"I wish the real world, would just stop hassling me..."
....and I'm not even in the real world yet!!!
Grad school - it's almost like middle school all over again. If you'll recall, middle school was this weird transition between being a kid and being a teenager. It was a constant struggle to try to figure out what was going to be expected of you in the next stage of your life, but at the same time, you retain some of the tendencies that you had as a kid until you finally figured it out. And it's grueling! I have to say that I have the utmost respect for middle school teachers who have to deal with those rotten adolescences! I mean, what an awkward stage in life!
Grad school is analogous to that atrocious time, except we're in this weird transition from being irresponsible college kids to being professionals! We're basically shoved out in the real world, but we haven't received all the proper training that is required for us to officially start our careers. So we go out, we have a good time, we drink ourselves stupid on weeknights, weekends, whenever, we forget to do our homework, and we have a TV schedule lined up to watch with the roommates while we pay for everything with financial aid money and from the occasional moola our parents are still graciously sending us, even though our ages range from 22 - 30! How awkward! Meanwhile, some of our friends have moved on and gotten real jobs, are being paid salary, and are getting married while we simply haven't grown out of our callowness to be ready to do these things because we're still in school! Unfortunately, we're still being required to act as though we really are out in the real world, and MAN is the punishment harsh.....very harsh my friends.....
I wish that I could explain in further detail the events that I'm trying ambiguously to chronicle here, but unfortunately, public domain makes it impossible me to do so without getting kicked out of my program. But to make a long story short, recent events at school having to deal with blogs, facebook, myspace, and other public domain have caused faculty members to turn against the students. They've started creating a lot of value judgements that are targetting a few vendettas and threatening to kick them out of the program. These issues are not something that I've previously dealt with in my years behind academias protective walls, and it's honestly not something I thought would EVER ben an issue. I was, however, aware of the trouble people had been getting into by utilizing public domain for personal reasons. At UGA, I read stories in the Red and Black about employers using facebook and myspace profiles to determine whether prospective employees were eligible for certain positions. I read articles on the internet about people losing their jobs when their bosses found their blogs which expressed grief about their work. Little did I know that grad school would hold the same penalties for the same behaviors. I thought I was still a kid? Yes, I know how to act professional, but when you're still assigning me homework, giving me tests, and telling me to read a bazillion pages in my text book, it's hard to figure out in which arenas they expect us to display professional behavior. What's private? Is anything about my personal life really personal anymore? Does my opinion matter? And in which venues are my jokes going to be taken the wrong way?
My brother told me not too long ago that what defines a person is not the number of mistakes they make, but how they fix them. As students, we're still going to make mistakes and retain the same behaviors we exuded in undergrad because it's the same stuff, only a little more challenging with higher expectations. Yeah, we might come to class hungover a few times, and we might make facebook groups that joke about some of the rules and policies of the institution we attend, but when jokes are taken the wrong way or when we get completely called out for christening the porcelain gods in the PT building during our first break of the day, we try to understand the implications of our unprofessional behavior, we apologize for actions, and we hope to move forward with no intentions of repeating our mistakes. Unfortunately, as I've learned very quickly from my short tour of grad school so far, there is no room for error anymore! The attrition rate is much lower than what I was lead to believe and I've found myself in some sort of darkness I'm not so sure I'm going get out of in 2 and a half years, and it scares the shit out of me! And the only question I have is: how am I supposed to learn how to live in the "real word" when I'm not even on its playing field yet?? I'm simply a benchwarmer that's learning from the mistakes of the starters while trying to figure this life out, and they are already threatening to kick me off the team.....
For the record, this blog isn't autobiographical. I simply share the frustrations of my peers as I see the harsh consequences of their mistakes. And it looks like we're all gonna be walking on eggshells for the next couple of years.....
Ok, so I'm pretty proud that I came up with something worthy of talking about other than my life! Go me! I love y'all! Thanks for stopping by!
"Straight up, what did you hope to learn about here
If I were someone else, would this all fall apart
Strange, where were you, when we started this gig,
I wish the real world, would just stop hassling me"
~Matchbox 20
Grad school - it's almost like middle school all over again. If you'll recall, middle school was this weird transition between being a kid and being a teenager. It was a constant struggle to try to figure out what was going to be expected of you in the next stage of your life, but at the same time, you retain some of the tendencies that you had as a kid until you finally figured it out. And it's grueling! I have to say that I have the utmost respect for middle school teachers who have to deal with those rotten adolescences! I mean, what an awkward stage in life!
Grad school is analogous to that atrocious time, except we're in this weird transition from being irresponsible college kids to being professionals! We're basically shoved out in the real world, but we haven't received all the proper training that is required for us to officially start our careers. So we go out, we have a good time, we drink ourselves stupid on weeknights, weekends, whenever, we forget to do our homework, and we have a TV schedule lined up to watch with the roommates while we pay for everything with financial aid money and from the occasional moola our parents are still graciously sending us, even though our ages range from 22 - 30! How awkward! Meanwhile, some of our friends have moved on and gotten real jobs, are being paid salary, and are getting married while we simply haven't grown out of our callowness to be ready to do these things because we're still in school! Unfortunately, we're still being required to act as though we really are out in the real world, and MAN is the punishment harsh.....very harsh my friends.....
I wish that I could explain in further detail the events that I'm trying ambiguously to chronicle here, but unfortunately, public domain makes it impossible me to do so without getting kicked out of my program. But to make a long story short, recent events at school having to deal with blogs, facebook, myspace, and other public domain have caused faculty members to turn against the students. They've started creating a lot of value judgements that are targetting a few vendettas and threatening to kick them out of the program. These issues are not something that I've previously dealt with in my years behind academias protective walls, and it's honestly not something I thought would EVER ben an issue. I was, however, aware of the trouble people had been getting into by utilizing public domain for personal reasons. At UGA, I read stories in the Red and Black about employers using facebook and myspace profiles to determine whether prospective employees were eligible for certain positions. I read articles on the internet about people losing their jobs when their bosses found their blogs which expressed grief about their work. Little did I know that grad school would hold the same penalties for the same behaviors. I thought I was still a kid? Yes, I know how to act professional, but when you're still assigning me homework, giving me tests, and telling me to read a bazillion pages in my text book, it's hard to figure out in which arenas they expect us to display professional behavior. What's private? Is anything about my personal life really personal anymore? Does my opinion matter? And in which venues are my jokes going to be taken the wrong way?
My brother told me not too long ago that what defines a person is not the number of mistakes they make, but how they fix them. As students, we're still going to make mistakes and retain the same behaviors we exuded in undergrad because it's the same stuff, only a little more challenging with higher expectations. Yeah, we might come to class hungover a few times, and we might make facebook groups that joke about some of the rules and policies of the institution we attend, but when jokes are taken the wrong way or when we get completely called out for christening the porcelain gods in the PT building during our first break of the day, we try to understand the implications of our unprofessional behavior, we apologize for actions, and we hope to move forward with no intentions of repeating our mistakes. Unfortunately, as I've learned very quickly from my short tour of grad school so far, there is no room for error anymore! The attrition rate is much lower than what I was lead to believe and I've found myself in some sort of darkness I'm not so sure I'm going get out of in 2 and a half years, and it scares the shit out of me! And the only question I have is: how am I supposed to learn how to live in the "real word" when I'm not even on its playing field yet?? I'm simply a benchwarmer that's learning from the mistakes of the starters while trying to figure this life out, and they are already threatening to kick me off the team.....
For the record, this blog isn't autobiographical. I simply share the frustrations of my peers as I see the harsh consequences of their mistakes. And it looks like we're all gonna be walking on eggshells for the next couple of years.....
Ok, so I'm pretty proud that I came up with something worthy of talking about other than my life! Go me! I love y'all! Thanks for stopping by!
"Straight up, what did you hope to learn about here
If I were someone else, would this all fall apart
Strange, where were you, when we started this gig,
I wish the real world, would just stop hassling me"
~Matchbox 20
posted by Stacy @ 11:47 PM
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