Graduating with your English degree into a veritable
wasteland of employment opportunities sucks. This, coupled with my realization
that school is the only thing I’ve good at, led me 11 months ago to embark on
the dubious adventure known to some as “applying to grad school.” To those who
had survived the ordeal, it is better known as “that time I self medicated with
tequila. Repeatedly. For months.”
While waiting to hear back from schools, I left my almost
minimum wage job in a faux tuxedo covered in mayonnaise and defeat.
But after my acceptance, I still leave work covered in WIN!
(And sometimes red velvet ice cream.)
While the lows of the post-graduate are low, the highs are
high, and it’s safe to say that getting my acceptance two days from the
national deadline into my dream program was better than Christmas, Easter, and
my birthday all rolled into one.
I do not posit that grad school will solve my problems.
Rather, it will probably bestow me with new, terrifying ones that my mind
cannot even conceive of at the moment. But that’s okay, because this is the
start of career that will doubtlessly be far more rewarding.
Stayed tuned as we gradually move from “what do I do with
this B.A. in English” to “I am in grad school and going insane!”
Contrary to popular belief, I have not been eaten by bears, felled by horrible disease, or recently married to an aged multi-millionaire on the verge of death. No, the reason I have not written is because I’m about to embark on the latest, greatest, and most exciting adventure of my twenty-two years to date.
I have decided to go to graduate school.
I will venture forth to the Elysium of the enlightened, the Valhalla of the intelligentsia, the place where even the baristas at Starbucks have master degrees (if only because that first year fellowship loses about $5,000 once those freshmen hit second year status and they still have to eat). It is in this ethereal place I will feather my nest, and ever after, when the telemarketers call for “Ms Erin,” I can snidely correct, “No, it’s Dr. Cotter these days.”
This is the culmination of all my hopes and ambitions.
While on the surface, this proclamation may seem to transport my sordid self from the ranks of the woefully unemployed and under qualified English majors, in reality, this isn’t true at all. Going for a Phd in literature will not teach me the skills I so desperately lack on the job market. No, instead it will train me further in the not-so-useful things which being an English major has made me so good at—and this in turn will render me fit for one and one occupation only: proffessorhood.
When I explained to one of the regulars at the fish market my plans to pursue literature, she looked at me in horror and slipped me a $10, assuring me that I “would probably need this.” My parents seemed pretty onboard with the idea, if only because it spared them the spectacle of me clicking morosely through craigslist day after day, until I plunked down a serious sum of cash on GRE tests. Then they asked me “Wait, why are you going to school for seven years to study books? Can you even get a job after that? You might just end up in the fish market again.”
I am still at the bottom of the barrel.
The only problem with my going-to-grad-school plan is that before one can go to grad school, one must first apply to grad schools. And applying to grad school may be one of the most tumultuous experiences I have known. It’s like letting a school of sharks gnaw on your limbs before you go throw yourself into a tank full of bigger and hungrier sharks. Because grad school will probably not help you recover the money, optimism, or non-greyed hairs that the application process has already taken from you. Doubtlessly, this journey will be filled with frustration, angst, and vast amounts of caffeine. But I am game. I am so game.
