Summer as a Grad Student: A Testimony About Work, Play, and “Vacation”

In elementary school, I equated “summer” with “vacation.” The words were interchangeable to me.

Although I was an incredible nerd (bookworm, teacher’s pet, and extra credit fiend) who loved school, I cherished summer as a welcome break from the routines and rules of the school year. By every June 1^st, I was dreaming of warmer weather, longer days, and leaving the house without a backpack or No. 2 pencils.

Even in high school when I started working summer jobs and internships, I still thought of summer as vacation. I worked 9 to 5, but there were never any assignments waiting for me at home. No required reading, no exams to study for – just wide-open evenings and weekends. Endless possibilities.

Now that I am officially done with my first year of graduate school, I am realizing that I might never have another summer “off.”

My first year at Fordham was exhilarating, full of new people, books, and unexpected opportunities. Still, by the end of the year, I was ready for a break. I wrote my final papers while looking forward to another magical date – May 18^th. This date was circled in my calendar, marked with emphatic ink stars and exclamation points that meant the end of the semester, the start of summer.

May 18^th came and went. And since, I have enjoyed some R&R, but I have also done quite a bit of… well, work.

For one, I have been trying to revise stories that I wrote this year. Although I turned in final drafts of these pieces, none of them are quite finished. I may have completed my course requirements, but it will take much longer than a single semester to make the work actually publishable.

I have been reading magazines and journals, trying to decide where to submit and subscribe. Unfortunately, there isn’t a comprehensive list somewhere (no, not even at Poets & Writers) of which journals will expose me to the writing, authors, and techniques that I will learn from and love. I am sort of making a syllabus for myself: a list of nonrequired required reading to keep me current and connected.

I have been reading books, too – texts that will help me understand the issues I care about more deeply and also grow as a storyteller. Most recently, I have been reading The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr. This memoir about Karr’s “God-awful childhood” made me laugh and weep and sink into the 1960s Texas of her memories. I am reading for fun but not just for fun; I try to pay attention to the writing and take in all that I can about craft.

I am sure other grad students on “vacation” (those fortunate enough to take some time off before a summer class, job, or research project) have also filled their days with work related to their fields. It is not the break I imagined myself when I was counting down the days to May 18th. 

And yet, I’ve been able to watch more episodes of Buffy than I usually can during the school year, and I’ve felt all right hitting the snooze more than once in the morning. I have been taking more walks with friends and by myself. Undoubtedly, I have been on vacation; it’s just the busiest, most focused and fruitful vacation of my life.

Perhaps this is the greatest gift of graduate school (besides that degree!) – this seamlessness between work and pleasure, duty and play. As a grad student, you learn to regard your passions as a part of your life’s work and not just your schoolwork.

This sort of thinking is undeniably a sign of (oh my!) maturity. I’m a writer and scholar now full-time, all the time. As grad school ushers me into the future, I know that I can’t go on being that same restless little girl, counting down the days to summer on her calendar, wishing she were running through sprinklers instead of sitting in class.

Well, maybe sometimes I can.