Pretty damn M&P to most, I’d imagine.
What the hell is with everyone calling me stupid lately or effectively telling me I’ll amount to nothing? Increasingly, people are telling me I shouldn’t go to graduate school- hell, a good chunk of them are telling me I shouldn’t even continue in college for my BA degrees**.
People are telling me I should go find a nice man to take care of me. What the hell is that? Seriously?
Since when is wanting to do something with my life other than be someone’s house bitch a bad thing? Why is it if I’m not absolutely perfect, I’m apparently a failure at everything? According to these people, because I’m not striving for mediocrity at a leisurely pace, I’m obviously not doing anything worthwhile with my life.
And you know, I logically know anyone who says any of the above is a complete moron that I ought to pay no attention to, but when I get home from a final that I absolutely bombed and then I get bombarded with this crap for the millionth time, what am I supposed to think? And I know that I’m a stronger person than most- much more so- so it is no wonder so many people drop out of college or just run off and get married to someone they know will take care of them. Here I am, the strong person, genuinely questioning if I’m good enough or if I should even bother. My own father doesn’t believe me to be capable of much more than selling used cars. Used cars.
Since when is wanting to go to school a bad thing? Why is it whenever I try to bring anything into a discussion- particularly a discussion about an area that I specifically study- my opinion gets disregarded because I only got it from books? Since when is an education meaningless?
This is seriously tearing me apart. I know that opinions are like assholes, but you can only hear something so many times before it starts to genuinely eat at you. And maybe if I were just hearing these moronic suggestions from random idiots, but I’m getting called stupid by people I respect and care about.
Have any of you ever experienced something like this? What on earth did you do to not go crazy?
**Note: none of these people are my professors. My professors love me, think I’m a great writer, and think I am more than capable of working towards my PhD. The naysayers are my dad (who honest to Og told me I should use me two BA degrees-- History and Poli Sci-- to sell used cars or work for a big corporation!), my friends, etc.
Wait wait, I was, uh, speaking in uh, er, uh, a special Leprechaun dialect made famous by the guy on the Lucky Charms box. We learned about it all in college. I swear.
I understand your frustration. I’ll never forget my uncle commenting that I’d gone to school for an MRS degree, just because I happened to marry a college boyfriend.
I wanted to curse him out, and tell him what an awful expectation he was setting for his daughter (because I can’t tell that he thinks she’s smart enough to do what she wants to do in college as well). But you can’t well curse out someone who married into the family before you were born at your grandparents house.
I understand that it makes you feel undervalued, unappreciated and deflated. I don’t have a lot of advice for you, just support. I hope you can find it in you to say, “Fuck 'em” and channel that anger into better grades and a better life all around.
As far as I know, everyone doubts their competence once in a while. Just today, I was standing at a pump that would not turn on, with a “duh” look on my face, wondering why on earth the State saw fit to certify me to operate the damn thing. It’s OK; I figured it out, just like you’ll have your doubts and just go on and do what it is you want to do anyway. Thumb your nose at the naysayers, and dance on their graves in your finest shoes when the game comes to an end, and you’ve done more than you dreamed of.
I think you should consider it. If i could find a nice woman to support me, I’d take the stay-at-home dad position over my current school miseries in a second. I’d hang out with the kids, pursue my true interests, never have to worry about deadlines and obligations. Seriously, I am NOT one of those people who always needs to feel challenged. Give me a life of modern comforts and I am happy. Support me in that life and I am ecstatic. Too bad I ain’t pretty enough to be a trophy husband.
There is never anything to lose by getting your education, and certainly a lot to gain. Let the naysayers continue their naysaying, in my experience they do it out of jealousy, so you really should regard it as a compliment. I am getting a humanities degree, which most people seem to think is not even good enough to sell used cars with. I just smile and nod and will remember how useless they thought I was when I’m a lawyer. As long as your profs are giving you good grades, you’re golden. Screw everyone else!
I spent most of Thanksgiving hearing from some various relative of my husband’s hold forth on why I should have children right now this minute, and crank them out til I can’t any more. (I’ve asked for and received official permission to administer the Smack Down at the next family gathering). So, IOW, I feel your pain and commiserate on your frustration.
Yes, yes I have. And you’re not stupid. Or crazy. Well. Probably not, anyway. What you are is Italian. I went through the same thing when I was about your age (22ish, right?) “You’re so pretty! What do you need a degree for with looks like that?” “You don’t want to wait forever to get married do you? Men like marrying young women.” “Why are you bothering with all that schooling? You’re just going to have to quit once you have your kids anyway.” sigh…sound familiar? My nona. Hell, probably yours too. And my aunts. My married way too early friends who had great big rocks on their fingers and expense accounts while I struggled on Ramen and carrot sticks and a Honda. On the other hand, I wasn’t left terrified, no career or prospects, hoping my divorce lawyer could get me a fat alimony check when my marriage didn’t work, either. (No. I’m not gloating. Much.) Stay in school. Do what you want with your life. You’ll be great.
Don’t let anyone talk you out of what you want to do. For some women, what they want to go is get married and have babies - and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, there is a big wide world out there just waiting on you. Don’t let anyone stop you from following your dreams!
I should point out that I’m not considering dropping out or changing course or anything. Why the hell would I let them be right? Why would I subjugate myself to a life that I know I’m better than? No, sir. Not for me.
My point is simply that this whole goddamn situation is getting really old. People are increasingly bringing up the topic of my OP. Like, my dad tells me I shouldn’t go to graduate school because some people are naturally studious and smart, I’m- apparently- not. Random people (usually older) always ask me what I’m studying, I tell them, they ask what I want to do with my degrees, I say go to graduate school, the tell me it is too hard, too expensive, and too much a waste of time.
Cowgirl Jules, so, what you’re saying is that I need to take up drinking. I like how you think.
Scarlett67, I should say that my dad isn’t a bad guy. I mean, fundamentally. I think- whether he’d ever admit it or not- it really bothers him that his daughter might be more intelligent or more successful than he is. He’s also been the smart one in his life. He’s always been the rich one. And as much as he’d like me to succeed because I’m his daughter, I think he’s also afraid of losing his position as top dog. Is he a little bit sexist? Probably. I don’t think it would bother him quite so much if I were a boy. Spidey, I suppose the key difference between the two of us is that I am going to school because this is how I’m going about taking part in what interests me. I love history. I love politics. I’m that person that sits around reading political philosophy and history texts just because. I love learning about wars- everything from the battle plans to the weapons to the individual soldiers. I want to get my PhD in some form of military history or securities studies. To top it off, I friggin’ hate kids. I can’t imagine a more horrible existence for me than one that would involve be trapped in a house with the sole goal of raising some kids. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a dream for many people and that is absolutely wonderful (seriously, thanks mom! :D), but it ain’t for me. Not at all.
The Sausage Creature- that’s the thing. People keep telling me that I am wasting my time and money by pursuing a Master’s or a PhD. As I see it, it’s money I can spend studying what I love for a few more years and money spent that will virtually guarantee that I can find something for work. I try to explain to folks like my dad (with his BA from UCLA in Econ- obtained in the early 1970s) that just having one (or even 2!) BAs nowadays doesn’t really cut it. Especially if someone is wise like myself and decides to study Poli Sci and History.
And I totally feel you on the humanities hate. I am always told that I’ll never ever be able to do anything with a Poli Sci or History degree. Frankly, I don’t care. I really believe if you know your stuff and are good at what you do you will find some work. Plus, so what? I get to study something I love, unlike my friends that are forcing themselves to be premed bio majors, even though the absolutely hate math. All because, ya know, being a premed bio major guarantees you a job somewhere where you’ll make bundles of money!
Maureen, strangely enough, it isn’t my Italian family hassling me. My Italian half is my mom’s half and it is actually my dad who is getting on me. I explained this all out to my mom, who pointed out that my dad’s always been like this. He’s always said I wasn’t good enough- he told me not to be in GATE as a little kid, he told me not to be in the engineering academy, debate, or the tennis team in high school, he told me not to double major in college. I think he’s got good intentions- he doesn’t want me to set myself up for failure, but that doesn’t make it any better. He should see at this point that I’m not failing at what I do- and so should everyone else!
Plus, what’s the point of me setting my sights lower? What good is that going to do? If I decide I’m just going to be a car salesman with my two BA degrees, then someone is going to tell me I should stay at home and take care of kids or clean my husband’s pipe or whatever. Then when I’m doing that, it’s going to be that I’m not popping out enough kids. I hate people, that’s what it is.
SnakesCatLady, you are so right! I’m so happy for my friends that are having families or have an ultimate shorter term goal of that. That’s great for them and they are happy (like my little pregnant friend who still hasn’t had her baby, for those of you keeping track), but it just is not for me.
It’s just so frustrating to be told almost daily that I’m not good enough. A huge part of me wonders if it is because I’m female (especially with the comments about me needing to find a good man), but I know everyone has felt like this one time or another. It just builds up and builds up and then I explode and write a thread in MPSIMS
In the mean time, I’m still trying to find ways to cope with it. I know the comments are just going to get worse as I begin trying to figure out exactly what I want to do.
Why do you have to do either one or the other? I don’t see any reason why you can’t go to school during the day and be some mobster’s moll at night. Haven’t you seen The Fast and the Furious?
Sometimes, like tonight, when I am agonizing over how Althusserian thought is connected to how the texts of Jane Austen interpellated readers as modern individuals who were both capable of self-expression and self-government, I wonder why I didn’t just stay in Korea and marry a nice young man and make my parents happy by popping out grandchildren for them. And then I experience an epiphany where it all comes together and makes sense and opens up thoughts I’d never be able to have, had I decided to take the early route of marriage and kids. But then I wonder, if I had done so, I wouldn’t have known what I was missing anyway. And then I realize I am simply trying to put off finishing this final paper by losing myself in an unproductive train of thought.
Seriously, I don’t regret coming to grad school. So many people asked me why the hell I would chose such an unprofitable path (I’m an English literature major) when I could make plenty of money as an English teacher or an interpreter in Korea and then marry and settle down. But for me, it’s a fair trade. I taught English for a year back home and while I did enjoy making money, I could feel my brain stagnating and it was driving me insane. Life as a poor and stressed-out grad student does make me look back on my money-making days with a certain nostalgia, but I figure whatever you do, you’re giving up something. I’m much happier discussing the complexities of the modern subject over a glass of cheap wine with my peers, than I was droning on irregular verbs in a classroom full of brats to the tune of 30 dollars an hour. Once you’re actually in grad school, it gets easier because you’ll be hanging out with people who have similar convictions. Hang in there.
I’m guessing that you’re enjoying college, and maybe they’re jealous. As for grad school, if you like it, it’s the most fun you’ll ever have with your clothes on. What could be better, after you finish your quals, classes, and orals, then working pretty much full time on a subject you choose and one in which you’ll know more than anyone else in the world about when you finish. And, from my experience, you’ll be happy to achieve your goals ten years from now, and you’ll have nothing to regret.
My dad was like this to my older sister. She could have gone to a better college than she did and go on to grad school, but my old man said we needed the money (although she could have had plenty of scholarships) to send my brother to college. He also made her change majors from one she loved to business (so she could be a secretary).
So my brother screwed around in college for about 10 years. Changed majors several times and never finished and my siter struggled through a college program she hated.
Me as the youngest, I was able to figure out by middle school that my old man was full of crap.
Do what you want to do, tune out those who want to undermine you. In grad school, you’ll start to make friends who have common interests and a lot of the people who were dragging you down will just fade away, or shut the hell up.
If you took the naysayers’ advice, dropped out of school, and found a man who was willing to support you (nice work if you can get it, but there aren’t too many positions available), in 20 or 30 years those same people would very likely start telling you how inadequate you were for not being independent and how precarious your situation was because you didn’t finish college!
Not that you need me to tell you, but stay in school and be proud of what you’re accomplishing.
As a male with two older sisters (growing up in the UK), I had the unusual experience of having parents who thought that “education” – in the sense of liberal ideas and academic degrees – should be for the daughters, who would presumably be raising the next generation and thus need to be expounding on ideas, while the boy (i.e. me) should be content with enough training to get a job to support my own future wife and kids.
In other words, the complete opposite of madmonk28’s dad’s idea that “the male gets the education money”.
So, both of my sisters got sent to a private school, while no money was planned for me to do the same. Fortunately (?), due to my performance on the “eleven plus” exam (and later University admissions exams), I got a free ride from age 11, through private school, and all the way through University to a Master’s degree with no parental financial involvement, and thus my parents’ misandrist educational plan never had a chance to prove itself. When I decided to go on for a Doctorate, both of my parents were against it (“too academic and airy-fairy”!), but it was out of their hands at that point. I took my parents to meet some academics, tour some labs, and visit some pubs, and either the lab tours or the beer / gin got them to see the light. I was 100% self-financing so I didn’t need their blessing, but it was nice to know that they finally had an idea of the sort of things that I was researching.
There probably aren’t any particularly universal morals to be had from my story, DiosaBellissima, but I’ll submit the following:
[ul]
[li]Gender bias in academia isn’t always pro-male and anti-female (although it usually is).[/li][li]To expand on Cowgirl Jules’ “Time for a beer”… not just you, Diosa, but is there any way that you could get your parents and your professors to interact socially? (Do your profs need new cars?) Is there an Open House at the University? [This being the US not the UK, I realize that it’s much harder to arrange acceptable academic / professional socialization with alcohol as a lubricant, which was not a problem in my own case.][/li][li]How close are you to getting the B.A.s? Are you sure that a Ph. D is in fact the right thing to aim for? Would your Dad be happier if he heard that your main aim was a Master’s degree first? [Note: a Ph. D. is not always the best thing to have. In some fields - such as hard science (my own) – it’s a definite plus, but in some fields it can be seen as the refuge of a “scholarly type with her/his head in the clouds”. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, perception counts. On a couple of occasions while applying for specific jobs, I’ve left the Doctorate off the resume entirely. YMMV, of course.][/li][li]Ever thought of leaving Bakersfield? I know you have family / friends / roots there, of course, but your situation – which I suspect is not unique in Bakersfield – might be easier in a more cosmopolitan environment. I’m sure that you’ve spent time in the SF Bay Area, Greater L.A., and San Diego. Are any of those an option? Trust me, where I live (SF Bay Area), the problems outlined in your OP would be the least of your worries. [/li][/ul]
[li]To expand on Cowgirl Jules’ “Time for a beer”… not just you, Diosa, but is there any way that you could get your parents and your professors to interact socially? (Do your profs need new cars?) Is there an Open House at the University? [This being the US not the UK, I realize that it’s much harder to arrange acceptable academic / professional socialization with alcohol as a lubricant, which was not a problem in my own case.] [/li][/quote]
Well, the thing about that is the simple fact that it isn’t my professors that my father is unhappy with, but rather me. And trust me, since primary school my dad has heard nothing but praise about me from oodles of people, but it doesn’t change the fact that he inwardly thinks I’m over my head and bound towards failure.
Frankly, I got more than enough of him walking up to my high school teachers and telling them I just wasn’t smart enough to be in X or Y honors or AP class. The teachers would always correct him and say I was one of the brightest, but he still retained his belief. I’d rather not have the embarrassment of my professors coming up to me (much like many high school teachers did) and saying, “So. . . what’s with your dad? Why doesn’t he believe you’re intelligent enough?” Strangely enough, tons of people also regularly come up to me and say that my dad ALWAYS talks about how smart I am to them. Mmm kay. Makes no sense to me.
[QUOTE=Antonius Block]
[li]How close are you to getting the B.A.s? Are you sure that a Ph. D is in fact the right thing to aim for? Would your Dad be happier if he heard that your main aim was a Master’s degree first? [Note: a Ph. D. is not always the best thing to have. In some fields - such as hard science (my own) – it’s a definite plus, but in some fields it can be seen as the refuge of a “scholarly type with her/his head in the clouds”. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, perception counts. On a couple of occasions while applying for specific jobs, I’ve left the Doctorate off the resume entirely. YMMV, of course.][/li][/quote]
I am presently at the end of the first quarter of my third year at the University. Meaning I’m a junior and have a year of classes left. In fact, even though I’ve got TWO majors, I’ll be graduating at least a quarter or so early. Hell, I’ve got friends with one major that aren’t able to make it out of here in less than 5 years because they have decided to take their sweet time.
Dad’s happiness doesn’t really matter to me, honestly. He’s not going to be paying out a dime for my future education, so he can think whatever he wants. I mean, it still hurts that he thinks I’m incapable, but I’m not going to stifle myself just for him. And no, me getting just a Masters wouldn’t make a difference- he still thinks that is beyond me.
Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what I want to be yet, but I’m 20 years old. At 20, I’m not going to stress myself out over what I want to be doing in another 30 years, but rather I’m going to focus on what I enjoy and try to work those things into a semi decent, but flexible long term plan. As far as a PhD goes, it’s just something I’ve wanted to do since I was a little girl. I could just get an MA, but I’ve been told that there is a ton more funding if I jump right into a PhD program right off the bat. Plus, I really like the idea of becoming a professor- I like to hear myself talk, I like to help people learn, and I like to get people excited about what I’m excited about.
Frankly, there isn’t a whole lot I can do with a BA in Poli Sci and a BA in History. One way or the other, it seems I’d need at least some sort of graduate program (either a Master’s or perhaps law school) to really make anything of my undergraduate degrees. I like studying and I love learning. It just seems awesome to me that I might have the opportunity to spend the next several years learning, traveling, and reading about what I love. It’s way more exciting than the prospect of working at a used car dealership, that’s for sure.
Oh dear, I have no intention of staying here for any type of graduate program. I’m probably one of the few people that actually likes Bakersfield, but I’m fully aware that the opportunity pool for education is more than a smidge limited here.
I was accepted to several large programs out of highschool: Loyola, Georgetown, etc. I decided to stay here because I knew my ultimate goal involved graduate programs and that can be more than a little costly. Georgetown would have run my dad almost $40,000 a year- money he could pay, but I’d feel like a bit of a jerk making him shell that out, even for an education. I figured if I stuck around here and did my undergraduate cheap (less than $5000 a year), I might be able to get some help later on.
That said, I don’t want his help if he’s so bent on the idea that I’m going to fail. I know I probably sound like a stubborn little kid, but I only want the help from people that believe in me. If those people are the program coordinators at the university or maybe a scholarship committee, even better. I’ve accepted that I might need to take out some significant student loans, but I don’t care. I can’t imagine something being more worth going in to debt over than a good education and years spent doing something you love. I mean, obviously the ideal is that I get substantial funding from whatever program I join, but I am a realist too.
So yeah, I fully intend to get the heck out of dodge. I am actually starting my search for programs right around now, as that will give me a year or so before applications are due. Because I want to specialize in the military history area or securities studies, it’s a bit tougher to find programs, but I’m looking. I certainly wouldn’t mind staying somewhere in California (not only do I love the state, but in-state tuition, woo hoo!), but if I find something good elsewhere I’m more than happy to head out. There are even a few really cool looking programs in Europe that are a possibility. I totally see this as an opportunity that I will likely never have again, so I’m really excited. I wish I can say I had support from my dad on the issue, but if he isn’t going to be there for me I’m not going to sweat it.
DiosaBellissima, you must be a singularly strong person, and you have my admiration. I study history too, for the same reason as you (I love it), and I haven’t even combined it with something usefull, like you have. I would never have made it past year one, likely I would never have started, without the support of my family, and understanding from my friend. Keep at it. I can tell that you are better than “them”, whoever they may be.
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