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

Graduate Mouthpieces

     Do you think graduate students have a responsibility to the people in their lives to bridge the gap between their own academic interests and the current popular trends of knowledge in their field?

    My question of the day stems from a kind of dilemma I have been enduring during the last several years as an English Literature PHD student developing my dissertation. People in my life associate my line of work with reading books, and thereby the said people in my life expect me to know and be up on all the great new novels and biographies and poetry collections as they are published and released.  I always feel terribly guilty and ineffectual when I have not yet read the book that they want to discuss. 

    The despairing truth is, though, that it is very difficult to read anything at this time in my life except my dissertation materials. I can barely get through journals in my field let alone check out the latest American novel from my local library. My friends and family look at me with shades of disappointment, skepticism, and even disdain when I say, “No I haven’t gotten around to The Marriage Plot,” and “No, I haven’t read the new Abraham Lincoln biography,” and “No, actually I can not intelligently comment on the Pulitzer Prize board’s decision to not award a prize for fiction this year. The sad fact is that I haven’t read any of the nominated books, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you if there were other ones that were better this year anyway.”  Sigh… and the saddest part is, for me, the disdain or disappointment I see when I explain my lack of current literary prowess mirrors my own feelings. It just seems wrong.

    Partly, it’s obviously a problem of time. I just simply have such a limited amount of time in general, and so the first thing that goes out the proverbial window is reading for pleasure. 

    Also, I have come to think of this problem partly as an effect of specialization. As a graduate student gets further and further into her program, she is working to narrow her scope, to focus on a topic, to become a specialist in an era, a topic, a set of authors, a region. It seems parallel to perhaps what would happen if you asked the attorney in your family to look over your new employment contract only to be told that her specialization is bankruptcy and so no, sorry, she can not really help.

    I wonder if students across other disciplines in the GSAS have the same problem – do biology students who are studying the ecology of the wood turtle in the Delaware Water Gap feel badly when they can’t provide informed answers to Grandpa’s questions about the flesh-eating bacteria cases cropping up in Georgia? Do psychology students studying the psychological adjustment in pregnant orthodox Jewish women have to find ways to explain away their lack of intimacy about the various treatments for autism that their Aunt Sally keeps emailing them about?

    I’ve found a small way to cram in some popular literature into my life—on my commute, I listen to audio book recordings that I’ve checked out of the town library. I love a good story, but part of the reason I am doing it is to try to stay in the conversation surrounding popular literature. It feels like a good use of my time as a scholar – since I can’t exactly study or research in my car, at least I can do something to contribute to my perceived role as a mouthpiece for the literary world.

    And so, with real no solution in sight, I want to circle back to my first question – is it a responsibility of mine as a literature scholar to stay current with the works of literature that my friends, family, New Yorkers, Americans, etc, are talking about today? As graduate students, is it not only our responsibility but also part of our jobs to serve as interlocutors between our subjects and society at large? Do you face similar issues? How do you view these problems, and how do you view our role in society at large?