What I Learned in Graduate School (besides stuff about books)

1. I learned that I have a tendency to stress out about things that end up not being a big deal in the end. Last summer I did some journaling because I was so stressed out about things that were going to happen this year. Reflecting on those writings, I realized that really none of it was anything I should have panicked about. This connects to Emily’s extremely well-noted quote on her Facebook page about how graduate school is a time for discovering your neuroses.
2. I am capable of doing many things. This past year I applied to nine PhD programs, was accepted to eight, visited three. I presented at three regional and one national conference. I conducted an intensive ethnography and wrote a master’s thesis about it. I took four graduate-level classes. I taught three classes, and conducted weekly tutorials. I made many new friends and contacts, and I think I had a pretty good social life. I can do more than I think I can. I think I sometimes sell myself short. I am capable of focusing on the Important things. (As a side note related to my earlier post about GTD, I also found that focusing on the important things does not mean that all the other Things go away.)
3. Teaching sustains me and energizes me. (In a similar vein, I learned the truth of Wendy Bishop’s statement that we must see students as “people trying to make sense of their lives.”)
4. I’m good at school. I like the schedule: the rhythm of the week and the cycle of the school year. I like papers and syllabi.
5. It’s important to learn everyone’s name and their story.
6. Questions are more important than answers. Questions lead you somewhere, energize you, and give you purpose and direction. Answers are finite, oversimplified, and stagnant. Seeking a better question is just as important as seeking a better answer. My whole thesis took off once I bothered to sit down and figure out what questions I was asking rather than what my thesis “said.” It’s okay to answer a question with another question.
7. TV is great. I never really watched TV until graduate school. I find TV to be relaxing but not enervating. It’s also a great way to talk to people. The best TV shows can be analyzed on a higher level or just enjoyed for the pleasure of watching.
8. Instead of trying to distinguish yourself by being smarter than everyone else, focus on working harder than everyone else. When I first came to grad school, I thought everyone was smarter than me, but it turns out they had just read more books. They were thus able to make more connections than I was. Being organized and dependable and on top of my game got me really far in grad school. I first learned this when I was tutoring my first semester. Students would say they didn’t like their comp teachers and I would ask why. I was expecting an answer like “She grades too hard” or “She’s boring” but a lot of the time they would say, “She’s really disorganized.” Somehow, being young and female is equated with being incompetent in our society. People don’t expect you to be creative and brilliant every day – they do expect you to be prepared and have a plan every day.
9. People’s writing tends to reflects who they are as a person.
10. Write early, write often, write about everything, even if it’s garbage. Having anything written is always better than having nothing written.
11. Things that might seem like stumbling blocks can actually be great challenges. There are aspects of the MU program that, at the outset, would have been unappealing to me, but in time turned out to be challenges that I am proud of meeting.
12. Never post to a listserve. Ever.
13. The best cure for my own anxiety is to sit down and make a plan for what I’m going to do about the issue for the next couple of months. Then I break it down into a manageable to-do lists. This does WONDERS for my sanity. It also helps to write down exactly what about the thing stresses me out. Typically when I reflect on this, I feel silly. The problem seems smaller.
14. Be here now. I’ve reflected on many times in my graduate school days and thought “Wow that was a fun day, but I was really stressed out about …” I wish that I’d just lived in the moment more.

Things I’m still learning
1. I’m still learning how to ask for help, and how to depend on other people.
2. I’m learning to not be envious of others’ success.
3. I’m learning to make it work, meaning that I’m learning to take things that are garbage and make them beautiful.
4. I’m trying to distinguish between things that need a lot of my time and attention and even stress and things that do not require anxiety.
5. I need to learn to balance teaching with my own work.