Lessons of Grad School #1

Judging by the general progression of other post-ac blogs, it's about time to start my first serial post. So, I'm going to begin a series of lessons and advice that I've learned the hard way in grad school. Things I wished I'd known before I started. Maybe it'll help someone else not make the same mistakes - they can make all new ones instead!

Lesson #1 - Do Your Research

You say you want to go to grad school because you like to do research? Well prove it! There are three crucial subjects to research before even applying to any graduate program: the field, the department, and grad life in THAT department. I'll admit to knowing none of these things before I started and that may be the biggest mistake I made in grad school. So let's look at these big 3 in a little more depth.

The Field

I'm not talking subject matter or content here. You should already have some of that or you shouldn't be looking at that field in the first place. The research I'm talking about is job-related. What jobs are out there for people in this field with the degree you want? What do those jobs pay? What is the progression to those jobs?

These questions may seem base if you're buying into the whole "noble life of the mind." Two points to keep in mind: 1) the ability to feed oneself post-degree is vitally important and 2) the "life of the mind" is an out-moded concept with no bearing in current academic reality, if it ever existed al all. So, let's talk about what would be awaiting you at the end of grad school.

• You can be a college professor. If this is your dream, I suggest you do two things. First, shadow a professor for a day or two or ask them to candidly tell you about what their life is really like and what they needed to do to get there. And two, look up the stats on how many people in that field go into grad school, how many actually graduate, how many jobs are offered each year, and the liklihood of getting one of those jobs. I'll give you a headstart, 50% or less get jobs as tenured faculty - in the social sciences and humanities it's less.


• You can get a job outside academia. If this is your goal, check and see if you need a master's, doctorate, or professional degree to do that job. If you don't, do NOT take on the debt of grad school. Very few people get funded the whole way these days. If a grad degree is that important to you, do a non-traditional one and pay for it as you go. It then becomes an expensive hobby but you'll have a life on the outside, an identity not tied to your studies, and likely be generally happier and healthier for it.

A special note on salaries: You should never take out more loans than what your salary would be your first year on the job. So, if you discover the job you want pays $45k/year starting, that is your LOAN CAP. Once you hit that number, NO MORE LOANS!

Having some idea where you're going ahead of time can save you a LOT of grief down the road. If the answers you get to these questions do not inspire you to go to grad school, don't despair. If you just want to read more deeply on a subject you love, all you need is a library card. They're cheap (or free!) and you have the freedom to read up on whatever you want. No one can say that about grad school!

The Department

Once you've decided to continue on your grad school quest, you need to pick a department for your studies. There are lots of departments out there with grad programs in whatever field you want to study. So, how do you decide? Here are some questions to ask of every department:

• Do they have people specializing in what you want to study? If you want to study ways to increase crop yields and a department only specializes in zoology and microbiology, you may want to look elsewhere. Find people whose research interests you and check out their departments.


• Does the department have funding for their students and for how long? Grad student debt ranges from astronomical to absurd to soul-crushing. If a department cannot fund all of its incoming grad students RUN! That's no place you want to rack up debt. Ideally, you want a department that will fund you to finish but, at the very least, you need one that will fund you to ABD (All But Dissertation). What type of funding is also good to know but we'll get to that.


• How does the department rank? Academia is NOT a meritocracy. Where you graduate from matters. If you want to be a college professor, you really need to aim for a top 5 department. To the rest of the world, Ivy league looks better than state schools which look better than regionals (give or take whether an alumni of your school is on the hiring committee). Yes, there's a hierarchy. No, it's not fair. But who told you life was fair? Whoever it was, I assure you, they lied. Find them and smack them upside the head with a fish. You'll feel better.

Applying to grad school takes time and money. Narrowing down your list of departments to those that will benefit you the most helps. Such research can also help you get a better grasp of the politics of your chosen field - very important information to have. And if you don't get into one of your top picks, try to avoid settling. Spending 10 years and tens of thousands of dollars to get a degree that no one respects won't help you much in the end. Of course, if your goal is just to get some letters after your name, then by all means choose the cheapest, most convenient, accredited option you can stand and try to have a life and a bit of fun while you're there.

Life in the Department

Now that you've narrowed down the department options, go visit those places. Don't just talk to professors when you're there. Talk to the grad students, old and new ones, away from the profs. Go to lunch or happy hour with them. Get the dirt. You're better off learning it now rather than when you've tied yourself to that department for any length of time. Some important information to try to learn:

• What's it like to work with the professors in the department? At some point you'll have to work with other profs in the department and it helps to know what they're like. This also tends to lead to people dishing about the politics in that department. Do some profs just not get along? Are some not allowed to be in the same room together? These may be signs of a snake pit. You really want to try to avoid those. In a similar vein, do the grad students get along? Do there seem to be factions? Are you shepherded away from some grad students? These are also signs of snake pit behavior. Watch out for fangs.


• What is the funding like in the department? Is it more TAs or RAs? Do they take a lot of time? Some TAs and RAs don't take time and you get paid for doing very little. Others will have so much work that you'll be filing grievances with your grad union right and left, if you have a grad union there. You should ask about that too. Does the department guarantee funding for any specific length of time? Do they deliver on that guarantee? My department claims they fund everyone for 4 years but I've only received funding for last summer - 8 years into my program. The rest of my funding I've had to find on my own.


• What is it like to work with your potential advisor? I cannot stress this one enough. You're initially signing on to work with this person for nearly a decade. You better learn something about that life before you apply. Is s/he reasonable both in their requests of your labor and their advice? Does s/he provide a lot of opportunities for research? With funding? Is s/he a decent human being? Ethical? You may not want to ask some of these questions outright, unless you either are that comfortable with the grad students or you get the feeling they're warranted.
  
  There are two types of danger signs when talking with grad students that should set your hair on end and your fight running in the opposite direction: 1) If grad students either damn their professor(s) with faint praise or they are clearly hiding something or hedging what they're saying (very deliberate word choice is a clue). 2) They tell you outright s/he is evil, despotic, or otherwise unreasonable. If grad students have reached the point of #2, they are so fed up with their advisor's dictates that they are willing to risk you babbling something incriminatory should you happen to see that advisor again. This is a bad sign. You cannot change an advisor. They are no fixer-uppers. These behaviors are a sign of abusive relationships. Take head.

So, here's the beginning of things I really wished I had known about grad school ahead of time. I'm not saying people shouldn't go to grad school - only that you should know what you're getting into if you choose to do so. Despite my love of living a wild and unpredictable life, it does on occasion pay to look before you leap.

A Week in the Dip

I was going to start a series of posts about things I've learned in grad school but I've postponed it temporarily. It's been a rough week and I need to vent.

Transitioning careers involves a lot of emotional ups and downs. It's sort of a series of manic-depressive cycles moving from "yes, I can do this and look at all the things I could do" to "I have no experience in anything of value and don't stand a chance outside academia." This week has been mostly a depressive dip for a variety of reasons.

Indecision

I have no idea what I want to do at this point. I've been looking into possible fields that may interest me. There's always an initial rush of "yes, I can do this and it'll be great," followed quickly by "But I wouldn't even know where to start." I do have some experience in doing all sorts of things but none of it in a publicly available format. I know it's not an insurmountable problem but it is disheartening at first.

The larger problem is one of fear and paralysis. I know lots of folks on the post-ac blogosphere suggest checking all the options quickly, deciding, and sticking with it. Here's the problem. That's what I did when it came to grad school and here I am now. I don't want a repeat of how that worked out. Though I don't regret it and, all things considered, it could've been worse, I was lucky and don't want to rely on luck quite so much this time. It does make me a little gun shy this time around.

You need courage to change careers. You need it to cold call and email folks for informational interviews. You need it to start at the bottom and work your way back up. You need courage to decide to change careers. So, I know I have it. I'm just not feeling it right now. Not curled up in a corner, rocking and babbling to myself just yet but it's been a rough week.

Trolling the Job Ads

I started cruising the want ads up on LinkedIn. I wanted to see what jobs were out there and what qualifications they were looking for. Originally, I wanted to see what they were looking for and what words were used to help with a basic resume. The result was the I realized I didn't have a lot of desirable qualifications for some of the fields I was interested in.

Again, not an insurmountable problem. I have time yet. I'm good where I'm at until next summer. I could get some of these qualifications in that time. It's just one of those moments when you realize all the things you should've been doing while in grad school.

For the record, this exercise does validate all that advice other post-acs have offered about choosing a path and sticking with it. Though there is a lot of overlap, each field uses some specialized vocabulary and emphasizes different things. By choosing at least a general direction will help getting those basic resumes up and running.

Meeting with the Advisor

Had a impromptu meeting with the advisor this week. I told him I had decided to leave academia. He does try to be supportive but there were several lines reminiscent of Postacademic in NYC's post about leaving academia or not having children. Advisor's primary one was "…but you'd be such a good professor." Thanks to Postacademic's post, I nearly burst out laughing mid-meeting.

He also had another argument he kept trying to raise. I'm planning to move to the same city as my significant other. He's been my port in this storm - a Safe Haven - particularly since he has changed careers many times and has multiple advanced degrees. Advisor kept pointing out how many relationships fail and that I shouldn't hitch my wagons to one horse. Here's the problem with this assumption: SH has a more mobile occupation than any I might pick and would follow me to where I got a job. SH is hitching his wagon to mine, not the other way around. So this also made me laugh.

The downside to this otherwise amusing conversation was that Advisor kept trying to convince me to stick it out in academia, or try again next year. Check any post-acs blog on adjuncts to see the danger here (try Recent Ph.D.'s or JC's). I did feel a bit guilty about not giving the job market a serious go. And he did try to convince me that there were better departments than the one I'm in. I believe him on this one. It just doesn't matter. The thought of being an academic makes me depressed. I think it has to do with the lack of freedom. I'll rant about that later.

Happy Hour with Other Grad Students

The final depressing round this week was going to happy hour with Advisor and some of the other grad students. Currently, my advisor could possibly graduate five people this academic year. So, there are a lot of people talking about jobs right now. The deadlines for several postings are coming up. The really odd part is that several of the students are putting a lot of time and aggravation into these applications while saying, with total confidence, that they won't get any of the jobs. So I ask why are they applying then and always get a variation of "Because that's what I'm supposed to do," in response. Try explaining the insanity and futility of this approach to an academic. It's like trying to convince a creationist of evolution during a commercial break...using only twitter posts.

I've told a few of the grad students that I'm leaving academia. The responses have been varied from "I've been thinking that too!" to "Why?!" Not a bad range, all things considered. However, I've only told one grad student about some of the fields I'm looking into. The result was less than encouraging. The implication has been that to do anything other than some form of academia is a waste of my time, talent, and life.

A waste of MY time, talent, and life.

This is where my annoyance and depression gets angry. For starters, it's MY time, MY talent, and MY life. Mine. If I want to squander it flipping burgers at McDonald's on the nightshift, that's my f*$&% prerogative. Second, none of these folks knows anything about my life, hopes, or plans. They assume my dream life is their dream life. I assure you, this is not the case. So, if you don't know what I want, how can you assume my choice to leave academia is a waste of anything? This leads to my third and perhaps greatest issue.

There is an implication, an implicit little demon, in most questions directed toward post-academics. It is particularly aggravating when coming from academics. Some people have the gaul to say it explicitly. Again, I advocate smacking such people with a fish, preferably a well-spoiled one.

The implication is that by leaving academia, by pursuing some less noble occupation than the professoriate, you are depriving your field of your talents and discoveries. By not staying, teaching, researching, the field will never be able to benefit from your insights and this will, somehow, stunt the achievements of humankind. To this I say: BULLSH^%! The field bumbled along before I came along and it will continue to bumble its way to stagnation without requiring any assistance from me.

This implication should be grouped with all those objections that suggest you are devaluing your degree/department/university and everyone in it by leaving academia. This class of objections also includes those people who need you to stay in academia to validate their choice to do so. All these objections play on the group mentality and altruism by trying to shame or guilt you into staying in academia. Again: BULLSH^%!

You can contribute far more to humanity by leaving academia than by toiling for years in the bowels of the Ivory Tower, writing arcane manuscripts no one is ever going to read. By demonstrating a use for your degree outside academia, you actually increase it's value. If you have decent marketers in your department, your post-academic success may even increase your old department's/university's prestige and value. You really want to contribute to society and all those prof's who helped you out along the way? Then get a life and be happy. You don't give a damn about those folks any more and they didn't help you all? Fine. Get a life, be happy, and don't tell them about it. There is no greater revenge than success - except possibly convincing others to join you!

In summary, this week has not been my best. I still have no idea where I'm going. I am, however, sick of people telling me I'd be better off just staying put and being miserable. And this is only the beginning. I'm going to go find a rather odiferous fish now. I anticipate some serious fish slapping down the road.

A Call to Subversion

Last week I stopped in to see my advisor. It's how he verifies that we are still alive and "working" on our dissertations rather than running off to become cat herders in the Himalayas. Someone mentioned such a fictitious job in a Versatile Ph.D. post and I thought that it might actually be good career prep for anyone going into academic administration. Anyway, I stopped in to verify that I was, in fact, not dead yet.

He seemed a bit testy that day. We used to be friends, before he became an Advisor with a capital "A." The past gives me a good view on his moods. So, I left with a "hi" and sympathetic smile for the frazzled grad students sharing his office suite and wandered down to one of the labs to see who I could distract there.

In one of the labs was the subject of this particular post. She was doing some digital errands rather than running stats for her dissertation proposal. We started chatting. Clearly, she was not above procrastination. We got around to the subject of my leaving academia. I say it whenever I'm not afeared of losing my head just so I can get used to it.

This grad student suddenly looked around the room very quickly. Upon verifying that no other grad student was within hearing range, she turned back to me. In a low whisper, very conspiratorially, she said that she's been thinking of leaving academia too. She doesn't want to make all the sacrifices necessary to be a professor. She said this in a whisper, not out of shame, but out of fear. She was worried that if word got out, the snakes would slither out of the department pit and swallow her whole, anaconda-style.

I did the only reasonable thing for a person in my position, I told her what little I knew. I told her of a place I had heard of, outside academia. It had jobs, that paid living wages, with benefits. A place where you could have a life outside work. A place where you were not alone and isolated in a cutthroat world of competition, of unnecessary cutthroat competition. I told her of the good folks in the digital world who left breadcrumbs and glowing billboards along the road out. Of the career counselors who can show the way and all those who were on the other side, cheering us on.

I don't know what she did. I haven't seen her since. Hopefully, she went looking for other paths beyond the faculty-sanctioned ones. Whether she takes one or not, no harm can come from knowing of their existence. If I find out, I'll let you know.

The whole exchange got me thinking: is this the way it has to be? I know there are articles out there. Blogs galore. An entire site has been created just to support the networking of Ph.D.'s who wish to leave academia. And yet, so few grad students know they have options. I didn't and I've been here for going on 9 years. I know no one in the post-academic sphere wants to keep these options a secret. Fairly certain in fact that if they could afford to do so, these options and resources would be posted on billboards all around every university in the country. And yet, so few know.

I don't think the problem is the universities. The career center at mine goes out of its way to get word to the grad students. I'm blaming this problem on entrenched traditional views and the all powerful koolaid. I picture it as a glowing, radioactive lime green punch with rehydrated pineapple slices in it, if you're curious. I think someone should spike it.

So, is this how word must spread? Through whispers in empty labs? In parking lots? Running between meetings/classes/office hours? Do you think it's whispered over partitions in libraries' grad study rooms? Do you think people anonymously place career fair fliers in grad student mailboxes? I hope so.

I have read posts from people who hope to change the system from within. Who, upon realizing just how broken the system was, refused to run from it. I wish them the best of luck. But such change will not endure long, will not be possible, until the realities of academic life and post-academic options can be discussed openly. Until they can be talked about out loud, loudly, in public, without faculty dismissing, denying, or deriding them. Until they can be written about, in black and white, with the author's real name attached. When the author of such statements need no longer fear for their tenure, or their degree. It cannot be only a few brave souls either. It must be a majority willing to acknowledge that academia is not a utopia, that there are other options out there for Ph.D.'s and hold these options in equal esteem with professorships. Then change, true long-term change, will stand a chance.

So this is my call to subversion: whisper to each other when you must. Talk, shout, raise billboards when you can. Write it. Get the word out when you're able. And maybe, some day, all grad students will know they have options - and grad school may no longer engender such despair. And please, someone, spike the punch!

Reflexes

I like words. I had forgotten how much I like words. They can communicate multiple things simultaneously. They can communicate information: where things are, what they were doing (or not doing), why they were doing (or not doing) it. Words can also communicate how the author feels about what and why those things were doing whatever it was they were doing or how the reader should feel about them. Words can communicate the author's general mental or emotional state. Words can communicate whole currents of meaning...all while describing something as simple as what a person has on their coffee table. As I continue on this journey, I find myself paying more and more attention to people's words - and what they say between them.

The value of words came up when someone posted this on Facebook. James Pennebacker has a new book out (The Secret Life of Pronouns: What our words say about us) about all the meanings of the words we don't notice. I haven't read this yet but it's on my wish list. It got me thinking about a different FB post a friend had put on my wall last week.

This friend is not aware that I plan to leave academia. Given the general political climate of my department and the fact that I haven't defended yet, I'm selective about letting the word out on this plan. The posting didn't particularly bother me. I'm glad they thought it would be a good job for me, so much so that they took the time to post a link to it and encouraged me to apply. It's a job at a prestigious museum in my field. I'm kind of honored they think I have the chops to get it.

What bothered me was my response to this job posting. I looked up the job posting. I read it carefully. And then, in something weirdly akin to a reflex action, part of my brain began thinking about how I should adjust my CV for the job. I thought about the people I knew at that institution that could put a good word in for me. And then the logical side of my brain and the self-preservation part of my brain both stood up and slapped that original part of my brain, simultaneously. Imagine an intellectual 3 stooges moment.


Why was this simultaneous brain-slapping occurring? Let me clarify a few things about this job. It required using research from a part of my academic field that I consider to be the most boring, the most snooze-inspiring, the most stab-me-in-the-eyes-so-I-don't-have-to-read-this-any-more. It was in a city I really don't care for. In a museum where politics can be disturbingly close to those in (the rest of) academia - I've done research there before. I could almost hear my soul screaming "NOOOOOO!" And yet, my reflex was to apply for this.

I'm fairly certain this is akin to what Post Academic and other post-academics have felt when someone offers them yet another adjunct position. It may not be academia in the strictest sense but it would be acceptable to my faculty. An acceptable post-Ph.D. job. I could get some more research in. Get some articles published. Move on to a VAP or maybe even a TT job. Even as I type this I can hear parts of my brain yelling "Don't drink the kool-aid!" They do it in unison. Kind of makes it seem like some sort of intervention meeting in my head. It's always good when your soul and your instincts can make you feel the love.

So, I read the job ad again. This time, I listened to my reaction, to the words my brain used in my reaction. They were grey words. Not silver. Not gunmetal. Grey words, like a rainy day at the end of winter when all the snow is turning into overdriven slush. It was not hopeful. I don't want a slushy life.

I had to remind myself why I'm leaving. I'm slowly turning it into a mantra of sorts. Next, I think of how my partner would feel moving there (he's not a fan) and where I would walk my dog (no idea honestly, very few parks there). Finally, I imagine the life I want - even though I still don't know what field I want to work in. But every time I imagine this life, work stays at work. I like that idea. This may become my ritual during the next year while I finish my dissertation and transition out of academia, an "actionable step" if you read motivational books. Hopefully soon, this will no longer be my reflex to such job offers and I can expend my energy less in mental damage-control and more on moving forward.

Diving for Icebergs

Icebergs have always freaked me out. You can only 10% of an iceberg above the surface. The rest is beneath the surface and you can only tell what's there either by diving into frigid water...or running into it a la the Titanic. The same principle applies to most of human society. You really only see 10% of what's going on. The other 90% takes a bit of diving. Unless, of course, you prefer the collision method in which case, I suggest you stock up on life boats.


The first step, according to pretty much every book, blog, and website about career transition, is to identify why you want to change careers. Using a variety of metaphors and anecdotes, many strongly urge diving below the surface to see the rest of the iceberg - before you run into it. What are the real reasons for wanting to change careers? The big ones? The small ones? Do they matter? So, let me tell you about my iceberg.

As I said in my first post, I decided I didn't want to be a professor because I had seen how a professor lives I wanted something else. That's the 10%. Here's the rest:

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action. -Frank Herbert

1. I want a different life. Many faculty are often accused of having only one goal, one measure of success for a Ph.D.: a tenure-track faculty job. I thought the same thing long before I ever met college faculty. The faculty are not to blame. It's the kool-aid. Many of the newer faculty haven't yet succumbed to the kool-aid. They will at least admit that there are few jobs, you have to work like a dog to get them and to keep them, and getting a job is not entirely the result of merit. Does that count as progress on the system?

As I mentioned in my first post, my advisor told me honestly about the job market early on. I thought that I still wanted to be a professor, so off I went. Several years down the road, I realized what all was needed to succeed as a professor, a good one. You need to be able to come up with original research that will be funded by grant agencies, preferably ones with lots of money. Your research must be published, published, published. This research should preferably lead to projects for lots of grad students whom you're mentoring to become professors like you. It's helpful if you're also a good, engaging teacher but that's not essential. You also need to sit on committees: university committees, department committees, student committees. You need to be active in your field, including sitting on committees there too. You should also be chairing sections in conferences. All this and you should be doing outreach with the community too. You must be willing to make your work your life.

As a result, a work-life balance, particularly in the first few years is highly unlikely. Hopefully, you like your job. As much as I like my research, and as much as I enjoy teaching, I'm not willing to make the sacrifices needed to be a professor. I want a life to call my own. I want to spend time with my significant other and my dog. I want hobbies. I want to see my family. I respect those who choose to be professors, but I am not one of them. I want a different life.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. -Buddha

2. I want to control my destiny. The academic job market is an interesting place. Many claim it is based solely on meritocracy. This is a lie. If it were true, you can hire someone based solely on paperwork and that doesn't work in any field. A meritocracy is good in theory; however, human psychology renders it an unattainable utopia...or a sure road to a dystopia depending on one's viewpoint and grasp of history.

On the academic job market, positions are listed for various places around the country. There are not many. Your best chance at a job requires you to apply to any and all you may have a chance at. Limiting yourself to some desired geographic area(s) will severely limit your options. So you don't get much of a say in where you live.

The academic job market is also a weirdly passive place. You send out your applications. These usually entail 2-3 page cover letters, long CVs detailing your entire grad school and post-doc life, a teaching philosophy, potential syllabi, etc. And then you wait. There's little to no follow-up. You just wait. If the department is polite, they'll may send you a really nice rejection letter, or any rejection letter. Usually you get nothing. If you're lucky, you'll get an interview that lasts 3 days where you have to be on and functioning for nearly the whole 72 hours. I've always been a bit disturbed that the highest compliment that can be paid to a job search committee is that its process is humane.

I wanted more control than this. I wanted to choose where I live. I want to know that my success or failure is my own doing. It should never be placed in the hands of others who may never meet me, may never speak to me, may judge me, my worth, and my potential based on little more than paperwork and their perception of my department and faculty. In the academic job market, my future could potentially be tied to strangers' perceptions of other people. I cannot live that way. I have to know that my path is decided by me. Not by the geography of any given year's job market. Not by granting agencies. Not by the reviews of an ever more apathetic student body. By me. Only me. I know that the environment one lives in, professionally, personally, etc. is not entirely under one's control. However, that is only the raw material you work with, not who your are. My success or failure should be based on my will, my desire, and my effort. I need to control my destiny.

The first quality that is needed is audacity. -Winston Churchill

3. I need hope. The last few years have been rough. I've come to accept that I've been battling depression...and losing. Having been depressed before, I recognized the signs but couldn't find the source. As the possibilities of finding a life outside of academia began to emerge, my depression lessened. As a scientist, this evidence led me to conclude that trying to force myself into an academic life was causing my depression. Somewhere in my mind, my heart, I must have known that the contortions needed to get a job in academia would cost me too much. My personality doesn't subordinate itself to others' desires particularly well.

The beginning of this journey has already taught me much. It showed me how much I gave up to survive the last 9 years. I used to be willful and wild. I could feel myself losing this, diminishing, in order to survive. But this is not surviving. You must live life with your whole heart. You cannot live a half life. You cannot lock part of yourself away. Never let anyone tell you that you are not good enough as you are. That you are too much. Too strong. If that means you must chew through the leash and knock over the fence to be free. Do it. Try not to set the barn on fire but if that's your only option - let it burn.

So, I have decided to return to myself. I will not be the same person I was. Grad school has changed me. But I still remember the better parts of me. I'm going back to get them - and to find a new path. I no longer wake up dreading each day. I've stopped thinking about my more self-destructive tendencies. I have hope again. I didn't know that I had lost that. I didn't know how much I needed it. I need hope and I've found it in the sheer possibilities outside of academia.


It's not going to be easy. Change never is. But it will be fun. A new adventure. A chance at a new life. One I can be proud of. One I can live with. As me. How cool is that? Stay tuned. This is going to be one wacky trip up the rabbit hole!

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy [or gal] who'll decide where to go. - Dr. Seuss