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July 25, 2005
existential cris-ish
i don't want to be a phd student anymore. i suppose it's only fair to acknowledge the contextual reality that i decide this at least once a year, but what that means might just as easily be "it takes time for these realizations to sink in" as "it's passed before & will pass again." will it? should it? or is this the slow-wave repetition of one of those inner voices i really ought to listen to?
i've spent the day sending proto-reading-lists for my exams (what other people call "comps," although they aren't actually comprehensive of anything other than the unique, much-abused & severely truncated (while still being perversely expansive in purview) wish-lists we build ourselves) back and forth with my advisor. these are long, long lists of books and articles i've never read, that i should choose wisely among (based on titles & some rare flickerings of name-recognition) to decide which among them i most need to read in order to answer a set of questions i haven't written yet--but will be expected to write, again, before having read the texts to know whether or not they'll actually equip me to answer the questions i write. so it's an understandably frustrating process, made, i'm sure, more frustrating to my advisor by my complete inability to play along. i keep asking questions. annoying questions. horrible questions. like "okay, how many things am i supposed to read?" and "how long is this supposed to take, anyway," and "why, again, am i doing this?"
the logistical answer to that last question is "because it's a graduation requirement." the more biting but generally-accepted-as-true answer is "because phd programs have always done exams. your professors had to do it, so you have to do it." i'm currently teaching my 205 students about warrants. short version: warrants are those assumptions about the world that underlie the claims and arguments you ask an audience to accept/believe. if your warrants reflect beliefs that your audience doesn't share, your arguments will fail. because warrants are generally unstated, it's important when writing an argument to slow down and examine your own warrants, then consider your audience & their likely expectations; if these things don't match up, you'll need to explain and defend your warrants rather than leaving them unstated. it's pretty simple stuff, although the first time we do it in each class, my students flail and weep. in any case, the argument, that exams are necessary (for graduation, tradition, etc.), only holds if the audience (currently me) agrees with the warrant that graduation (tradition, etc.) is necessary.
so why, again, am i doing this?
holding a phd in rhetoric and composition--even if i overlook the fact that living my life in the now, a now i spend primarily cursing at books and lists of things i can't even explain the value of to the people who matter most to me (which is in part because i question that value myself but is mostly because the things are so entrenched in their recursive vocabularies that there's no way to explain what they mean without defining fifteen terms and recounting at least 40 years of mind-numbingly specialized academic history) is tantamount to wasting air and precious resources since i'm not accomplishing anything of value at all--will not enable me to change the world. it will not make anybody's life substantially better. i improve, minutely, the lives of a few undergrads a semester who would have (at the extreme end of my egotism) a slightly less good experience if someone else taught the course instead of me. with a phd, i will be able to do this with a few fewer undergrads in exchange for a handful of graduate students i'll be primarily setting up to replicate my near-uselessness. i will also be able to attend, i've been assured, a wide array of administrative meetings to have long, often fruitless conversations about how best to keep doing something of minor but genuine value (strengthening students' communication skills) against the continued onslaught of budget cuts and economic crises created by the cruel outside world of the university franchise and its consistent prioritizing of money-crop departments over humanities-centered endeavors.
i will make more money for doing this than i make now, but i will always make far less money than my friends without phds who work in money-crop industries making much more significant--if capitalistic, questionable, and sometimes downright evil--impacts on our world. i will continue to directly influence only a small handful of people each semester. i will be qualified to reach for the job-security of tenure, a process requiring even more hoop-jumping than procuring a phd, but will achieve it only if in addition to meeting a great many other criteria i manage to complete and publish a single-authored theoretically-focused full-length composition and rhetoric book--not a textbook, mind, that someone could use to teach anybody else, but just an ordinary "here are my ideas about x, properly contextualized among the ideas of all the right writers i'm supposed to mention to prove that i'm paying attention" academic book like the ones i'm supposed to be putting on this exam list.
if i fail to achieve tenure, i can look forward to a life of adjunct work almost identical to the one i'd have if i quit now and went to work with the degree i already have.
why, again, am i doing this?
i'm fresh out of idealism about it, frankly. the best answer i can come up with--and i've dredged, believe me--is inertia. i'm already rolling in this direction. to stop would take effort. to start again in another direction would take more effort, and, more importantly, another direction to start in. i used to have a whole host of other directions in mind. i'm fresh out of those to. at the moment, i'm wasting my life--i'm not helping anybody. i'm not changing the world. i'm not stopping this war. i'm not creating anything new. i'm not even raising a child--simply because i don't know what else to do. this is a rut, not a calling. this is a groove i allowed myself to be railroaded into because i didn't have any good reasons at all to say "no."
this is where paul shakes his head at me in deep disappointment. the one thing i was never allowed to do, he said, was get cynical. i don't mean this to bash the work of anybody who's got a niche they fit in and doesn't think what they're doing is a waste of time at all. i don't think this wastes everybody's time. i know people (with different interests and foci than mine) in this field who actually are making the world or at least the lives they touch--and who are damn good at rippling to spread that touch around--significantly better. i'm just not one of them. and i'm not sure this is how i can or am-supposed-to be. so i've failed him. just like i'm failing those long-ago dreams of doing something that mattered, of teaching something that would change people for the better to people who wanted and needed to change. & that's how i'm failing myself.
Posted by ttobryan at July 25, 2005 03:15 PM
Comments
Exams suck. If you're smart--and I know you are--you'll make 'em work toward your dissertation. I was able to use some big chunks from my major on my diss prospectus, and thus the first chapter.
Posted by: susansinclair at July 26, 2005 07:10 AM
stop. stop now. before I cry and strangle myself. i *hate* reality. don't you remember; reality bites!!
it's so much easier if you don't THINK ABOUT IT.
plus, it makes us all look like stark-raving-idiots, those of us who strategically ignore reality.
Posted by: madeline at July 26, 2005 10:00 AM
tyratae-i'm still novice at this (or at least i feel that i am). you my dear are a pro. just think, there are people out there who actually listen when you talk; take advantage of that. you tend to explain things extremely well (even during those times when you feel like you don't know what (the hell) you're talking about). you must have courage and don't get all worked up or feel that your world is imploding because you have to prepare for exams. if you don't corral those exams and control them, they will begin to control you and your existence; this post is evident that the latter is happening. SHAKE IT OFF and KEEP MOVING!!! Don't be so concerned with the future. Nothing's promised. Your future is right NOW. Now, go back in and give um a good fight!
Posted by: digitalpenny at July 26, 2005 04:11 PM
hang in there. just wanted to say hi. don't have any words of wisdom for you except to say that you have always struck me as being extremely sure of yourself, very good at what you do, and great with people from all walks of life. hold on to that--hold on to yourself, and be true to yourself. do that, and half the battle is won. above all, don't lose that fun, flexible "catching of happiness" that is your hallmark and a continued inspiration to those whose lives have been blessed and enriched by an intersection with yours, however briefly.
Posted by: paulette at August 2, 2005 04:59 AM