Advice for Surviving Graduate School

While I’m not completely finished with graduate school, I am on the “downhill” side of doctoral coursework and comprehensive exams, so I thought I’d provide some thoughts on surviving graduate school for some of my junior colleagues. In a world spent mostly looking toward what’s next in my career, it seems appropriate to take a look backward for a moment. 

1. You can’t read everything, so read strategically. There are some graduate advisors cringing at this right now because they read so adamantly, they’re even reading my blog. They won’t skip point two because it might be the point that unlocks the piece. But the bottom line is that you can’t possibly read everything, especially when a syllabus has “extra readings” for the week. On top of the two books required, the professor suggests you read three of these others. Really, professor? Five books for one class? Yes, seriously. This will be asked of you. So you have to read strategically. Learn to grasp the nuts and bolts of an argument quickly and efficiently. It’s an acquired skill, but it’s best to acquire it early in the process.
2. Stay balanced. One of the biggest mistakes people make in grad school is selling out to their program of study. You have to go to the gym. You have to sleep. You should stay plugged into a church. Even though none of us are studying science, we need to know enough about how the human body works to give it food and workouts and rest. Your brain will not allow higher level thinking if you don’t take care of your body. Aside from that, research shows that creativity (and higher level processing) happens when we shift our focus away from what we’re working on. It’s why places like Google and 3M allow their employees to play pingpong and take walks. Because when those workers return to productivity, they have better ideas.
3. Make and cultivate relationships with colleagues. Graduate school is, by definition, an alienating experience. You are becoming one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet in your niche of specialization. So in that, there are very few others who can relate to what you’re enduring. Your significant other may not “get” what you do. You friends may not understand the time commitment and may drive you nuts with the “so when will you be done?” question, as if grad school is just a jog around the block. That’s why connecting with colleagues, beyond just someone to complain about that “stupid paper we had to write this week” is important; they can commiserate on the life of the mind.
4. Protect your intellectual vitality. This is not an excuse to be lazy. In fact, what I mean is not that you read more but that you stay connected to the important influences that directed you to graduate school. Don’t get so sidetracked by the theory-heavy reading lists of courses that you forget to read theology and life-giving ideas about the profession that motivates you. Read pedagogy when you’re frustrated with disengaged students. Read a biography of your all time favorite pitcher if it breathes life into your historical intellectual curiosity. Don’t get bogged in the mire of grad reading lists.
5. Vary your studying atmosphere. Some of my colleagues have their spot. For some it’s at home, others a coffee shop, and some (shockingly) can get work done in the office. But wherever it is, you will eventually hit a wall. When that happens and the words won’t flow or your eyeballs seem to cross, find a new place. Universities are full of places to study. Switch it up. Study in a different building on campus. Go to a different part of town. Sometimes studying at a friend’s house can result in minimal actual “study” work, but I’ve gotten more done in 15 minute chunks in intellectually-stimulating places than I have for hours in the institutional confines of various places. Find what makes your lightbulb glow, but don’t stay plugged into the same outlet. Explore and illumine other places.

So you want to go to grad school? Five things advisers won’t tell you but you need to know

When students get the idea to go to graduate school, they immediately put their undergraduate advisor in a difficult position. The professor can encourage you to press on, apply, and go for your dreams. Or, he/she can choose to be honest, explaining the realities of the dreaded “job market” and the general societal malaise for all things “higher education.” Somewhere in this conversation of “well… you know” and “how can I say this without sounding offensive?” awkward moments, maybe inklings of truth creep through.

I decided, in my service here as the CFH grad rep, to save some of the trouble with five things your adviser never told you, but you should definitely consider about graduate school:

1. Grad school is nothing like college. Nothing. Seriously not even a little bit. It’s a job. You’re going to a job that doesn’t pay you anything. In fact, you’re going to a job that is quite possibly going to cost MORE than your undergraduate debt. The glorious stories of drinking coffee, up late in your tweed smoking jacket pontificating about some great historical figure are often squelched by extra side jobs, chicken-scratch esoteric jargon-filled commentary from frustrated research professors, and a general disconnect from the beloved “academy” that sparked your initial interest in the “profession.”
2. Job Prospects. The golden goose at the end of it is not a guaranteed “practice” as in the medical professions. No, instead, you will be in the precarious position of trying to oust a senior colleague who is, at that time, making the most he/she has ever made in his/her career. There’s a reason people don’t retire.
3. You start putting quotation marks around everything and your friends/family hate you for it. No, seriously, graduate school after the postmodern turn is akin to walking on eggshells EVERYWHERE you go. You start talking about “race” and “class” instead of race and class. You read Foucault and start deconstructing everything. You order a chocolate donut and begin asking yourself about the global impact of your personal cocoa reliance… then you throw the donut away and hope that the good people of Nicaragua forgive you for exploiting them. Then you put “exploiting” in quotation marks and feel awful, again.
4. You feel guilty for having hobbies. You will find yourself justifying going to the gym because it’s time spent away from books. You have this immaculate pressure that, because your life is not on a 9-5, it must be a 24/7 immersion in theory and difficult readings. You will be in the middle of a workout wondering what a Marxist critique of this gym might look like. You wonder if anyone else has ever even contemplated such a thing. You apply Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities” to the gym rats. Then you cry a little, and remember you have a precis to write by morning. You cancel whatever fun thing you thought about doing that night and go read because no good grad student has hobbies.
5. Awful War Stories. All survivors have a story. Mere survival IS the story. Graduate school, should you survive, makes for awful stories. When your “friends” ask where you’ve been for the past two years, you explain that you were on a mountaintop of exalted consciousness, connecting with the great minds of the ages. They ask about your library fines and tease about your use of quotation marks. Then, your friends stop calling you to hang out because either they don’t like quotation marks, or, more realistically graduate school changed the way you look at the world so much that you can’t tell a single, solitary story anymore without giving a theoretical background, a brief discussion of historiographic context, and an explicit, clear, well-articulated thesis statement. “Bro, we just asked what you had for lunch. You didn’t have to talk about the history of ‘Po boys.”

*This is decidedly tongue in cheek. If you’d like advice on attending graduate school, do not hesitate to email me at grjones83@gmail.com. I’ve had some really incredible “experiences” in graduate school and am happy to help any aspiring students with the pesky questions you’d never really ask your own advisors. And yes, I do put a lot more things in quotation marks now.

Spring 2013 – Status

Friends, colleagues, and fellow Christian historians,

Hopefully your semesters are off to a rousing start.  I hoped that we could communicate a bit more extensively about our respective programs.  One of the great things about the CFH is that we have this (inter)national breadth of scholars in various places, points in their careers, and experience levels.  We all wrestle with similar problems and frustrations, yet we seemingly all put up with (or do I mean endure?) them for the same reasons.  It’s my idea that in the comment section of this post, some of you might be willing to share an extended “status update” of sorts with colleagues.  Who knows, maybe there’s a fellow CFH member at a nearby school… or sitting at the other table in your coffee shop.  Won’t you join us?

I suppose I’ll get us started.  After the awesome CFH Conference at Gordon College in the fall and the birth of my baby girl, life’s been a bit of a roller coaster.  I’ll decline to comment publicly on the exact status of my dissertation, but suffice it to say I’m near(ing) in the end.  That said I’m adjuncting (and, apparently, gerunding) at two different schools in two different states.  I’m thankful for both opportunities.  I am particularly excited about a course I’m teaching at Geneva College called Digital History in which I’m working with 7 undergraduates to build an archive.  We’re still narrowing our focus and determining what it will look like exactly, but I hope to have something to share with you all.

In terms of “what I’m reading” these days… that’s an oddly personal question but one I like thinking about.  I’ve been trying to read more on postmodern education, as I see it as an important obstacle to effective teaching compared to the late-modern era of schooling that bore my scholastic self.  I’m working on N.T. Wright’s *How God Became King* for a dose of the theological.  For my academic historical reading, I’m trying to broaden some theoretical work on correspondence in the 19th century as well as failing horribly in my attempt to keep up with the unending waterfall of Civil War historiography.  The best book I’ve read recently is Mark Schantz’s *Awaiting the Heavenly Country* about death culture that motivated the society of Americans that fought and supported the Civil War.

So… what say you?

Guest Post: Mary Sanders on the Rocky Mountain Interdisciplinary History Conference

Mary Sanders is a third-year PhD student in history at Oklahoma State University, where she’s focusing in twentieth-century American religious history.  She has an MA in history from the University of Connecticut and a BA in history with a minor in theatre from Oklahoma Baptist University.  She’s a teaching assistant at OSU, an adjunct instructor in freshman composition at Oklahoma Baptist University, an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and a Post-it note addict.  When she’s not buried in schoolwork, you can usually find her taking a Zumba class or relaxing with Smudge, her 6-year old lhasa apso.

 

“Which conferences are you trying to go to this year?”

This is a fairly common question in my department.  Every year at orientation, we hear the same thing from our graduate director: Make sure you’re submitting to conferences!  Get your work out there!  Meet people!  Make connections!  Calls for paper regularly circulate through our email inboxes, and my colleagues and I are fairly routinely checking in with each other about what we’re working on.

If I’m being honest, I really enjoy conferences, and so I’m really glad to see a growing number of small conferences geared towards graduate students.  I recently went to one of these conferences, the Rocky Mountain Interdisciplinary History Conference (RMIHC), sponsored by the University of Colorado—Boulder history department and held on CU’s beautiful campus.  I presented a paper entitled “So What About God? Working Towards a Theological History of the Oklahoma City Bombing,” a new project designed to test-drive some methodological aspects of my dissertation.  I traveled to Boulder with two colleagues from Oklahoma State University (my home institution), one of whom presented his own work and the other of whom came along for moral support.

It was my first time attending the RMIHC, and I was very impressed with this conference.  I was particularly struck with how well the conference was run—it was well-organized, we ran on schedule, and, as far as I could tell, there were no major logistical problems.  One of my favorite parts was the professional development lunch, when we had wide-ranging conversations about oral history methodology and archival research.  Although I unfortunately had to miss one of the afternoon sessions, the papers I did have a chance to see were very interesting.  The conference organizers took the “interdisciplinary” aspect of the conference seriously, and I was privileged to see papers from fellow graduate students in history, religious studies, economics, and American studies.  It was an excellent experience—I left with helpful feedback on my work, and I had a good time.  I’d highly recommend that graduate students in the area consider submitting to this conference next year.

Of course, as I’m writing this, I’m gearing up to head to Gordon College for the Conference on Faith & History meeting later this week.  I’ve been involved with CFH since I was an undergraduate, when we held the 2006 meeting at Oklahoma Baptist University, my alma mater.  I’ve been looking forward to this year’s meeting, partly because I’m excited to see some interesting papers, and partly because…well, let’s face it: I live in Oklahoma, and it was 90 degrees last week.  Fall in New England?  Yes, please!

Hope to see lots of you there!

Dispatches from Graduate School – Part 42

[Republished by permission of The Way of Improvement Leads Home.]

Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University.  For earlier posts in this series click here.

I had an incredibly emotional weekend, one marked by extreme highs and lows.  It was one of those weekends that places deadlines and paper anxiety in proper perspective.

I spent Thursday evening in a labor and delivery room with my best friend. We ate oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and told jokes to pass the time and the contractions.  I left the hospital around 8:00 PM convinced by her progress that it would be another 24 hours before the baby arrived.  But alas, on Friday morning, at 5:38 AM, my best friend and her husband gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. I participated (distractedly) in an independent study course that morning, discussing Jon Teaford and his opinion of American municipal government, and then sped across town (without a speeding ticket, thankfully) to meet my new best friend. She is more beautiful than I could have imagined and I am honored that one day Liliana Maria will call me Tia Cali.

Meanwhile, a dear friend’s sister was at the hospital for a rather routine brain surgery (that sounds a bit like an oxymoron). The surgery was successful and everyone, doctors included, was pleased with the outcome. My parents spent some time visiting, but I chose to stay home with two books to read and several discussion questions to write. Saturday, however, she took a turn for the worst. I got a text message around 2:00 AM (of which I slept through) and then a phone call from my mom at 8:00 AM. My mom and dad had rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night and had been there since 3:30 AM; my mom sounded exhausted and sad. Amanda had suffered some type of episode and lost all brain activity.

The doctors are still at a complete loss as to what exactly happened. I spent a good part of the day in the Neuro ICU with my friend and his family as they mourned the loss of their sister, daughter, and mother. I could never have prepared for what I would see or feel, and I left emotionally drained.

Less than 36 hours ago I celebrated new life, and today I sat in a room with a grieving family.

I love (and sometimes loathe) the life of a graduate student. But so often I fold in on myself, concerned only with assignments and reviews and proposals. I tend toward the myopic, with myself at the center. This weekend was incredibly joyful and painful at the same time, and the experiences force me to pause and remember I have a responsibility to my friends and family that transcends my schoolwork.

Dispatches from Graduate School – Part 39

Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University. For earlier posts in this series click here. –JF

[Reposted by permission of John Fea's The Way of Improvement Leads Home]

I always enjoy my time in Southern California. Every six weeks I take a quick flight from Phoenix into Burbank to spend the weekend visiting a few of my favorite people. My uncle, a PR executive, lives in Sherman Oaks, and a close friend works for the Associated Press and lives one block off Hollywood Blvd. My geographical zone remains relatively small while visiting. I might enjoy the sunshine and cool air in my uncle’s backyard, or I stay with my friend in her tiny apartment, watching chick flicks and eating take-out.

During the past weekend, I ventured out of my typical routine and drove north and west along the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu. Rather than celebrity-watch at a beachside café, I spent Saturday participating in the Western Regional Conference on Faith and History. The Conference met on the campus of Pepperdine University, situated on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I drove the meandering road from the 101 Freeway into the Malibu Valley before the sunshine and heat dispelled the morning fog, but after the second panel the haze lifted. The ocean views made conference-going a difficult option, but the intriguing panel line-up drew me inside.

The conference theme, “The Historian and the Text,” seemed the perfect forum to discuss History to the People. I submitted my unorthodox proposal to Bryan Lamkin, the President of the Western Regional chapter of the CFH and Professor of History at Azusa Pacific University. My proposal looked more like a call to action than scholarly research, but it undoubtedly aligned with the theme of the conference. To break down the barriers between academic historians and people and to provide the general public with the skills necessary to think historically are two of the main tenants of HTTP.

I presented in a panel entitled “Public Texts” with Steven Wentland, a Professor of Liberal Studies at Azusa Pacific. Dr. Wentland examines the challenges teachers face incorporating the study of religion into lesson plans (despite their overwhelming presence in state standards). He offers some prescriptions, because he suggests “you can’t understand American history without studying religion.”

Ryan McIlhenny, from Providence Christian College, provided comments for Dr. Wentland and I. Dr. McIlhenny suggested we had several points in common, most importantly, our commitment to preserving democracy and diversity in the study of history. HTTP will attempt, through a more democratic use of the historian’s tools, to teach others to lay aside self-interest and see the world from the perspective of someone else. As John Fea suggests, “unlike any other discipline, history requires us to engage the human condition primarily through understanding and empathy, not criticism.” This quote gets to the second point in common between Dr. Wentland and I—the culture wars. If a person encounters the text with the necessary tools, it becomes less easy to condemn the actions of other people. Perhaps we can ease our culture wars by disclosing the ways in which we’ve honed our historical thinking and encouraging such behavior in more people in a more intentional way.

The audience seemed enthusiastic about HTTP. Aside from some brief discussion on this blog, I have not had the chance to present the idea to an academic audience (other than my classmates). I received great questions at the end: How will we achieve nuance and complexity in short blog posts? How will we reorientate the way in which people think about history? How will we protect ourselves against bias? These are great questions, some of which I have already spent a good deal of time thinking through. At HTTP we value specificity and we write and edit in a community. This keeps us morally engaged, accountable, and self-critical. A willingness to work collaboratively, in a community of scholars open to debate and dialogue and the testing of ideas keeps us honest—this goes for all good history.

I had a great experience at the Western Regional CFH. It provided me the opportunity to not only present an idea, but it also gave me the opportunity to think about how my faith plays a role in my commitment to bring history to the people. In preparing for the conference I found a quote by Henri Nouwen, a twentieth century priest and writer. Nouwen, meditating on the gifts given to a body of believers, believed that “the basis of all ministry is the experience of God’s unlimited and unlimiting acceptance of us as beloved children, an acceptance so full, so total, and all-embracing, that it sets us free from our compulsion to be seen, praised, and admired and frees us for Christ, who leads us on the road of service. This experience of God’s acceptance frees us from our needy self and thus creates new space where we can pay selfless attention to others.” Because I have acquired certain skills, I have a responsibility to use these skills in service to others. The website provides a space for me to share these skills outside the classroom, and in hopes, foster a sense of historical thinking that might change the world one person at a time.

Dispatches from Graduate School–Part 38

Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University. In this post, she discusses a new urban initiative she is working with called “Agritopia.” For earlier posts in this series click here. –JF [Used by permission The Way of Improvement Leads Home]

For nearly 40 years James and Virginia Johnston and their three sons farmed 171 acres of land situated 25 miles southeast of Phoenix. What once supported cotton, alfalfa, and a humble homestead now contains over 500 single family homes, an elementary school, two eating establishments (including Joe’s Farm Grill of Food Network fame) 15 acres of urban farmland, a community garden, a farm stand, and site plans for both a senior-living community and vast commercial/retail development. The Johnston’s acquired the farmland in 1961, but in 1998, the family and local developer Scott Homes entered into an agreement to begin the design of a special sort of community they would call “Agritopia.”

Agritopia planners offered potential residents 176 home design variations ranging from 1300 to 4500 square feet, allowing people with a broad range of needs and resources to find a home in Agritopia. When designing the homes, the team committed to eight design principles: to reduce physical barriers to relationship; to reduce social/economic barriers to relationship; to promote sharing; to promote a simpler life; to promote the foundation of a true neighborhood; to choose style and beauty over size and sizzle; to honor agriculture; and to create a balanced project. These design principles served as the foundation for all decisions regarding architectural style and land use for the urban farm community.

Agritopia must be understood within a larger social context. The Johnston’s vision for their unique community is not the first to emerge from the desert southwest. For hundreds of years people have attempted to redefine community life and to create alternatives to the troubling urban conditions that have evolved in many sprawling Sunbelt cities. Phoenix itself is on the verge of urban crisis.

Two questions loom large in the coming years: One, how will Phoenicians, in creative and sustainable ways, respond to the growing concern over food access and local food production? Secondly, how will Phoenix residents create viable correctives to what some consider the aggressive, monotonous, and isolating postwar suburban development in the Salt River Valley? Agritopia, in a morass of tile and stucco, provides its own answer. The planners created a “middle ground”—one that incorporates urban living and agricultural production—reflecting a commitment to satisfying the human need for community, and also to meet the very physical needs of its residents by providing locally produced food and opportunities for residents to grow their own food in community gardens.

By looking at Agritopia—its successes and its failures, its novelty and its tradition—we can learn about the ways in which people are thinking innovatively about organizing urban life in Phoenix. Perhaps Agritopia can provide a blueprint for other valley neighborhoods that must build vibrant and healthy communities in order to prevent the erosion of agriculture and kinship in a state founded on both.

Dispatches from Graduate School – Post 37

Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University. For earlier posts in this series click here. –JF
[Reposted by permission of *The Way of Improvement Leads Home*]

Last week I made my first (of many, I hope) public lectures for History to the People. When I first had the idea for the website, I connected with a local marketing agency for some direction on developing a brand. The agency’s managing director makes himself available for mentoring hours each week at their office, which happens to be a really cool collaborative workspace in Chandler, Arizona, called Gangplank. Gangplank helps to create a “new economic vision comprised of collaboration and community” through sharing workspace, resources, and most importantly ideas.

Fourteen small businesses occupy the space at Gangplank and co-work on a daily basis free of charge. In exchange for space, each anchor business (the marketing agency included) must commit to reinvest into the Gangplank community by planning events such as a weekly brownbag discussion.

After my mentor-session with the agency’s managing director, he suggested that I share my idea with the Gangplank community at a brownbag discussion. The next day I received an email from Gangplank’s Director of Community Outreach, and she put History to the People on the calendar for September 21st. I asked my classmate and co-founder to join me for the discussion. The thought of debuting the idea to the public by myself seemed a bit daunting. She agreed, and together we shared our vision with a group of individuals who work in entirely different industries. Most of our audience were “creative types”—web developers, graphic artists, and social media specialists. The marketing agency team and our graphic designer showed their support, as did my dad (I thought he might be the only one) and a friend who has close ties at Gangplank. Brianna and I were the only “academics” in the building.

Despite our fear of that we might put the crowd to sleep, everyone responded enthusiastically to History to the People. We received great feedback and people raised questions that are important to address as we continue to move forward with our vision. (One attendee even posted a response to the brownbag on her blog!) We learned a lot from the discussion, and most importantly, we discovered that there are people outside of academia who believe thinking historically is crucial to contemporary life.

Our time at Gangplank provided us with that extra impetus to press on. Last week we met with our web designer, and this week I complete our registration with the Arizona Corporation Commission. By the end of next week I will officially be the Director of History to the People. Once the designer finishes the logo I can finalize our executive summary and begin the laborious fundraising process. In the meantime my benefactors (i.e., my mom and dad) generously give of their resources to help me realize this goal.

I believe in the success of History to the People. Most Americans agree that history matters, but not all Americans understand the implications of ahistorical thinking. Through the website we will provide our audience with both the tools necessary to think historically and a plethora of accessibly written and rigorously researched historical material. One day HTTP will encourage thousands of people to think historically, and as a bonus, we might even be able to pay back my parents.

On taking a break…

This weekend I went with some friends to see the Giant Pandas at the National Zoo. Okay, really I went to visit my friends, but seeing the pandas was awesome. It reminded me a bit of the old song lyric “all creatures great and small.”

It seemed silly, amidst a crazy semester, to throw away valuable time. In fact, I returned home both energized and tired. What happens, though, when we take breaks, is that we allow our brains some time to heal.

Take some time to work, but remember to rest too. There’s a reason for the seventh day (or a weekend away).

Dispatches from Graduate School – Part 36

Cali Pitchel McCullough is a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University. For earlier posts in this series click here. –JF [Used by permission of John Fea, *The Way of Improvement Leads Home*]

I continue to press forward with plans for History to the People. A friend referred me to a web developer and designer to help with the branding. The designer sent me an exhaustive questionnaire in order to get a feel for the experience I’d like to create. I have always appreciated graphic design, but I was struck by the similarities between a thoughtful designer and an astute historian.

The designer, rather than simply creating a logo according to a few superficial questions, operates according to a precise set of design principles. Good design is nuanced and complex—just like a good historical narrative. Her questionnaire included a section on the “global images” of the branding project. In other words, how do I want my brand presented to the customers (or in my case, community), through the use of various oppositional adjectives? Do I want the History to the People website to be fashionable or timeless? Discreet or aggressive? Contemporary or nostalgic?

I found this exercise far more difficult than I had first imagined. I thought that if I conveyed the mission of the website (to encourage historical thinking and to provide an aggregate of academically sourced historical information for a popular audience), that she’d have the tools necessary to complete my ideal design. This is just as erroneous as assuming that one source provides the material necessary to construct a historical narrative.

Often times I feel that because of what I do I am part of an exclusive club. I think to myself, “academically trained historians must be the only people who are conditioned to think critically and to evaluate a problem from a variety of angles.” This just isn’t true. There are a myriad of professions, including those in the arts (a genre from which many historians wish to distance themselves) that encourage analysis and careful attention to a multiplicity of questions.

When I talk to the designer about the website, I feel a sense of camaraderie. We both take what we do very seriously, and we both see critical thinking and complexity as essential to preforming the tasks expected of us. Our conversations as we hone the overall feeling and design of the website remind me that what I do is part of a larger community of intellectuals who labor to tell the most honest and effective stories—no matter the medium.