As You Begin Your Master's at Auburn...

* For E. K. *

This fall, for the second time, a brilliant student of mine finds herself starting graduate school at the place where I did my PhD. Remembering my own startled transition from the small school where I did my MEd to overwhelming, gorgeous, enormous Auburn, I wrote some advice. I didn't think to save what I wrote for the first student a few years ago. But this time around, with the student's permission, I have adapted the advice for my blog. I post it here for anyone starting graduate school, but mostly those going from a smaller school to a big research university.

ON YOUR MOVE TO AUBURN:

You chose Auburn in part because you love many fields and you don’t want to have to choose yet. Hold on to that. You’ll meet people who make you feel like you have to choose right away one thing over another, that your career even might depend upon doing so. Do. Not. Let. Them. Sway. You. In every field, there are purists, people whose passion for what they study and teach is so powerful that they see other fields as distractions from the true path, perhaps even think those other fields are potentially harmful to the pure study of whatever their field is. These people are often highly-accomplished and are to be admired, and you can learn a great deal from them. But if they are dismissive of your other interests, or when they even push you to disregard another interest because they tell you it is irreconcilable with what they are teaching you, respectfully decline to do so. With everything in academia, you have to balance trusting your advisors and trusting your own judgment.

Beware of camps or factions. Larger schools have more scholars, and therefore proportionally more purists, and those purists can band together to use their collective weight to achieve things. Often this is done with the most altruistic of motives. They are true believers who are trying to accomplish something good. Sometimes it can get really ugly. If this happens, be neutral. Be Switzerland (minus the keeping-Nazi-treasure part). Factions fight battles all the time – over resources, over direction and mission, over who is in the leadership – and sometimes one faction wins the battle, but no one ever wins the war. My attitude has always been: it’s better to get marched across than to engage in fights that distract from our true work, which is researching and teaching. For the most part, I’ve always been able to stay friends with pretty much everybody, although doing so has sometimes required directly asking people to leave me out of the conflict. It is unlikely you’ll get pulled into anything like this during your Master’s, but life is long and you might choose a career in academia, and these battles crop up from time to time on every campus, so I thought I’d share it now.  

Many deep, theoretical conversations began with "Okay,
I need to read you what I just wrote, and you tell me
if it sounds crazy or stupid." This is how besties are made.

Meet everyone you possibly can, and be on the lookout for someone who can be your academic ally. I have Kat. Kat is amazing and is still my best academic bud in the world. We got each other through some really tough times, when the competition around us was intense and people were ready to take each other out while competing for fellowships, leadership positions, and even favored attention from faculty. We met right away but became allies at the end of our first semester together. We swore an oath to each other to be fair and supportive, even when we were competing for the same things. We have held true to that oath, all these years. There may be some back-biting in the students when you’re there. You’ll be around some very competitive people. In fact, you’ll be around some of the most high-strung people you’ve ever met in your life. Every once in a while, a grad program can become a snake-pit, with students getting nasty in their competitiveness (stealing research ideas, checking out books that other people need, etc.). That happened for a couple years while I was at Auburn, but Kat and I could trust each other and so we just stuck together and didn’t engage with it, and we did just fine. And had a great time to boot. After a while, the snakeyness subsided. Most people sort out into little pairs, and then those pairs hang out, and develop groups. Some of my favorite memories are of Kat and me hanging with another pair, Julie and Jessica, over bottles of Bardolino at Provino’s. 

Alabama Nights:
Hanging at the Ponds with some friends from Fisheries

Go out of your way to meet grad students in other programs. I am still friends with folks from Fisheries. It’s fun to hang out with brilliant people in other disciplines. You’ll learn a lot, and have a great time. You’ll see sides of campus you would never see otherwise, and you’ll make friends with whom you need never be in competition. They're smart as hell, so you can have a conversation about just about anything, and you can explain your work to each other, which is useful to both. And if they’re in Fisheries, you can help them polish off the by-products of their research 

(Crawfish boil, FTW).

Study hard and work hard, but also go clubbing. Our little school doesn’t have a bar scene, but Auburn does. Go to clubs and bars and dance and have a blast. Yes, it can be weird when you run into one of your Comp students at SkyBar, but whatever. Smile and say hello and then rejoin your friends. Don’t let the undergrad boys hit on you – put them in their place when they do. Go ahead and join at The War Eagle Supper Club.

Don’t be afraid of teaching. You could end up with a terrific lead teacher who preps you well and gives you an appropriate amount of work to do when you’re ready for it. You could end up with a lead teacher who doesn’t give a shit and just throws you in there unprepared for way more work that your contract says you should be doing. Either way, take a deep breath and dive in to teaching. Trust me when I tell you this: of all the things that are intimidating in graduate school, the one where you stand up in front of people and talk about words is the one that, when you just trust your instincts, will come the most naturally. Oh, you’ll make mistakes. Huge, embarrassing mistakes. You can’t say that many words in a day in front of other people without a certain percentage of those words being the wrong ones. Backtrack only if you really, truly need to in order to accomplish something important (like when you mistakenly announce the wrong due date or parameters for an assignment). Do it matter-of-factly and then move on to something else. If you realize after class that you accidentally said that Shakespeare wrote 27 plays instead of saying 37, forget it ever happened. They won’t remember it later, anyway. Nobody gets everything right. If a little of your misinformation becomes their misinformation, it’s okay. Try to avoid it, but when you can’t, get over it. 

A city in itself. And when class is in session, a wild mass of
people. But find the little quiet spaces. They're there.

When you walk from Haley Center to the library, stroll through the courtyard between the Quad Center and Cater Hall. It was a favorite walk of mine. That courtyard is also a lovely place to sit and read when you need some fresh air. Find your favorite spaces on campus. Also, get to know your librarian, the one assigned to English. She knows where everything is and will go out of her way for you. Be prepared for library resources you never imagined possible.

Take every opportunity to be a research assistant that you possibly can. The grunt work of a research assistant is the best skill-building you will find in academia. I can find just about anything, and it’s because in my Master’s (at Georgia Southwestern State U) I worked as a research assistant to a playwright in residence who sent me on crazy chases for things like jokes officers in the Union army might have told each other in Confederate POW camps, the list of AKC registered dogs in 1957, or the typical cost of a Model T Ford in a small town in the South in 1921. Doing this, I learned to chase something down until I found it or I could prove that it couldn’t be found. It has meant everything to the rest of my career.

Go to everything that you possibly can. Our school is serious about its lecture series, so you’re already used to there being something to go to all the time. But you’ll have other opportunities now as well. Go to lectures, go to social events, go to parties. Join the English graduate organization and go to meetings. Some grad students either skip these events, or they slip in and out without staying and talking to people. They are missing networking opportunities, and fun. Also food.  Go to everything that has food. Take a purse. Wait until the end of the gathering when it’s clear that any remaining food is about to be carried off and put in the trash. Wrap cookies and crackers in napkins, and stash fruit in a plastic cup with a napkin and another cup over it to cover it. That way they won’t mess up the inside of your purse.

Last of all, trust yourself. You belong there. You’ll do great work. You’ll work harder than you knew you could, and produce work that is better than you thought you were capable of. If you feel like your head is exploding, you’re doing it right. You are ready for this.

WAR EAGLE, MY DEAR.

We called this The Mothership. I could look down into it from my window in HC8023.

Note: Also for KMG, former student and friend for life. And for so many others, most especially PH, LV, & AD.