Saturday, August 27, 2005
My Dilemma
At this point in time, I have to decide whether I want to stay at Purdue for my phd or go elsewhere. at this point, I intend to apply to Boston, UC Santa Cruz, and Purdue, others may cone along later. Alas, I want to be able to feel comfortable in my own skin and I want to be able to breath. I have always thought of myself as a more urban person-- I believe my true nature is that of one who was meant to roam the earth. However, as much as I have not been quite so happy about Lafayette/Purdue, I am comfortable here now, and its something that I know and I am used to. I know,and I always want to be the type that takes risks and goes for the broke, out on a limb, but most times I find myself sticking to what I know. How horrible. I am most definitely the type that would probably stay in an abusive relationship simply because of the familiarity. Alas, if I could rest assured that I would not kill myself trying to make my way through a phd program at Purdue (not in terms of academic roughness, but in terms of playing politics) I would stay here. I have been told and I know that there are no nurturing, motherly phd programs. But at least I can have a little bit of peace, room to breathe. We shall see how it goes. As Susan would probably tell me, I need to get on with it.
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2 comments:
I think I told you I'm a PhD dropout, ABD. I do not think you will find any program where you can escape unpleasant departmental politics, though some may be worse than others.
What kept me sane as a grad student was making sure I had a life and a community outside of the fishbowl of the department. I don't know where you're at now, but as you get older (it's probaby another 5 to 8 years out of your life...), you may increasingly want social life outside the department. PhD work is very isolating and its important to have some kind of support network to help you get through the stresses and the unpleasantness of it all.
Sooo, what I'm saying is, you might want to think about the places where you'd go to school and where you'd live. My decision from early on, for example, was not to live near BU but to live in an area where I could have a life centered around a particular Jewish community.
UC Santa Cruz is a BEAUTIFUL campus. That would be my first choice, but then I like that type of environment.
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