Getting to know you: academic/career edition

you aren't the only one experiencing pure pleasure from your writing!

Ha, it's nice to be back. I'm currently experiencing a mixture of emotions as I just spent about $3000 in ten seconds on an undergraduate loan payoff and repairs on my van. But I'm making progress toward coming out of the university rut and reintegrating myself into the real world, yay! Here's to hoping that will continue and spill over into an excess of writing similar to when I first began. Being able to write again has been the single factor keeping me from running straight back for a PhD, I kid you not. It's not that I don't enjoy having a social life, seeing my family, and having a church family again, but... writing brings me back to myself. I want to hang onto it for a while and clear up some unfinished business before I start chasing more academic/career goals. That's how monumental it is for me to be in this state once more. It's a good place to be.

@charleybec, that is so cool. I wish I had the love for science that it takes to do that kind of thing, since I find it so fascinating, and wanted to be a veterinarian, once upon a time, but my reality was that even though I did manage to scrape top scores in all subjects, math, physics, and science were the ones where I had to work for it to a level of misery (except calculus. I love calculus) and it wasn't worth it to me once I realized a) I love to write and b) I have a talent for languages that is hard to come by. So, here I am...

I received and accepted my fully-funded package with an assistantship literally the day before I graduated last year, and completed what is normally a two-year Master's program in ten months with the highest marks in my graduating class in the department. I still don't believe it, sometimes. I won't do such an insane thing ever again, but I honestly don't regret it. I had a ball, learned a lot, and vastly expanded my career opportunities outside the Ivory Tower. But alas... the Ivory Tower is what I live and breathe, so I'll be back eventually. I am an undisputed university rat, and my dearest ambition in life is to be a linguistics professor.

I console myself with the fact that someday in the distant future, when I'm the professor and not the student, I'll be able to strike a healthier balance between my intellectual brainchild of the moment and my personal itches to write, and no one can tell me otherwise. For now, I accept that "balance" is a fleeting condition and that it has to be one before the other. Right now, I choose personal needs over intellectual ones. My brain is tired of being picked at!

I know this feeling all too well. *sigh* I was better about it as an undergrad, but as a grad student, it was more of a pipe dream. I did have moments where I sorely wished I had the time or energy where I could just escape into my fanfiction, and I would try, but I'd often wind up trading that time in for sleep or food. When I did pick the fanfiction, I was usually reading it, not writing, mostly because I was so sick and tired of writing, which would frustrate me even more, so then I'd just go back to ignoring my nagging muse.

So am I... but fat chance! I think my graduate record examination scores are good for two or three more years, and I am NOT taking that atrocity of an exam again (never mind paying for it), so I'll probably be reapplying to PhD programs within one or two admission cycles. Until then... my only plans are working my butt off and writing my fingers off.

One of my favourite things is talking about school! Yay!

I went through high school in Honors classes and found myself bored, unchallenged, and annoyed with the system, so I enrolled in a state-paid program and went to college full-time for my last two years, in which I earned dual credit for college and high school requirements and earned two associate's degrees (Arts and Science) a month before even graduating high school (2011). Immediately thereafter, I transferred to a four-year university and finished up my BA degree (2013). I went in for linguistics, and theoretically could have finished in a year, but since the course requirements were laid out on a specific timetable, I had to stay for two years and ended up tacking on a double major in political science just because I could. I finished off that year by applying to several PhD programs in linguistics and, in a move of complete desperation, applied last minute to my university's political science MA program. Finished up that one and graduated in May.

As I said above, my ambition in life is to be a professor of linguistics, but I also am aiming for language-based research, codebreaking, and the likes with the US Department of State or possibly the Navy, and I have entertained the idea of law school. I find myself more open to it as the years go on, though most of the people pushing me in that direction have never seen me go into a spastic geek mode over phonetics and phonology. I'm basically Henry Higgins. But I adore foreign and security policy, and there's plenty of legal fodder there, so... we'll see. I'm never bored, to say the least.

Mine are quite boring---went to university to become a music teacher; couldn't get the piano proficiency (scored a 32 out of a minimum 70 on a 100 point scoring); had enough credits for a Bachelor of Music/Classical Vocal Performance degree, so that is what my diploma says. That and $2 got me a cup of coffee, so I worked as a teacher assistant while earning my Teacher of the Handicapped/developmental disabilities certificate. Needed another 18 credits for a master's but wasn't interested. Taught for 10 years, I've been an at-home mom for 14 years now. And I regret nothing. Except maybe that failed piano test

I have a B.A. In communication w/ a concentration in journalism. Yeah, I'm yawning just thinking about it too.

Wow. This IS an impressive group! (And lemacd do you think there's any connection between your field of study and your writerly gifts?)
What appears to distingush me from many of you (and definitely cass) is that I was a very good student but I didn't like academia. I was supposed to go to law school and, two months before starting, broke my parents' hearts by deciding to get a masters in a new public policy program because that's what really interested me. Many people stayed on for the PhD but I went right to work in a series of dream jobs and haven't regretted it. I've worked my whole career surrounded by MDs, PhDs and so on, and I really admire their brilliance! I am the only person in my organization without that kind of degree, but they keep me around anyway. Obviously for my sparkling personality.

My husband went the other way. He did dutifully go to law school, and was poised for what could have been a very lucrative life in practice, but he yearned to be in academia. He was lucky to be able to make the switch and is obviously happy as a professor, writing books, teaching, so on. I wouldn't last a week in his job.

I love reading about people who do what they really want to do - I fully intended to follow the Arts at school until my parents stepped in and 'encouraged' me(?)to do sciences...medicine was the only thing I could see myself doing, so that duly took up the next 30 years of my life until kids arrived. In my maturity I can see that it was probably the best option for me, but my artistic/creative side has been severely stunted for so long, especially since we had 3 nippers in 5 years!

So when you see weird floor plans and diagrams from me, with reams of screencaps telling silly stories, you can be sure that is some of my suppressed creative side at last finding a venue, and it feels great being able to vent it! Thank you for being here!

the smartest people in my office are communications professionals!
indigoblue, we are going to get you writing someday! Your tour of the villa was, well, a tour de force.
cass, I keep at least a fig leaf of anonymity on this site, so I won't answer your question here, but if you PM me I will tell you more. (but it's not that interesting!)

generally, i would agree with your assessment of a communications degree. but people i studied with have gone on to PR, politics, sportscasting (that guy and i had a news editing class at 8am and we were the only two to show up almost every time. i aced the course on that fact alone, i'm sure), publishing, humanitarian work, writing of fiction, non-fiction, children's lit, the list goes on...

as for me, i taught ESL in japan for the better part of the 90s, worked in a bank, taught writing and music and then became a mom. i was not a student. i tried hard but it never paid off like i thought it should or hoped. but that degree? because of that degree, i met a woman named gail. because of gail, i went to a country called japan. because i went to japan, i met a man named bill. because i met bill, i became the mother of christian and michael. and because i became the mother of christian and michael, i've learned what is important. and because i've learned that, i am happy. probably happier than i have a right to be, but there it is.

i haven't been in the work force since 2005. my resume is a joke. i'm in total awe of all of you and your brilliance and drive and in a way only someone who doesn't really know you, i'm proud of all of you.

*sniff* group hug

lemacd, I love this story (of course with all the complicated ins and outs that went along with it). As you know, I'm one of your biggest fans and I think you rock! (and you're a wonderful mother too)

I love this.

Economics is a great choice! It does tend to have a permanent influence on the way you think about everything around you, so watch out!!!

cass cool! In the 3rd year I think I'll have a 20th century European history class! And I'd LOVE to learn Dutch!

augiesannie I am very aware of that! I think the effect has already started even if the classes haven't yet