I've had a few discussions with fellow graduate students over the past weeks where I've generally posed the same question. This is: What am I/we really paying for in terms of the coveted M.A? I wonder about this for a variety of reasons. I remember thinking to myself and vocalizing this idea to others that, I wish I could go one day where I didn't feel like I was behind the wheel with a thousand things to do. I suppose part of the reason why I can appreciate this constant sweat is because of the "old school" mentality that one has to put in their time in the trenches and earn their stripes.
I raised these questions to Dr. Davidson the other day and it made me remember a few things. Yes, there is a large intrinsic value to earning ones stripes but obviously there is equal value in establishing a hybrid environment where we attempt to buttress the hard-nosed gut check with the firm but loving criticism mentality.
Another question I had in all of this mess: Obviously no one wants to think that we are being trained simply as replacements, but rather that we craft ourselves and our skills to be part of the machine that is academia. But, I wonder? Just how much are we being tailored as replacements? I feel that this question bears more weight and significance especially since our class has a mixture of English and education students. I can't necessarily bash the idea of being made into a replacement, because they have to come from somewhere eventually right? I dunno guy, the jury is still out on this one, What do you think?
I remember posing this question to my major professor while I was studying for my MA. He said, "What else are you going to do?" At the time, I thought, "Hell, I can do anything. I don't HAVE to write poems, be in school." Soon after that, within a semester, I realized that what he meant was NOT that I COULDN'T do anything else. I could. He meant that I wouldn't find anything that would satisfy and challenge me like this does. He was right.
ReplyDeleteI constantly feel like I have to reinvent myself as a teacher, a writer. It's maddening, in a way, but it's also energizing. Being around you all, too--in the rarefied air of possibility and existential angst, amid the toughest questions that we ask ourselves--is absolutely essential to my being in the world, now.
Course, if you CAN answer that question in a different way, if there ARE other paths that you see for yourself, then you ought seriously to consider them. This is a tough business to get into. Let's talk some more.