harriet writes a thoughtful entry about grad school. why she's in it. why she's *still* in it. why we're all scared to leave.

why am i in grad school? because i didn't know what else to do when i graduated college, had always been an excellent student, and thought that being a professor would pretty much rock. job security, sabbaticals, and summers off, what's not to like?

why am i still in grad school? combination of reasons, really. i'm not done yet because i have yet to have a project that worked, and that's basically the major requirement for the degree. why haven't i had a project that worked? partly, i don't think i have the vision that others have--i'm not passionate enough about the subject to pursue it even when it fails, so i've so far given up and started a new project whenever one didn't work. partly, my advisor and i don't click AT ALL (he's nice enough, and there when i ask him stuff, but he's not been particularly supportive/encouraging when projects haven't worked). he's basically said, ok, so that didn't work, what do you want to do next? when what i really need from him is, ok, that didn't work, but what if you tweaked it this way? or looked at it from this direction?

i'm sort of stuck in graduate school. i haven't finished, but i'm scared to drop out. first off, i've never dropped out of anything, and it feels like failure even to consider it. but also, i have NO IDEA what i'd do instead. what on EARTH am i qualified to do/would enjoy doing? how do you even figure that out? feh. i've taken the foreign service written exam,* and i truly think i'd enjoy being a foreign service officer. mostly, i'd like the life of world travel, getting to *live* in all those places, and not just visit. but of course, there are hurdles. the most obvious is passing the written, then oral, the security and medical exams. not as black and white, but just as important, is convincing karl that he'd like a life as a foreign service spouse. moving every 3 years or so to someplace you'd never thought you'd go: namibia or bogota or riga.

*aside to fill y'all in on the foreign service exam. i can't talk about it, because at the exam we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement that basically said we couldn't talk about the test at all. suffice to say i think i did pretty well on the multiple choice parts (job knowledge (questions about world events, geography, american government, history, and culture...), written expression (grammar, style, punctuation, reading comprehension), and biographical questionnaire (how good a leader are you? how well do you work with others? how open to foreign cultures are you)) and the essays (the worst part of the test, because you have to *hand write* two 50-minute essays back-to-back. my hand was all crampy and painful), but i won't find out my scores til late july. after that, if i pass, i'll have an all-day interview. if i pass that, then i get to take a telephone language test in the supposed "critical needs language" that i supposedly know, russian, have a medical exam, and start my security clearance stuff. maybe in a year, if all goes swimmingly, i'll be offered a job.

even if i do graduate, would i want a life in academia? on the one hand, it's got some mighty cushy features: the ultimate in flexible schedules, colleagues who are smart and interesting and interested, job security, no pantyhose required, and a lifetime of stretching your mind. on the other hand, it's a *bitch* to get a job, you might end up in kalamazoo, departmental politics are legendary, getting tenure is a 6-year hell, you spend 30% of your time writing &*@@%$ grant applications, and you are almost certainly underpaid for your education/training.

this whole dilemma makes a girl want to up and move to tahiti, open a bar, and spend her life making slushie drinks for tourists.