Maybe it will help you plant a seed of hope for the future, the one you choose to build.
Leaving Here, and Coming Back
Life has a beautiful way of mimicking books, with chapters, plots, characters, and settings. Each has a description leaving you, the reader, to deduce its meaning based on what your own perception of the world. A little deep, isn’t it? My first international trip was the equal to the start of a chapter, and what made it even more painfully ironic was my own lack of awareness to its headline.
I left here believing I would undoubtably employed after graduation. I left here believing nothing in my life could change this set, given path. When I came back to the United States, I was sourly mistaken. You’d think by this point in my life, I would have figured out nothing is that easy.
I came back to no job opportunities due to COVID-19. Crippled with anxiety, it took me over two weeks to even process what was going on in the world, and accept how it had stripped me of the one thing I felt I understood: the next steps.
“Get a job, work five days a week, and retire — wasn’t that all there was left for you?” I remember thinking it to myself in bed when I couldn’t sleep.
Someone near and dear to my heart planted a seed in my mind, “Have you ever considered graduate school?” The thought made me nauseous. More college? More debt? With no promised success at the end of the finish line? Absolutely not. And anyway, it wasn’t a part of my plan. My brow scrunches slightly, even now, as I type the sentence. No matter how much I pushed the idea out of my mind, it found its way back.
I’ve been a long admirer of educators. Even my own heritage lends itself to the career path, but I had seen myself as ‘lesser’ of such a high calling, especially since it requires a MFA degree in my field. “No, no, that’s not your path,” whispers my inner monologue.
A Glimmering, Unattainable Mountain Top
There are things in life we believe are above our ability, and to each of us, the ‘thing’ is uniquely ours to claim as unachievable. I bet as you read this, you thought of your ‘thing’, your mountain top. A task, an achievement, maybe even an individual.
A particular mountain top had been being painted to me since the pursuit of my AAS degree in Communication Design. Occasionally, alumni stories were told by professors during lectures of past peers who attended further education. Those who attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) were verbally illustrated as ‘Gods’. It gave us, current students, an ideal goal to strive towards. These ‘potential you’ stories always seemed fiction in my mind: a picture I’d never live.
When I considered the option of graduate school, these stories flooded back into my mind, taunting me. I played with the idea with fondness, even though the application deadline had come and gone for the coming fall at MCAD. I was stricken with paralyzing fear at the thought of letting the moment slip through my fingers. What if everything happening in my world was a sign? A sign to try.
Why is it Working?
I remember receiving my acceptance letter: one experience I will honestly equate to one of spirituality, followed shortly by a new kind of crippling fear.
In my application, there was a request for a video explaining what I intended to achieve by obtaining my Master of Fine Arts degree at MCAD. In this video, I blatantly stated, “(…) unlike your other applicants, I’m sorry to say, I don’t have a plan.”
All I knew for certain was the potential for more, even though I wasn’t sure what it looked like.
Based on this story, I’m sure you’ve painted a mental module for how I function. You’ve learned at this point I am a planner, so this path is as surprising to you as it is to me. A forced change.
I’m motived by the pure fact I’m doing something unplanned. The universe hints to me. Maybe I’m following the path I’m meant to be on, at least for now.
What is the universe telling you?
Ever-Present Risks
I read a book over the summer, recommended to me by the director at MCAD, called The Professor Is In by Karen Kelsky. Getting a job in higher education isn’t easy, and the existing system in the United States is broken beyond repair. This book made the matter ever more scary, but understanding these risks is the only way to manage them.
“Each year tens of thousands of students will, after years of hard work and enormous amounts of money, earn their Ph.D. And each year only a small percentage of them will land a job that justifies and rewards their investment. For every comfortably tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many more who simply give up in frustration.
Those who do make it share an important asset that separates them from the pack: they have a plan. They understand exactly what they need to do to set themselves up for success. They know what really moves the needle in academic job searches, how to avoid the all-too-common mistakes that sink so many of their peers, and how to decide when to point their Ph.D. toward other, non-academic options.” — The Professor is In, Karen Kelsky (2015)
Although teaching in higher education is my ultimate reason for obtaining my MFA, I understand it may not be possible, regardless of how skilled I am. Receiving my MFA is a gift to myself. A gift of timed opportunity: to learn, to grow, and to understand my place in the world of design.
More than once I’ve been asked about whether or not I’m afraid of over qualifying myself for career options outside of educator, and my answer is always, “Of course”. My hope is through being active in the design field and staying humble, I will counteract the potential to over qualify—is this a promised route of success? No, but at least it’s a start.
Looking Forward
My MFA experience thus far can be compare to my writing journey:
I haven’t been writing for myself very long, but even in my short time trying, I’ve received cruel feedback from those who I hadn’t expected it from. Being compared to sounding “like every other naïve girl trying to write a blog” made me rethink why I was writing these in the first place, and for whom I was writing it for.
While doing more weighted readings in theory for my degree, I had similar thoughts. Why was I actively engaging in something so forced and painful?
Like a soft trickle of warm water hitting my mind, it occurred to me slowly over time. I was doing the readings for the same reason as I am writing — for myself.
Seems a little selfish, I’ll agree; however, there is power in the truth, and hopefully some insight on what my future could look like. Take the time to do what is best for you, even when those around you think it’s not. Make those decisions based on the ever-changing ability to understand your place in the world and what part you want to play in it, rather than the opinion of others.
Easier said than done, but isn’t it worthwhile? That, I suppose, is up to you to decide.
