bits of this and that: graduate school, part 1

My first attempt to choose a graduate program was not totally thought out. I was substitute teaching and found myself working with ESL classes and students most of the time. In addition to having a lot of fun with these kids, I was hankering to get out of the country, or at the very least, Southern California. I completed a last minute application to the Linguistics program at Cal State Long Beach in the hopes that I would also earn my ESL teaching accreditation and eventually go abroad for an extended period of time. I ended up turning down the offer that CSULB sent me, particularly because I realized I had very little interest in linguistics as a primary field of study, but also because I didn’t think I would be happy being so far away from family and friends for such a significant period of time. At the point where I had turned down the offer from CSULB, I had recently finished production on a short film and had watched as it was summarily rejected from every film festival my friend Dan and I had sent it to. The process was great at points, but also put a tremendous amount of strain on my friendships. Despite the rejections we were able to see the significance of what we had accomplished with very little funds, time, and energy. The itch to leave SoCal was now accompanied by an itch to do something meaningful and wonderful and beautiful with my life. It was about the time of this realization that I received an email from the admissions office at UNC Chapel Hill saying that my application was incomplete. The funny part is that I didn’t remember filling out any part of the application…

I traced back in my mind the application process to Long Beach, and remembered looking at other schools. In order to get some more information I had begun to fill out a couple of the applications, but at the time didn’t really give any serious thought to the prospect of trying an academic career. I called up my friend and mentor, Dr. Gentile, from Kennesaw and asked his advice. He pointed me in the direction of Northwestern, in addition to UNC. I also applied to the program of Religious Studies at Brandeis and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. JTS told me that I needed further undergraduate classes, which they encouraged me to take and then to reapply, and after looking deeper into Brandeis, I realized I didn’t care as much for religious studies as I might have thought, so I left the application incomplete. I committed myself to getting in to either UNC or Northwestern, with my backup being a career at Starbucks (I hoped to go into coffee roasting and purchasing and eventually into international relations, and probably an MBA to help me on my way. I’m very happy with the choice I made, but I think this other path would have been pretty interesting as well). Shortly after the deadline for admissions past, I received a letter from Northwestern saying that I was not accepted into the program. When I inquired as to why, they said that my test scores were not up to par. I figured this meant that I would also be rejected by UNC and began to call in favors and set up interviews with some of the higher ups at Starbucks. Before any of these interviews were to take place, however, I received my acceptance letter from UNC. I cancelled the interviews with Starbucks, put in my notice, and cemented plans with Jesse, my girlfriend at the time, to spend the summer in Europe, before we would again be forced to live at opposite coasts. Though the last two years were amazing and life shaping, the first few months of graduate school were probably the most trying of my life. I adjusted quickly to the workload, but not in a healthy way. I had no idea what to expect and in order to do what I felt I needed to do I ended up damaging many of my personal relationships. I fell out of touch with close friends, broke up with Jesse, and fell into a four month troubling depression. All the problems of the relationship had expanded for me and became more complicated with the distance. I found myself sleeping at school, if I slept at all (something I had often done my first semester of undergrad as well), and emotionally distant from family and friends. It was at this point that I also began the arduous task of picking a topic for my thesis. As much as I danced around my choice, I knew that the best project was going to be something where I would reach deep into and embrace the darkness that was engulfing me. I wanted to confront it, if not conquer it. Short of working towards that goal, I felt I would be trapped in a permanent state of emotional retardation.