Insight from the Presidential Debate: Preparation vs. Inspiration

 Hello on this lovely, though overcast, fall Saturday in New York City!

       So, with this October's gorgeous weather, post-season baseball, football Sundays, spooky haunted houses and Halloween candy in the grocery store aisles also comes a month of………Presidential Debates! 

Photo from justjared.com

        Of course, I had a lot to say about Wednesday night’s debate, and I experienced a lot of emotions while watching it -- but one of the non-political aspects I thought might be valuable to discuss about the debate was the general sense that Obama's preparation wasn't up to snuff. In the days since the debate, it seems that it is universally accepted that Romney “out-prepared” Obama for the debate. At first, it was irritating to me that preparation, and, in turn, a lack-thereof, could become such a factor in the debate when it should be, idealistically, that these two men actually stand for real policies backed by ideas that they believe in and understand, and, therefore, should not so much as stumble when presented with an argument against those policies and ideas.

        But then I thought about it more, from the perspective of my own career as an academic professor and graduate student, and I began to change my mind.

        Every time Obama wasn’t looking up and meeting Romney’s eyes, or the camera’s lens, I could almost feel through the TV that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I usually get when I know I am unprepared. It is the same emotion that fuels those naked-at-school nightmares.

        My husband always says that preparation outweighs knowledge, skill, talent, charisma, and intellect. Wednesday night’s debate serves as evidence for this claim.

        As I watched the debate, and then watched the commentary from the pundits, I thought about my experience with being prepared versus being unprepared. Yes…as a graduate student, I’ve learned the hard way that preparation is essential for success, and that it is especially crucial for oral performances. But I actually don’t want to write a blog on how to prepare for an oral debate, exam, or presentation. I do, however, think Obama’s performance in the debate provides us with an opportunity to discuss how important preparation is for success in almost anything you do -- in graduate school, and in life.

        I began to think about the fact that, no matter how well I know my own material, and believe in my argument in my dissertation, it will come across as a senseless disaster if I don’t rehearse my argument and practice fielding questions about it -- questions that may come in forms and from directions I hadn’t anticipated. And I will say to myself, man, I KNOW this stuff, backwards and forwards! Why am I goofing it up? But preparation for defending it means that I know it from more ways than backwards and forwards – it means you are prepared from any direction.

        The same thing happens with teaching. Do experienced, gifted, talented, charismatic teachers need to prepare for class for it to go well? You may at first say, no probably not. But the truth is that preparation makes anyone better, period. Can these individuals sometimes wing it? Can grad students sometimes wing it in class, or in a reading group meeting, without being prepared? Sure.

But it all changes when the stakes are higher.

       Your body actually reacts differently when there is more at stake. "Winging it" for orals exams, for a teaching observation, for a job-talk or an interview, is unthinkable, because preparation puts you not only at a mental advantage but also a physical advantage. Proper preparation relaxes your body and brain in a way that promotes a better performance. So after preparing properly, not only do you know your stuff well, but also your body KNOWS you know your stuff well, and it lets you do your thing of being your amazing, talented self.

     So that is my ultimate conclusion and insight – that there is something physiological that happens to promote success when you prepare yourself well enough.  What do you all think? Let me know, and keep tuning in to Grad.Life for more thoughts on what we can learn from the Presidential debates!

Don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page!!! Until next time, Liza 

Feature: The Fordham Graduate Digital Humanities Group

Good morning, happy Friday to you.
    As a blogger for the GSAS, and as a professor of an on-line English course this semester for the PCS, I have been especially aware and appreciative of how the digital age has been dynamically changing and influencing the institutions of higher education and graduate programs worldwide. In the spirit of this digital renaissance, I would like to introduce this blog's readers to the Fordham Graduate Digital Humanities Group. Officially recognized by the GSA as a Working Group, anyone in the GSAS can participate and benefit from the great work that this group does for the university!
   The GDH meets twice per month to learn and sustain a conversation about the development of digital technologies in the humanities disciplines. (Check out the Schedule page for info about future meetings and events!) The group focuses on graduate studies and professionalization issues, which is of particular interest to me personally and most Grad.Life blog readers! As the GDH's Wordpress blog says, "This group should be of special interest to students who are preparing for a professional academic career in the humanities, a career that most likely witll require digital fluency in regards to teaching, research, and publishing." This past week, the group led a workshop on digital pedagogy and discussed everything from practical issues (eg, paperless teaching, digital classroom tools) to the theoretical idea of defining the concept of "digital pedagogy." 
   Coming up for the group is a workshop open to all GSAS students entitled "You Online: Developing Your Online Academic Presence," to be held on November 7th, 2012. It will be led by Michael Mandiberg in the Flom Auditorium in the Walsh Library. The half-day event should prove to be extremely beneficial in giving GSAS students practical tools, ideas, and resources to help establish their on-line academic profiles and presences. (See this blog's post on the same topic from last semester!) 
   There's also a CFP sponsored by the GDH for the Fordham Graduate English Association Interdisciplinary Conference in March 2013. The conference is entitled "Remembering, Forgetting, Imagining: The Practices of Memory," and the GDH's CFP provokes a fascinating cross-discipline question:  "Do digital platforms change the way we remember?" Already just from this one question, I find myself excited to attend this conference and this panel presentation -- and it may become a future topic for a post on Grad.Life! For now, check out the full CFP for details about the topic and format, because the deadline in November 15 -- you have plenty of time to get some ideas together and submit an abstract! (Upcoming post on this blog will also feature more about this wonderful interdisciplinary grad conference -- watch for more info or click on the link above to the conference homepage in the meantime!)
   Make sure to check out the group's blog and Facebook page (click "Like") for more information on this important and dynamic organization in the GSAS! 
   (While you are on FB, visit Grad.Life's page and click "like," too!)
   Until next time, Liza 

Fall TV and Grad Students: What do we watch, and why?

Hello readers!
    Fall is in the air in NYC! It's a season of reuniting with old familiar faces, and meeting and assessing new ones -- no, not the start of a semester -- I'm talking about FALL TV!  Graduate students do not have time for a ton of TV watching, but when we do have free time, we often turn to TV -- mostly because it is less expensive, more reliable, more comforting and easier than other kinds of entertainment. We'd rather budget for Cable, Netflicks, or DVD's on the weekend than fancy dinners out in the city or getaway trips to Miami; and after all those hours hashing out theoretical arguments and scientific data, it's nice to have something easy on the brain to turn to during downtime. But, as it turns out, the appeal of TV might not only be its comforting entertainment quality but also its ability to stimulate us intellectually, after all. A recent article in The Chronicle of Education, "Storied TV: Cable is the New Novel," offers the provocation that "long-form, episodic television" may be on its way to being today's premier literary genre. The writer of the article, Thomas Doherty, calls it "ArcTv," which he defines as "the dramatic curvature of the finely crafted, adult-minded serials built around arcs of interconnected action unfolding over the life span of the series." Doherty postulates that the shows being created and consumed today -- "shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, Homeland, Dexter, Boardwalk Empire, and Game of Thrones—the highest-profile entrees in a gourmet menu of premium programming—are where the talent, the prestige, and the cultural buzz now swirl."

   As a fan of TV shows like this, I'd say I think Doherty is on to something. I remember when I first started graduate school, a colleague of mine had said that if Shakespeare was alive today, he'd be writing feature films. That was back in 2004. Perhaps today, 8 years later, that same colleague would say that Shakespeare would be busy writing an amazing ArcTV series. I know there has been serious buzz among GSAS students for Downtown Abbey, Mad Men, and Dexter. Some of my personal favorites of recent years have been Lost, which is not cable but still amazing for its character development and mythic story-telling, American Horror Story, which carries on the tradition of American Gothic short stories in a sexy, post-post modern way, and How to Make it America, which was cancelled by HBO before it reached its full story-arc but started out telling a cool updated version of the American Dream story in NYC.  What blows my mind about these kind of shows is the quality of writing taking place in the TV format -- somehow the arc is crafted to survive months, years, season across season -- without losing quality or creativity. That, to me, is the literary achievement of these wonderful shows. They also portray characters in stirring lights, avoiding or sometimes confronting stereotpyes of representation in ways that really good novels did, could, and do. For me, a good literary work also has to create an emotion that was not there before -- and that is certainly what these shows accomplish, as well. With long-form episodic TV, viewers latch onto the characters in ways that don't happen when watching a movie; these characters keep coming into our homes, on a regular basis. We become attached.

    What are you looking forward to this fall? More Mad Men and Dowtown Abbey? Or some new ones? Revolution seems to be one that speaks to the post-apocalyptic literary genre; Elementary is yet another re-imagining of the Sherlock Holmes archetypes and story-lines; 666 Park Avenue combines Miltonian good versus evil type questions with a seemingly anthropological view of urban Americans. Which will be your new favorite? And do you agree with Doherty's claims about Arc-Tv? Weigh in!! And be sure to "like" the blog's new Facebook page!
   Until next time, Liza 

Topic of the Day: The 5-Year Plan

Hello Readers!
   I hope this Tuesday finds you well! I am actually blogging today from an airplane -- whoohoo! I love in-flight wifi!!
   Since I have recently been thinking a lot about my personal future and about how amazing and crazy life's twists and turns can be, I thought today would be a good day to broach the topic of how graduate school fits into one's life as a whole -- in other words, how it fits into, or doesn't fit into, your grand plan for life. If you are not familiar with graduate school life, or maybe if you are just starting out as a degree candidate, you should know that life does not stop for graduate school. Despite enrollment, courses, classes, papers, dissertations, comps, exams, and tuition, life, indeed, keeps occurring. I have known colleagues who have fallen in love, gotten married, bought houses, had children, gotten divorced, traveled, climbed mountains, ice-skated in national competitions, played in rock and roll bands, and achieved other typical and non-typical life milestones all while working towards their degrees. Life rolls on around us, and most of us treat graduate school just as if we would treat a regular job -- we work, we play, and we live our lives. The only thing that is different than being in the non-academic working world is that there is an ending to grad school. And even then, life doesn't really change that much.
   Immediately when I decided to write about this topic, I thought of Dr. Karen's 5 Year Plan. For those of you who don't know Dr. Karen, allow me to introduce you to her website, The Professor Is In. A colleague of mine had passed her site along to me a while back, and it provides a gold-mine of  information and anecdotes and advice that will give interesting and candid perspectives about the academic world. Dr. Karen's perspective on the 5 year plan is basically that while you can't expect to control everything in life, you can however take charge of your career and make choices based on your own personal goals. She writes, "I don’t think anybody should ever be in graduate school, or on the tenure-track, without a five-year plan," and continues:

"Some of my clients are masters of the five-year plan, and even have things like getting pregnant in there. I admire that, even while I know that 'the best laid plans…' You can’t plan for everything (or, you can, but your plans may not work out). But the core point of planning is this: that you’re taking control of your process into your own hands, and not leaving it out there somewhere, in the hands of your advisor, your department, or 'fate.' You decide when you’ll write, when you’ll defend, when you’ll publish, and so on. These are all your decisions to make."

   What Dr. Karen is sure to point out, though, is that a plan in and of itself is not going to get you anywhere. You have to stick to the plan. In other words, you have to meet deadlines. In a follow-up post, Dr. Karen asserts:

"Staying on top of deadlines is exactly what allows a person to achieve  huge life goals. Yes, I’m quoting Thomas Edison:  ”success is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration.”  The people who succeed in getting into the national conference are, first and foremost, the ones who actually remember to submit the proposal to the national conference, by the deadline, properly formatted. One of the most important outcomes of the 5-year plan is that you never miss a submission deadline for a conference or a funding opportunity.  As you learn of new conferences and funding opportunities, you simply add them in, without losing track of the other deadlines. You also plan out a publication schedule, and put your own deadlines for submission to journals there in the plan.  And money racks up, and publications rack up, and networks rack up, and voila, the cumulative effect 5 years later is—an epic CV that gets you an epic job offer, or tenure."

    Ok, well, yes, but never miss a deadline? "Simply" add them in? It sounds great in theory, but I think the biggest problem most graduate students have is that meeting deadlines is not at all simple. Life sometimes tears you away, even if your academic work is your number one priority. It is not always so black and white.

    So what are your thoughts on the 5 year plan? Though I may have some theoretical questions about how the 5 Year Plan works, most of my questions about creating a 5 Year Plan are entirely logistical -- meaning, what does the plan actually LOOK like? By this I mean literally how does it look? What format does it take? Is in in calendar form? List form? Do you try for a month-by-month set of goals, or set up it up year by year? Or something in between? Do you work on multitple goals at a time, or try to nail one thing down before moving onto the next? I'm sure different solutions work for different people, but I am wondering what would work for me, and what has worked for you? I'm curious to hear your thoughts!
    And another thought I always have when I revisit the 5 year plan post: how do you know if your goals are realistic? Is there such a thing as shooting too high? Should your goals be based on practical things such as making money and attaining a job with benefits, or should the goals be focused on advancing the scholarly conversation? How do you set yourself up for success with the 5 Year Plan?
   Please share your thoughts about how grad life fits into your big picture!
Until next time, Liza

Dissertation Day: Exploring My Writing Process

 Hello Readers!

     Happy Monday morning; time for another Grad.Life blog post! I hope everyone had a nice weekend and is looking forward to a productive week. Today will be a big dissertation writing day for me because I am off from my other job. It feels good to have a whole day ahead to use for my dissertation -- on the other hand, sometimes on a day like today I get overwhelmed by the pressure to accomplish a huge amount of work. It is like being in a small boat in the vast ocean, knowing you have to row yourself to the opposite shore; by the end of the day, you still can't even see your destination. In fact, the starting point behind you seems closer than the end-point. Maybe I should just turn around and lie on the beach....

     The thing about writing a dissertation is that you do have to treat it like a work task rather than a creative work springing forth from your brain and fingertips. I have fantasies of sitting down and magically producing page after page of my current chapter, my fingertips flying gracefully over the keyboard as elegant sentences and arguments flow into my Word document as easily as wine into a glass at a summer rooftop party. (You may, indeed, use my analogies to induce what I'd rather be doing right now.) But I've learned over the last few years that those kind of days rarely happen for me. In fact they only happen, at least for me, at the very beginning of a draft. After I get the basic thoughts down into something that is chapter length, the real work begins. It involves tedious, pain-staking, paragraph-by-paragraph, sometimes sentence-by-sentence revision. Sometimes revision is not enough a strong enough word.
   As I've begun new chapters, I've tried to change this style of writing; I've tried to go from my research and notetaking stage to the drafting stage in a more graceful way, a way that would eliminate this pain-staking revision stage that I have found myself in time after time; but so far, it hasn't worked out. It seems my process is that after a period of research (usually having generated only a percentage of what I will eventually need to complete the chapter), I feel compelled, like a surfer being caught by the swell of a wave, to create a document and begin the "Draft File." This is often what I enjoy the most; blocks of time disappear as I type, getting lost in the "work." But as enjoyable as this stage is for me, I am never doing my future self any favors. This draft is usually a piece of junk.
    I guess my problem has been not being able to fight that compulsion to begin writing. My adviser always says that I shouldn't fight it -- that if I am being compelled to write it is because I need to think through my material and argument through the act of writing. In other words, the resulting crappy draft is not the point of the exercise; it is the thinking that occurs while writing the crappy draft. In fact, I could probably just delete the whole thing after I write it and I'd be no worse for wear.
But then, of course, once all that writing is down into the file, I CAN'T BEAR TO DELETE IT. I can't even bear to ignore it. It has become something that I will mold, and re-shape, and nurture, maybe until it is completely unrecognizable, but never completely part with. I wish I could exorcise this always-too-early compulsion to draft from my writing process, but for now, I've resorted to it every time.
    After this current chapter, I will challenge myself once again to discover a different, perhaps more efficient, process... but for now, I am stuck with what I have -- which is a big messy 80 page document that will take me the next few weeks to craft into something readable and valuable.
     I am interested in learning about your writing processes -- and if you have any advice for this disseration writer! Please share your thoughts, gripes, and processes here!
Until next time, yours, Liza

An Origin Story, with Fireworks

Hello Readers,
     Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a nice 4th of July week! As I celebrated 4th of July, with city-folks trying to stay cool, donning red, white, and blue, and with crowds gathering together to watch as fireworks burst overhead, I was prompted to remember what inspired me to follow my current path as an Americanist in the graduate English department. Without any irony on my part, I have to say that it is sort of a patriotic story -- probably the only genuine feeling and act of patriotism that I have experienced in my adult life. (Which, I guess, is sad.)

Photo from The Library of Congress Website

     Before I tell the inspiring story (ok, the irony is back), first I'll just give a little bit of reflection on the reflection. Since graduate students' interests have a tendency to morph as they learn more, think more, and work through the critical problems they encounter, it makes sense that I was not always an Americanist studying 18th and 19th century novels. But it is also true that to commit to a certain discipline of scholarship for so many years at such a high level, it is not uncommon that graduate students often have specific reasons for choosing what to study -- sometimes practical, sometimes academic, and sometimes emotional reasons --  as well as a great degree of conviction about what that field means to them. Becoming an Americanist who studied novels was not a given for me, and even now, on a daily basis, I do not consciously think about the reasons that turned me in that direction. But on Independence Day, as flags waved, I felt more connected to that origin story than I usually do.  I thought I would share the reasons that I study early American literature, and then invite you to share your stories about why you study what you study.
    My path as a student of literature began as an undergraduate, when I studied Early Modern, Modern, and Contemporary Drama, and also wrote a lot of poetry. As I began my Master's, I shifted my focus from drama to novels, and from poetry to fiction. I believe that happened for a practical reasons: at Fordham, the Modern Drama teacher was retiring as I began my coursework, and I began to choose classes that were centered on fiction writing and novels, and it just kind of stuck. As the semesters raced by, I fell completely in love with Victorian novels -- the classics such as Vanity Fair, Jane Eyre, Our Mutual Friend, and Wuthering Heights, and the Gothic greats like Dracula and Frankenstein, and off-the-beaten path sensation fiction such as Lady Audley's Secret.  I couldn't get enough of them -- they were like candy to me, and writing about them was proving to be so much fun. The Master's program for English required, at the time, a certain number of British Lit courses and a certain number of American Lit courses, so of course I made the rounds, but whenever I could take a class that centered around Victorian novels, I signed up.
   I had a couple of great American classes, too, and read and re-read some American classics, but they just weren't stacking up to the delicious Victorian dishes I had become so hungry for.

   This all changed when I went for an innocent visit to see an old college friend who happened to live in Washington, D.C. Believe it or not, I had never been to that city before. When my friend Heather heard that, she took it upon herself to arrange for me to see at least all the monuments and a couple of the special exhibits and sites/ sights that were so special to the city. I never in my dreams believed that a little sight-seeing would alter the path of my life! As I took in one site after another, I began to feel something I had never felt about the United States of America, and to think thoughts I had never thought about the origin of our country.
   It was, to be precise, the words that did it. It was the words I read as I crossed through FDR's monument, that ran through my brain as the fountains and waterfalls flowed and trickled around me. It was the words carved into Jefferson's and Lincoln's echoey stone houses that gave me the feelings down to my bones about the bravery of starting something so new -- of fighting for independence with nothing more than ideas pressed out into the world in the form of language.  As I read the inscriptions, something deep down inside made me want to study how it could be possible for a nation to create itself -- and how stories and words and language were the key instruments in doing so. And somehow it resonated with me personally, too -- could language and stories create not just a nation, but an individual? How does this all work? Can you trust it?

    This feeling was more than an appetite for the sweet treats of Victorian novels -- this desire was about wanting to know HOW, and WHY, and WHAT HAPPENED ALONG THE WAY. It was curiosity about the very ground I walked on, the rules I lived by, the customs I followed blindly, the social hierarchies that governed my life, the values that shaped my choices and beliefs about work, education, freedom, family, and self-hood. I was feeling, for the first time, a part of a nation, and I wanted to know more about its origins, and if the language behind those origins could be trusted and believed in.
   That was the weekend I decided to become an Americanist. I remember telling Heather about my decision as we were sitting underneath some pretty flowery trees near the National Mall. I said, I think it could matter, at least to me, to learn about what was written then, and to think through it, and to see where it veered off track. She said, "It's good if it matters." I remember feeling elated about this decision, as if it were a revelation that the universe had been waiting for me to have. I left DC that weekend feeling a renewed energy, and that fall I began my PHD and declared my field as American Literature. I had new purpose!
   Now, when I am feeling challenged and unmotivated, I do try to remember that weekend, and to recall my revelatory feelings about American literature. For me, no matter what happens in the rest of my life, I'm sure that fireworks on the Fourth of July will always remind me of that refreshing wonderful feeling of true conviction about the next step in my life path. That feeling is not so easy to come by, and I am grateful I had the experience even once in my life, even if my path twists and turns from here.

    It may sound cheesy, but that is my story of why I committed to my major field. With all that said, I am sincerely interested in your personal stories -- what drew you into what you are studying? Was it a moment, a weekend, a person, a book, an experience? And when you are frustrated and stuck, what brings you back to that moment of origin? Please share!!!
Until next time, Liza

Summer Grad Life

Hello Readers!
Happy July!
       As I was racing to make headway on a dissertation chapter by June 30th, I took a bit of time off from blogging at the end of June --  but now I am back and will provide the GSAS community with what I hope to be insightful and entertaining blogs about Grad.Life for the rest of the summer! I hope you check in periodically to see what is going on in the GSAS world!
       I was thinking that new graduate students, or family members/friends of graduate students, may wonder what a typical summer is like for a graduate student. It seems like a sort of mysterious segment of time from the perspective of someone who has never experienced it, so I thought I would devote the first blog of July to describing and investigating the "grad-life summer."
      After some thinking back on my summers as a graduate student, I guess the short answer is that there really is no typical summer for a graduate student. Unlike law students or medical students, graduate students don't always have a structured "place they ought to be" for the summer that is designated by their school, department, or program. There is no "best practice" -- like the way law students all get a summer job at a local firm or clerking for a judge. For graduate students, it definitely depends on your unique situation and department. Some departments require students to register for certain classes over the summer; some have the option to take courses; some take no classes at all. Some use the summer to write a thesis or dissertation or an article; and, sometimes there is funding available for these projects, and sometimes there is not. Some students teach the summer session; but courses are limited, so most do not. There is the possibility, but not usually the requirement, of a professional internship; yet, there are some graduate students that work a full time day job and so for the summer take "off" from being a graduate student while still holding down their full time jobs.

Students on an archaeological dig!

      In my experience as a grad student, the summer is time that is less structured than the regular semester periods, but it still needs to be productive in order to succeed in the program and as a scholar. It is a time to set and try to achieve both academic and personal goals. These goals could be oriented towards academic research or work -- trying to get ahead on reading lists for upcoming exams, catching up on reading journal articles published in your field, or committing to a personal project, clinical study, or field work. You may enroll in a class to try to get ahead in your coursework. On the other hand, these goals could also be more personal -- making money to help sustain you for the next semester ahead, or visiting family whom you haven't seen all semester, or catching up on pleasure-reading or a updating a personal blog, or starting or completing a personal writing project, or furthering a practice or enjoying a hobby. Summer for a graduate student can be a time that is really tailored to suit one's own personal needs -- it provides more freedom and choices than the fall and spring semesters.
       While grad students may have the freedom of less structured time in the summer months, the one thing graduate students don't have (usually!) is the freedom of having extra money. But the GSAS has, in recent years, opened up opportunities for Summer Fellowships that may make research in distant libraries, archives, and research sites possible. Information on these summer grants may be found at this link: GSAS Summer Fellowships. The deadlines for these grants are in December and March, depending on your specific department, so if you want to plan ahead for next summer, you can start thinking about your application during the Fall semester!
     Personally, this summer will be about maintaining my "day-job" while making great strides on my dissertation chapters. This will entail long afternoons and early weekend mornings of writing and researching, and some afternoons and evenings in the library.  Note about the library: during the Summer Session at Fordham, the library stays open on Monday-Thursday til 11pm. When classes are not in session ("Intersession"), the library follows a 9 to 5 schedule. This year, the Summer Session goes until August 2.  Here is a link to the Summer Session calendar and homepage!

     Overall, think about summer as a time when productivity may mean very different things to each particular student -- but productivity is a must! But don't forget to plan to enjoy the summer weather, too, and budget time in your schedule for enjoyment and leisure. As a graduate student, you one may feel like you always "could" be doing something to further your progress, and most of us feel guilty when we are not. But be realistic -- you need time for yourself, too. Summer is the perfect time for this;  plus, it's important not to feel cheated out of summer, because overall productivity for the year will suffer! And for the graduate student in your life, make sure you support them through the sunny beach days that make it nearly impossible to be stuck inside a library -- give them the encouragement to keep at it but also to take care of themselves and take advantage of the flexibility that the summer may offer them!
I'll be back with a new post soon, tackling some important issues for grad students that have evolved around the nation in the past few months. Keep reading, and enjoy the holiday week!
Til next time, Liza

Blogs for Grads!

Hi Readers!
Thanks for tuning into last week's post -- it had the most first-day hits ever! This week, I wanted to share a list I found about other graduate-school related blogs -- it's called the "Top 50 Blogs Every Graduate Student Should Read," and I found it by googling "graduate school blogs." I was looking for other blogs like Grad.Life, to see what other graduate students are writing and thinking about. I hit the jackpot when I found this list!
Some of the "blogs" listed aren't really blogs -- more like websites that provide information or links to resources. But the blogs that are on the list are some I have never heard of before, but that I am glad I found. The list is from January of 2011, but most of these blogs are still in action and have current posts that are full of information, anecdotes, perspectives, and ideas about graduate school life. Even the ones that aren't super current have great archives to browse through.
The first one on the list, "Adventures in Gradland," actually has since changed it's name to "Adventures in (Post) Gradland" -- author defended in May! There is hope!! :)
There's one called "Dissertation Diva" that has some clever and funny advice-column-esque Q & A posts,  plus lots of advice for writing the dissertation.
I also got sucked into the archives of "To Do: Dissertation," -- I laughed because on my "To Do" lists that I scribble down onto the margins of my planner each day always start with: To Do: Diss, which is obviously so ridiculous to write down on my To Do list -- as if I could forget that this monster that is holding up my life is hanging over my head!!!!
The list is broken up into 5 sections: general life support, specific graduate program blogs, study tool resources, writing resources, and work and money. In the last section, I enjoyed browsing through "Broke Grad" -- it reads like a magazine geared towards helping graduate students become financially savvy in the real world.
Well, I hope this list is helpful in your time of need and does not increase the procrastination factor!
Til next time---
Liza

Professionalization: A Vital Part of Graduate Education

At the time when I applied to graduate school, I really didn’t know anything about living in the real world. Maybe undergraduate life was too disconnected from the real world to give me any inkling. Not that my undergrad years were easy and breezy – I had 3 campus jobs throughout my years at college, and no car, and no material luxuries. But there was very little discussion about what it meant to take your college degree out into the real world. For me as an English student, I think my undergraduate work allowed me to be swept up in the romance of literature and writing. I came from a working class family, but I guess somehow I believed that getting to college was already the pot at the end of the rainbow. 

In fact, all I really knew was that I loved books and literature and wanted to keep studying in that field, and that I thought I would love to be a professor in an English department one day. So after a year of working at an office job, I left corporate America and applied to English grad programs. I didn’t really have a plan; I thought I would figure it out as I went. Well, it turns out, according to most advice pieces in The Chronicle and elsewhere in blogs on the web, that I was all wrong --  I went to graduate school for all the wrong reasons, without having the proper means, and without a clearly mapped out career plan, all to my eventual detriment, apparently.

The “right reasons” to go to graduate school are, according to these advice-givers, to get a job. (Not because you "love" literature.) Job getting is the main objective. This, of course, makes very practical sense, but if you don’t know anything about the field, or about academic life and professionalization in general before you begin graduate school, then logically you’d have to learn about it when you get there. But do we, as graduate students, learn what we need to know about getting a job when we start graduate school? Wouldn’t it be a great idea if graduate school education from day one included in its curriculum – in fact, made mandatory in its curriculum – a practical course in professionalization in the field?

Now, for a minute, let’s compare and contrast Arts and Sciences graduate degrees to other forms of post-Bachelor degree education, thought of as “professional degrees,” such as JDs and MDs. Medical students have a clear path of professionalization built into their programs; law students, on the other hand, do not.  I’ve heard lawyers and law school graduates complain that law school has absolutely nothing to do with the practical, day-to-day job of being a lawyer. It seems absurd that such elaborate education systems would get built that do not directly feed into the job market that requires the degree.

It is the same with Arts and Sciences graduates – there is almost nothing that was required of me as a graduate student that pro-actively prepared me for the job market. Assignments and projects – and more precisely the A, A-, B+, B grading systems that went with these assignments – do nothing for students to prepare them for eventually getting a job in the field.

Here’s what I’m imagining: a mandatory professionalization curriculum that requires students to demonstrate and generate knowledge of the basic arc of an academic career, starting from someone’s first semester as a PHD student to – well basically the end of his or her life! This curriculum would provide information about the conventional path through graduate school as well as encourage students to explore how that arc can be modified and altered, inviting students to identify alternative career pathways and end-goals that can be reached when starting a program. The curriculum should ask students to outline possible career paths, and to research and become experts in the market, and to understand what the academic world is all about. In addition, spotlights should be put on the mechanisms of conferences, publications, committees, dissertation writing, applications, interviews, and self-identity within the field. 

Then, aside from this curriculum addition, the assessment system in the existing courses needs to be totally changed in order to promote marketability. Getting an "A-" means nothing and will do nothing to help you get a job.  Instead, incorporate professionalization into the curriculum itself. Require us to submit papers to conferences, and to prepare articles for specific journals and CFP's.  Have those submissions (and acceptances) be the basis for grades and course fulfillment. Have mock mini-conferences within the seminar, or join forces with other seminars to have bigger mock conferences across the department. It is through these forums, rather than seminar papers alone, that students should be evaluated and critiqued and assessed, with an eye to marketability and credibility in the field. Sources and methodology should be scrutinized, and presentation skills, either oral or written, should be constructively critiqued, helping students to prepare to publish, speak at conferences, and complete the dissertation.

I believe that this vital part in the education of graduate students had been overlooked in the past because there was perhaps no real need for it, when the supply and demand for PhDs was more balanced. But I don’t see how it can continue to be overlooked.To be fair, many of my professors tried to incorporate elements of professional skills into coursework, but as a whole I think more can be done systematically to make a greater impact.

What do you guys think? What can we do to help transform what needs transforming insofar as embedding professionalization into curriculum?

Communitas '12 on March 30th

      It seems it would be slipshod of me as the GSAS blogger not to mention the special GSAS event that is coming up at the end of this month! On March 30th, the GSAS will hold its annual Communitas ’12 and Spring Gannon Lecture event!

     Here’s how the schedule breaks down:

     Starting at 12:30pm, student presenters from every department will be presenting their work, from recent and current research projects, in the Walsh Library. Click here for the schedule of presentations! 

      At 5:30pm, there will be a Dean’s reception in the Walsh Library Atrium, where the presenters will be exhibiting their research posters and videos. Last year’s winning entries are posted on the GSAS Research Competition webpage. I just browsed through the projects – they look amazing! It definitely is inspiring to see the work of my peers, not only in my department but throughout the entire GSAS, displayed and showcased for a larger audience. Communitas provides a nice space for graduates to take pride in their projects that their blood, sweat, and tears have gone into for probably months and maybe even years.

       Then, at 6:30 pm, everyone will move into the Flom Auditorium for the Spring Gannon Lecture. Unfortunately, I hadn’t previously known this event existed, but after learning about it, I realize that it is such a wonderful opportunity for GSAS members to gather together and enter a conversation about a timely and important cultural topic. According to the GSAS website, “The Gannon Lecture Series, which began in the fall of 1980, brings distinguished individuals to Fordham to deliver public lectures on topics of their expertise.  Fordham alumni endowed the series to honor the Rev. Robert I. Gannon, S.J., president of Fordham University from 1936 to 1949, who was an outstanding and popular speaker.” (1980! That means the lecture series is as old as this blogger!)

       This year’s lecture topic sounds like it will be a fascinating and timely topic. The lecture is entitled, “Sandstorm: Interpreting the New Middle East and North Africa” and will be given by Dr. Kamal  Azari, GSAS ’88, and Dr. John P. Entelis, Prof. of Political Science and Director of Middle East Studies program at Fordham. (By the way, I went to the Middle East Studies webpage on the University Website – it looks like an amazing program!) Both Dr. Azari and Dr. Entelis will surely bring out important perspectives on political, social, economic, and cultural issues related to the Middle East and North Africa.  

       The question I want to ask now is this: What can we do as a community to encourage more consistent and wider attendance at these kind of events, which will surely benefit all who attend, either professionally, academically, or intellectually? From my experience, I feel as if being a part of the GSAS community as a whole wasn’t and isn’t presented as a priority or even an expectation as I began my coursework years ago at Fordham. Readers, do you agree? Was this was just a personal experience unique to me – did my own actions (and non-actions) cause me to miss out on these GSAS wide opportunities? Or is it a larger issue? And, is this something we as a whole should work to correct? How important is service or participation to the GSAS as a whole in comparison to serving and participating within our departments? I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

       In the meantime, I hope to see you at the event! 

"You're Doing Great" and other fantasies of grad life...

Hello Grad Students!
Today I've been thinking a lot about graduate conferences, most likely because I am presenting at one on Friday at the CUNY Graduate Center. The conference is entitled “Cripples, Idiots, Lepers, and Freaks: Extraordinary Bodies / Extraordinary Minds" -- it's an interdisciplinary conference that aims to look at literature, media, culture, problems of representation, and social practices through the lens of disability.

 Although I've helped organize a grad conference before at Fordham, and attended several over the years, I've never actually presented at a grad conference -- I'm so excited for the experience! I'm happy that this one is in New York City, and that I'll get to meet some great graduate students from across the city and beyond.
To me, grad conferences provide safe spaces to be bold, to try out styles of speaking and writing and interfacing, to learn to believe in your own thoughts, reactions, and responses, and to challenge yourself. I'm excited because I always find conference weekends to be so invigorating, both intellectually and emotionally.  There's something about the way a conference works that stretches me, that allows me to think in new ways, and that makes me find a renewed commitment to my work and field. Depending on my mood, I find it possible to be anonymous, and sit in the audience and think and listen, or to talk, try out ideas out loud, and make connections with people.  I find myself scribbling questions that I try to formulate as I listen to the speakers and make thoughts cohere. It's a very energizing and motivating experience for me.
There's been some talk in The Chronicle blogs about different types of conferences -- oh yes, leave it to us academics to categorize, classify, and analyze our own professional formats and venues! We've got it all divided it up by specific criteria: On what scale does it take place: nationally, regionally, or locally?  Who's participating -- professionals, graduates, or both? What kind of subject matter -- general or specialty? Is it organized by a department, a society, or a school? Is it organized around a theme, text, or author? Does it focus on a critical school of thought? Is it interdisciplinary? Will there be a publication that results from it? Who will you meet? What new ideas will you get?
All fun-poking aside, I actually do find it interesting to think about the dynamics of the "conference." Individuals tend to see the benefits of a conference according to his or her personality: some like the networking, collaboration, and the opportunity to get in front of audiences; some like the opportunity to think and have one-on-one discussions over the lunch or dinner breaks.
Interdisciplinary events have been key for me to expanding my horizons and thinking about my field (American lit) in new ways. Fordham, I feel, is pretty good about offering interdisciplinary events for the graduate community. (That reminds me -- the Communitas Event is coming up March 30th -- check here for more info about the Research Competition and the Ganon Lecture.) But I think always more can be done -- for example, my project on mental disability and literature could probably benefit from talks with neuroscience, biology, and philosophy grad students, to name just a few! I am fascinated by possibilities of stretching the boundaries of what we already know, of ways we know how to be.
One last note -- I've been thinking a lot about the purposes of professionalization as a grad student, and what some goals could be for myself at this conference coming up. I had a random idea today during yoga class, actually. I was in a particularly difficult pose that made me lose my balance a bit. As I stumbled out of the pose, someone next to me whispered, "You're doing great." As he said these kind words, my mind did a strange thing: it sort of immediately and unconsciously produced an image of myself at the conference. In the mini-movie in my mind that had suddenly appeared, I saw myself fumbling an important point in my paper, and the person next to me at the panel table whispered, "You're doing great."  The thought came up through the subconscious so clearly and vividly and unintentionally that it almost made me laugh. I mean, the class leaders always say that the class will draw out the bad stuff going on in your life, and I've definitely had emotions come to the surface during class before, but never had such a concrete narrative scenario risen to my mind's eye. I guess it made transparent some insecurities I have about presenting my work in public, but it also was a pretty clear wish for the same kind of encouraging, comforting and supportive environment in my work life that I enjoy in the yoga studio.  Afterwards, though, I got to thinking -- hey, why not? Why should the grad conferences be the safe spaces that help prepare us for the real academic world -- why shouldn't it just be like that always? Maybe the vision came to me as an intention to transform the post-graduate school world into a space that can also provide a warm kind of support that graduate conferences offer us?  Maybe the vision was telling me to use the CUNY Grad Center conference this weekend as a chance to extend my congratulations, or encouragement, or praise, to someone else. Maybe we graduate students can take this opportunity now, during this relatively short time in our careers, to use the grad conferences we create and participate in to help transform the future of our professional world and the way our profession works. Why not? It's up to us, after all, to decide what kind of world we want to be in.

-- Liza

Part Two of "And the Oscar for Best Grad School Movie goes to..."

 

       OSCARS! In honor of this day, I’ve devoted a two-part blog to the representation of graduate school in Hollywood films.

       So, as you noted from Part One, there aren’t so many movies set in graduate school or even with grad students as characters. To recap, most films that people come up with when asked this question feature LAW or MED school students, but not arts and sciences PhD students.

      I think I assumed there were at least a few good ones, because I rationalized that I must have had some kind of image in my mind about what graduate school “looked like” before I… signed up for it. I assumed that that image came from either novels or movies. But after some investigating, I realized this “image” must have come more from novels than movies, or maybe just from something that I made up in my head based on romantic ideas of scholarship and academia that came from the pleasure I take in reading and being alone in a library.  Wherever I got my “ideas” from, it probably wasn’t from movies, because, the truth is, there just ain’t that many movies out there.

       That said, with a little digging, I was able to come up with a list of my own with some additional titles on it for us to check out. I haven’t seen all of these, so I won’t attempt to rank them or call it my “Top Ten” or anything like that. But, here’s a little filmography of movies featuring some element of graduate school. Criteria for this list: the movie has to have a character that either is, or was, a graduate student during, or just previous to, the action of the movie. Alternatively, if the character refers to graduate school in a significant way (teaching perhaps?), or was significantly shaped by graduate school, meaning that he or she is living a scholarly life that reflects a graduate school education, I also included the movie. Finally, the said graduate program cannot be law or med school.

        Proof (2005): I don’t want to give away the plot, because it is a great little movie if you haven’t seen it, but the film involves graduate level math work that, within the world of the movie, would revolutionize the mathematics world. Originally a play.

        Possession (2002): main characters are literary scholars in pursuit of the identity of a famous Victorian poet’s lover to whom he wrote beautiful letters.

       The Addiction (1995): main character is a philosophy grad student turned into vampire! Sounds amazing!

       The Shape of Things (2003): Features a romance between an English lit major and a graduate art student. Also originally a play.

       The Last Supper (1995): A group of graduate students host a series of murderous dinner parties during their summer break. Seems like an interesting representation of grad students!!

       Tenure (2009): Not exactly grad life, but in this film, with the young professors trying to get tenured, it has the atmosphere of grad school.

      Marathon Man (1976): Never saw this but apparently, according to IMDB, Hoffman’s character is a history grad student.

      Wonder Boys (2000): Can’t remember if these students are undergrad creative writing students or MFA students, but either way it has the intense feeling of what I would imagine a competitive MFA program to be like.

     PHD the Movie (2011): Piled Higher and Deeper, our favorite grad-school comic, made a movie this year! Making the rounds at Universities all over the country – expect witty and satirical portraits of grad life, just like the comics.

      Naturally Obsessed (2009): Documentary, not fiction, it follows the life of grad students in the microbiology department of Columbia University. Seems like it might be a good one to watch!

      Okay, so maybe all of these aren’t “grad school movies” the way Animal House, Rudy, St. Elmo’s Fire, and With Honors are “college movies” – but you get the idea. If you've seen any of these, write in and let us know how accurate the depiction of grad life is!!!

     To conclude: On a message board thread about this very topic, a poster asked, “Given the types of people who go to grad school and the life drama that ensues there, I'd think grad school days would be rich fodder for fiction/fictionalized memoir. What am I missing?” This question parallels the one I proposed in my last blog entry. The response to this post, by someone (with the handle “Brain Glutton”), also parallels some of what I was thinking as I realized that most “grad school” movies featured law or med students:

“Audience appeal. If the subject the characters are studying is an important part of the drama -- and it is, to real-life grad students -- then the scenario is too intellectual for most people -- too intellectual for most intellectuals, in fact, if involves a grad program outside their own field of expertise. To make it accessible, you have to make it about a law school or med school, something that produces professionals whom the average person has to deal with, and who do things the average person understands at least in general principles.”

          There are a couple of points here I’d like to discuss. First, I love how Brain Glutton doesn’t pull any punches. She, or he, answers right off the bat – What’s missing? “Audience appeal.” BAM. Right across the face. Then we get the assessment explaining why a movie set in graduate school would lack audience appeal: “Too intellectual,” not “accessible,” not dealing with “things the average person understands.” This reasoning assumes at least two things: that movies are usually made to appeal to the widest audience possible (which is probably true); and that academic intellectual pursuits are not widely appealing (which is probably true in the US at least.) Hence, therefore: movies about academic intellectual pursuits are not usually made. There’s a great little syllogism.

       What do you readers think about this assessment? I would love to hear your thoughts! 

       

       Enjoy Oscars Night!!! Make sure to fill out your scorecard!! Until next time, Liza

And the Oscar for Best Graduate School Movie goes to....

    
       It’s Oscar Week!

       As the red carpet events draw nearer by the day, as I’m making sure I’ve read and considered all predictions and arguments, as I double-check my Oscar scorecard and consider last minute changes, wondering if Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spenser (both brilliant) will split the voters for The Help and allow Melissa McCarthy (human and hilarious) to take the category, wondering if a dark horse like Nick Nolte will surprise everyone, wondering if the lovely adventure in literary nostalgia Midnight in Paris has a chance to take home a statue, as I look forward to Sunday to settling in with pizza, wine, and popcorn for one of my favorite nights of the year, I begin happily reflecting.

        I reflect on the years past when I have always made time to watch this event, even when movie years hadn’t been particularly exciting, or when the nominees hadn’t reflected the truly inspiring movies of the year, or when I hadn’t even had time to see any movies during the entire year. I reflect on the movies I am grateful to have seen this year, taking time from my graduate studies to escape into the magic of Midnight in Paris, the laughter of Bridesmaids, the triumph of The Help, the enterprise of Moneyball, the catharsis of Warrior, the soaring spirit of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

       I think about the movies I have yet to see, one of which I may choose as a reward for myself in the coming months as I finish a chapter, or present at a conference, or complete a dreaded and toilsome task such as doing my laundry.

       Finally, as I close my books from the day’s work and settle into my pajamas, sinking into the couch, I begin thinking about how the movies have always helped me reflect on my own current station in life. I think with awe about the enormous, undeniable debt that Hollywood screenwriters, directors, and producers owe to the institution of graduate school, having over the years inspired countless creative and poignant cinematic explorations of the trials, tribulations, triumphs, hardships, heartaches, hilarity, incidents, accidents, and ultimate life-affirming redemption in the life of a graduate student.

       Or… err, um…. My reflection comes to a screeching halt as I bolt upright on my couch. Well, okay maybe not countless… but there are some, right? I mean, at least a dozen or so good movies? about graduate school?

       I’m sure I’ve seen some. As I reel through the movie-memories in my brain, I sort through all the undergrad movies and boarding school movies and law school movies and… hmm.

       But I’m sure I’ve settled in for a good rom-com between two grad students falling in love…. for a hefty drama about someone’s nervous breakdown leading up to his dissertation defense…. a twisted absurd surrealist depiction of the way graduate school propels a soul into the next realm of existence and possibility….

       Um. Well actually… Let me Google this.

       How pleasantly surprised am I to see a list come up! “The 7 best grad school movies of all time.” Okay, I say, here we go. As I click on it, I think dubiously, “Seven?”  Then I force the doubt away. Seven: yes. I mean, it’s not 10, but “Top Ten” --  that’s an arbitrary convention anyway. Okay, so let’s go with seven! Seven great movies dedicated to exploring the idiosyncrasies and uplift of graduate life. I fold my legs crisscross under me and pull my laptop onto my lap.

       Already as I read the intro, I like what I see. The author boldy asserts, “But what about those movies focusing on graduate-school living and the difficulty of appearing classically sharp while subsisting on a penny-pinching budget? Why does a character named ‘Booger’ receive all of the hooplah while graduate-school movies garner the attention of day-old French fries in the campus cafeteria? It's time to dust off the brush off and pay homage to the seven best grad school movies of all times.” I couldn’t agree more.

       Okay so here we go. Number 7 is none other than ….. Patch Adams. I start to feel a little bit of a confused, slightly sinking feeling, remembering that this was one of the absolute worst movies I’ve ever seen, and also remembering that this movie was not about someone in graduate school but rather about someone who got kicked out of medical school. Hmmm… if this is any indication of the rest of…. Well –

       Then I squash the negative voice inside my head and rationalize to myself that it’s still early! After all, we’re only on number 7! I mean number 7 out of 7.  We’re fine. Okay. No big deal.  We’re building up.

       Hope renewed, my eyes move down to Number 6… Legally Blonde. Well, but wait a minute. I mean, sure, I love Elle Woods and all, and her video admissions essay and the bend and snap and all of that… but that’s law school. Well but there are plenty of movies about law school… I was talking about “grad school,” like English and history and anthropology and physics majors writing dissertations and having teaching assistant adventures...

       Sigh and regroup. Okay. Maybe #5 can redeem us all.

       Flatliners.Grrrr…..Med school!!!

      #4 –The Paper Chase.Hmmm…Law school!

      #3--Rounders – DOH! law school AGAIN!

      #2--Beautiful Mind… okay, well, yes, Princeton, etc…maybe… but really more a portrait of a extraordinary mind rather than an extraordinary matriculation.

      Hmm.

      #1…. Drumroll…. GOOD WILL HUNTING! Okay, yes! There is a dorm room love scene, I think, (even though Minnie Driver’s character is a med student…perhaps pre-med?) and math problems written on a chalkboard done by a non-graduate student, and a jerky professor, and a (pseudo) intellectual (pseudo) invective in a Harvard Bar. It’s everything I ever wanted in a movie about the life of a graduate student.

      With utter defeat, I glance over the list again.  2 medical school movies, 3 law school movies, one movie about an incredible mind who spent his life at Princeton University, some of which as a graduate student, and one movie whose title character is actually against the idea of institutionalized higher education.

      Dismal!!!

      Where are the inquiries into the life of a scholar, pursuing truth, beauty, and intellectual liberty through higher, higher education? Where ARE the stories of the self-made man and woman who pursued intellectual triumphs while “penny-pinching” through most of his or her 20s and early 30s, sacrificing some basic conveniences or niceties of life that, with any luck, comes with a BA, for something he or she believes is worth studying, worth immersing oneself into? 

       Or do the life choices of a graduate student seem so uninteresting, so trudging, so slow-moving, so pain-staking, so rewardless to outsiders -- or to graduate students themselves? --  as to make it not a viable setting for cinematic reflection?

       I’ll need a few days to sort this out. Perhaps a little more digging.... 

       Part Two of “Best Graduate School Movie” coming on Sunday!

       In the meantime, what movies can you think of that best represent the grad life? Post a comment here or on FB!