Why you shouldn't go to grad school

Okay, okay, I know. After my last blog that pretty much glorified continued education as the holy grail of career choices, I am pulling back the severity of my argument to clarify that I do agree with some ideas about why grad school isn't a good idea. To be clear, next fall I will most likely be working towards my so-called "useless" humanities degree, and I will be proud of it. I am an avid supporter of education in any form, and I think that graduate school is a wonderful life choice for many people. But just don't do it for these reasons.

1. To find yourself

You don't have to necessarily know exactly what you want to do with your degree, but graduate school is not the place to discover who you are, taking a class in this and that and hoping for the best. People are accepted and do well in grad school because they have extremely specific interests and career aspirations. Long gone are the undergrad days of switching your major every week.

2. To make more money

Everyone hopes that their hard work will pay off in monetary form. This is normal--but just because you rack up a few degrees does not mean you will automatically be more valuable. In fact, more and more I hear about people who are "overqualified" and it is even more difficult to find a job after receiving their degree. Before you take the plunge, think logically about what kind of life you want to set up for yourself, what your expectations are for after you complete the program, and how likely it is that those expectations will be met.

3. To wait out the recession

This has never made sense to me. Even in an economic situation like today, there are always jobs. Maybe not dream jobs, but jobs that will keep you busy, teach you skills, and make you money. I never anticipated that I would spend a year waiting tables and nannying after all my hard work in school, but I have learned a lot about myself and saved money--enough to make my adventure to France happen. Graduate school is expensive, any way you look at it. At the very best, you will be breaking even all the time, and may not be able to support the lifestyle that makes you happy. Graduate school isn't a fortress to protect you from the horrors of a bad job market. It's an expensive, time-consuming commitment that should be made mindfully.

4. Because corporate America is evil

A lot of college grads have this idea that upon graduating they have a choice--to move to NYC, buy expensive clothes and become a money-hungry stock trader, or hole up on a remote island, wear hemp, and talk about world peace. There is a middle ground, everyone. There are a lot of things that will suit you and satisfy you. And don't think that learning stops when school does. The sooner you realize that a multitude of occupations will work for you, the pressure of finding the perfect job will melt away. Promise.

The Grad School Debate

Happy Monday! I don't know about everyone else, but coming back from a week of vacation back to the grind was not pretty. Everything today has gone wrong, and I am at war with the French consulate as they take their sweet, sweet time sending me my visa (that I had to drive to Atlanta to apply for). Whew--so point being, this blog post is pretty charged by my raging case of the Mondays.

To make life more complicated, I am really doing some soul-searching to decide if grad school is the right choice for me, and all of the pondering is making me feel insane and (even more) analytical than usual. It all began when I recently read an old blog post that chilled me to the core. The writer discouraged graduate and Ph.D work preaching that it was only a means to rack up debt and further delay adulthood, giving the student little to no economic or life advantages. While she made a few valid points regarding the tendency to go to grad school because people don't know what else to do, this article was way off kilter--especially from someone who claims to be a career advice expert.

I took the argument rather personally, because I am in the thick of grad school applications, planning to start next fall after I return from my year of teaching in France. I have my bachelor's in French, and I want to continue my studies, focusing on nationalism and Maghrebi immigration. I am particularly interested in second and third generation immigrants who find themselves in a new category of cultural identification--not quite French and not quite Maghrebi. (More on this later).

Not only did reading this post make me more enthusiastic to attend graduate school, it sparked alarm and anger in me. In the wake of the economic landslide it seems that priorities have been jolted by fear. We are terrified of being unemployed, in debt, poor. (all reasonable fears, by the way) But another bi-product of the economic situation is a cheapened perspective on education. Since when was a college degree and a well-paying job a clear-cut transaction? College graduates are emerging into the work force, arrogant, falsely entitled and totally pissed off, because all of the sudden, their hard work "wasn't worth it." Am I the only one seeing the problem with this?

The author made a few valid points, because grad school is time consuming, expensive, and if teaching is the goal in mind, tenure-track positions are extremely hard to come by. But even from an economic standpoint, obstacles such as these shouldn't prevent one from pursuing their passions. Graduate school isn't for everyone, but those who wish to further their education should not be discouraged by bitter critics.

The New Wave of the Post-Grad Wanderer

The past few weeks I have been mostly in transit, packing and re-packing; a state that I am honestly  more comfortable in than staying put. It is a nice transition into the next chapter of my life which I am currently calling "Teaching English in France," because clearly I am in a creative drought.

Anyways, all of this moving and packing and re-packing has me evaluating the past year (yikes) that I have been a college graduate. It's weird-- I always had certain expectations of how I would feel, what I would be doing, and needless to say this year has thrown me a curve ball. I've made some leaps- took the GRE (did alright), was accepted to teach English at a French high school for a year, met a wonderful man, opened a savings account, and finally grew my hair back out.

What has been the most difficult about this past year were the perpetual comments and questions about my degree, what my plans are, blah blah blah. I realize that these are just polite conversation starters, but they always sound judgemental to me.

You majored in what? French? What are you going to do with that?

Where do you work now? Oh, a pizza restaurant..that's nice.

And the inevitable...Well, when are you going to get married?

I smiled, laughed, gave the right answers, but inside I was cringing. Clearly these people have no respect for the Post-Grad Wanderer, a term I coined to describe my phase of life at the moment. The truth is, college is not what it used to be. It is less practical and more about development; students leave broadened, knowledgeable but not necessarily hire-able.

After a year of working the dynamic duo of nannying by day, serving pizza by night, I amassed (what feels like) a small fortune and I am moving to France to teach English at a high school for a minimal monthly stipend of about 1000 euros a month. I am going against the grain and I know it, but I am not the only one. Nearly every one of my friends from college are doing something of the sort--Peace Corps, Americorps, Teach for America, traveling, and many others are working hard at dead-end jobs because they are honestly more content waiting tables than succombing to "the man."

This result of the economic downturn has (gasp) given college grads the opportunity to think, and the options are making us crazy.

People don't just want a job anymore. They want to be the expert. They want to change people, change the world. To be thrilled to go to work each day. Of course these are all good things, but what happened to the simple days when we shot from one predetermined chapter to the next: college, career, marriage, kids, Disney vacations, retirement, and then more Disney vacations?

And for a lot of people this works just fine. Believe me, many nights I have laid awake wishing I viewed life in this way. In those moments of life planning/ career related anxiety I sometimes envision myself in the 1950's where I (maybe) went to college, took up a 9-5 secretary position to kill time until my certain someone popped the question. I am often jealous of people who are less complicated and analytical than myself. Hopefully one day I can tame and channel my craziness into something productive. Then I can prove my theory that the Post-Grad Wanderer does come out on top.

I can't believe I'm eating this!

I had every intention of writing about relevant things today, for instance like my upcoming move to France. But all I can think about is butter. It started out innocent enough, I was making a quesadilla for lunch and found a big ole tub of I can't believe it's not Butter! in the fridge. I'm not a huge fan of food substitutes like this--but went ahead and used it to grease up the pan. I was not prepared for the layer of gelatin that emerged as it heated up...followed by its disintegration into an amber colored ash. Grossed out, I started to read the ingredients (which might as well be in Chinese) and then started to search online for other blogs/sites that have addressed the issue.

To my surprise, most of what I found was praise for this fake food product, people so thrilled that they can now add gobs of calorie-free unmeltable faux butter to their favorite foods. Is this what we have become? And this isn't just butter, I feel like everything is being substituted and chemically altered so that we can feel better about consuming it. But the more synthetic our foods are, the more difficult they are to digest and the more health issues emerge. Sure, you  might lose weight from reducing caloric intake, but it's not good to get so comfortable with all of the fake foods out there. Questions need to be asked. If it's not butter, then what the hell is it?

After attempting to go completely raw last fall, I am weary of the urge to set a challenging dietary goal for myself because it seems like every time I set the bar so high, I fall far beneath it. But one campaign that I think would be both doable and beneficial is that Below Five Diet. This basically means that I will only eat foods that have five or less ingredients on their label. The idea is to quickly figure out how difficult this is, and to start consuming more fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and lean meats..basically paleo. This seems simple enough but becomes significantly more difficult when eating out. Next week I am headed to Florida to visit family, where the food is plenty and the liquor cabinet is always wide open. So we'll see how that goes.

I tend to write about food a lot because first of all, I love it. And second of all I am determined to find a balance, where I am enjoying food and life and staying healthy--without consuming products like fake butter or becoming one of those women who has to create her own menu every time she eats out. You know, the no-gluten absolutely no dairy pescatarians. Does it really have to be so complicated? I am really thankful for other enthusiasts who promote eating balanced, organic, simple foods that taste good.

Here Goes Nothing...

My sister made me do this. No, maybe it was the mother of the little girl that I nanny for. Or perhaps it was me all along. Well, whatever birthed my interest in blogging has brought me here, to this moment, rambling at my laptop. Not that I don't believe in the power of blogging and social media. I do- but mostly I believe in writing as a path towards self-discovery, and blogging as a means of motivation to write routinely.

That being said, I have been so hesitant to start a blog for two main reasons--first and foremost, I did not want to be grouped into the category of women who blog because they (honestly) believe that they will one day become famous like Amy Adams did in Julie & Julia. I mean cute movie, but who are we kidding? Secondly, I am a verocious type-A perfectionist who is in the worst writing rut of her life. I used to enjoy writing and be extremely proud of my work, and somewhere in between graduating from college and job application numero 4,000, I lost my confidence. My voice. My drive.

Several times over the past few months I have set up blogs, stared at the screen and quickly deleted my account. I have written an entry, only to backspace every word, disgusted at how contrived it sounded. I've even brainstormed about blog names, thinking that if I have the perfect most original name, then the writing will come. But the truth is, as pointed out by the oh-so-clever Penelope Trunk, no one is reading this. At least not yet. And that isn't my priority.

I have no idea where this is headed but I do have a lot of life-figuring-out ahead of me--including a move to France, careers, relationships, finding a place to call home, and everything in between. So here's to not being perfect. Or Amy Adams.