22 November: I submitted this for inclusion in an edited collection about grad school. It was accepted, then as things sometimes do, when I emailed the editors to check in was told that the reviewers "went another way" and they'd no longer be including it.
I've sat on in, because I've been busy, and had the book to work on, so it fell to the back burner.
Rather than try and find someplace to place it, because it's rather specific, I've decided to put it here.
About me: I am a 41-year-old
graduate student, in the final revisions of my dissertation. I have a Masters
in English literature, a Masters in Secondary Education: English, and a B.F.A
in technical theatre. I started working at 13-14, after school, weekends, and
summers, but I helped Mom out at her various jobs well before that. I was
raised by a single mom, who while cultured, was always lower working class,
with a high school education, and some, random college classes, usually working
two jobs to make ends meet. I paid for undergrad with student loans, grants, and
work study. After graduating with my undergraduate degree, I first worked in
theatre in North Carolina, Georgia, and New York then as a high school teacher.
When I taught high school in Brooklyn I commuted twice a week, three hours
round trip to Staten Island from Brooklyn, for three years to earn my first
Masters, paid for by New York City Teaching Fellows. I completed my second Masters during summers
off while teaching high school, this time at a rural North Carolina high
school.
I am not exactly sure when I became
aware of the fact that my social class and background was not the same as my
classmates. It was not when I received my Master of Science in Education from
the City University of New York: College of Staten Island. The program was part
of New York City Teaching Fellows/AmeriCorps, and most us were united in our
current situation as New York City schoolteachers more than anything else,
although we came from a variety of backgrounds. While our Masters were paid
for, we were all working full time, and commuting evenings to complete our
coursework. Our current workload, focus, and school placement united us. I
think I was most jarred by the social disparity when I started to work on my
MA. I had inklings my first summer, that my educational background and pedigree
was not just less than, but lacking. My program catered to teachers, renting
space on various campuses in Alaska, New Mexico, Asheville, Oxford, and the
home campus of Vermont. It was a semester of graduate school in six weeks. I
spent three summers in Santa Fe, and then because we were required, one summer
at the home campus. The population was mostly middle and high school teachers,
but these were not the teachers I knew from my time teaching in Brooklyn, or
from teaching in rural North Carolina. Almost all of them had their tuition,
books, and expenses paid for by their schools, which were mostly private. They
attended schools like Phillips Exeter Academy and Deerfield Academy and now
worked there. They seemed insulted when I asked where they were from, and then
did not understand the impact or importance when they answered with the above
academies (I had to look both academies up later). They had gone to Ivy League
schools, or Ivy League adjacent. They drove BMWs and Jettas. Their vacations
involved skiing, travel, passports. I went to a state school. I did not get a
car until I was 21 and it was a bronze Buick Skylark. I had never really been
on vacation. I qualified for work study my first couple of summers, working in
the computer lab, lessening what I had to take out in student loans but that
only worked my first two summers. After that the IRS changed how work study
functioned so instead of getting a flat check of say $5000, I got what was more
like a paycheck with taxes taken out, which was a lot less help and increased
the amount of student loans I had to take out. In fact, I took the summer of
2009 off because I did not receive aid, and was not willing to take out the
whole summer’s tuition in loans.
Those summers were also where I first
remember encountering intellectual snobbery. The professors were amazing, but
this was the big league. They taught at and/or had attended Yale, Princeton,
and Harvard. The students were mostly private school teachers from the
Northeast, and there was a cultural knowledge they had that I lacked. This
knowledge ran the gamut--- from wealthy backgrounds that included ski trips and
European vacations, to having no debt because parents paid for everything, and
never worrying about money, to innately knowing how to navigate graduate school
because of the backgrounds of their parents. These people knew Derrida, Lacan,
Freud, and Foucault, like they were old friends, strange names I did not
recognize, and somehow knew I was stupider for not knowing.
It was not just that they knew
things I did not, it was that there was an implied judgement in the fact that I
did not know. There was also a divide in how they and I worked. The
recommendation, since the program was only a six-week graduate course, was
always to do all the reading before you got there. We generally took two or
three classes a summer, and each course had roughly ten books. So, I always
read them before I got there, because I did not know how to grad school and
they did, so I did what I was told. This meant that my reading was done before
I got there, I had notes about potential paper topics, I made notes for
possible class discussion, things I wanted to say. I arrived ready to work. But
this did not endear me to classmates. I later got the feeling that it did not
endear me to faculty either. It was a communal program, we lived together,
socialized together, ate together, took classes together. When I read X-Men
comics outside where people could see me, there was a judgment. Snotty
comments. Sneers. Not just for the popular culture “trash” I was wasting time
on, but for the lack of busyness. I was supposed to be overwhelmed,
over-worked, and looking busy. I was supposed to be reading higher level works.
Not sitting in the sun reading “fluff.”
I was not just different; I was less
than. This judgement was not just against me but my lack of education, the gaps
in my knowledge, what I did not know led to serious issues. Because we had
moved a lot I often missed key lessons, in math, but also grammar, and writing.
I write like I talk but I always read a lot, so that was also reflected in my
writing. There are gaps though from foundational lessons that I never got. I
took AP English in high school, so I tested out of college English. My first
Masters was in education, so the papers were different. I was unprepared for
the length, and scope, of what my M.A program expected. I liked the program---
one person called it summer camp for book nerds, the idea that I had six weeks
just to read and write, but I did not have the skills many of my peers had, I
lacked the preparation. One professor told me I probably did not belong because
my writing was so atrocious. They told me to buy a writing guide (which I did,
shamefaced and then I did not understand it and felt even stupider for not even
being able to understand the how-to book that was supposed to make me better).
When professors have written passim, or
comma splice, on my papers I have had to look up what those things are before I
could address them. I never asked them, because I had learned early on not to
display my ignorance. In part, the disconnect I felt reflects current debates
in academia. Many programs historically privilege scholarship over teaching, so
many professors while experts in their field do not necessarily know how to
teach their students. This can have huge impacts on struggling, poor, first
generation students who may need help preparing and may not be aware of
resources, expectations, or how to navigate. As a result, I was often made to
feel stupid, less than, and the implication was that I simply was not trying
hard enough.
I only ever had one professor
(unsurprisingly a Rhet/Comp guy, and a different program/institution) who never
made me feel bad about my background, perhaps because he came from a similar
one. I shared, embarrassedly, my thought that I wanted to get a PhD but was
afraid I would not measure up, and told him what other professors had said
about my work, that I had good ideas and was a hard worker but the quality of
my work just did not (read: would not ever) measure up. He said that many writers
benefitted from a good editor and that there was nothing wrong with that. These
experiences have influenced how I in turn deal with student work. While I may
point out that they might want to use a writing tutor, or revise one more time,
I tend to evaluate their ideas, their argument, not evaluate grammar or word
choice unless it affects comprehension. I also can tell the difference between
grammar errors and typos, and give feedback accordingly (I on the other hand
have been called sloppy and a poor scholar when a professor has caught what is
clearly a typo). I try not to comment on their work in a way that makes them
feel stupid, or less than, because I know what It is like to have a professor’s
comment of “I am dumbfounded you’d write this” make me feel like an idiot, an
imposter, a fraud, like I do not belong in grad school. This is not to say that they turn in poor
work or do not work hard. Rather, my experiences allow me to better teach,
serve, and understand them.
Back then, and even now to be
honest, I had no sphere of reference for people whose school was paid for, who
never wanted for anything, who always had a safety net. The closest reference I
had was the couple of months I spent at Wooster School in Connecticut. Mom had
received some money that she used for my education, so I spent little less than
a semester at the Wooster School. I did not understand it---students LIKED
classes. There were sports I had never heard of, like rugby and field hockey.
There were half days on Wednesday for community service. Students worked in the
kitchen, and helped dust the school. Kids took Latin. It was as though I had
gotten a small sliver of a look at what education could look like, what
people’s lives could be, but it was a confusing glimpse as we moved back to
North Carolina at the end of the year and I never again experienced that type
of education. This is not to say I grew up uncultured. When we lived with my grandmother,
the most affluent years of our upbringing, she took us to museums in New York
City, the Met, Rockefeller Center. She taught us to play piano, and eat on
Wedgewood China, and use the right fork. These were like Depression era
holdovers. They were artifacts, remnants from her previous, better, life, as
the wife of an Army chaplain, but they were shadows. We had to wealth to back
any of it up. We lived with my grandmother because Mom could not make it on her
own, it was charity. Mom worked full time and we did not see her often. My
sister got most of the cultural lessons, as I was more inclined to play in the
dirt than wear crinoline skirts. I spent
most of my time exploring the 15 acres of land and the neighbor’s 200 that surrounded
us, climbing trees and reading books.
For me, my experiences during my M.A
encapsulate the two main issues I have encountered trying to navigate graduate
school life as someone who identifies most easily as poor trash---the cultural
and economic divides. To me, the lack of cultural capital hurt as much as the
lack of actual capital. Just as I have had to work hard to hide or overcome my
poverty, both past and present, in grad school, I have had to do the same for
all the things I do not know, trying to hide or make up for my lack of
knowledge. I grew up, with the exception of a couple of years of prosperity
provided by a crazy grandmother, poor. My mother was a single mother, raising
two kids on her own, not always successfully. She was smart, but easily bored,
and often changed jobs. She was a secretary, a retail store manager, a
restaurant hostess. She often juggled more than one job. Her job situation
meant many things for us. It meant we moved, often, sometimes to different
states, but just as often around town as she was unable to make rent and we had
to find a new place. Being a latchkey kid meant I had to take the bus home from
school (often an hour ride) which mean after school tutoring, clubs, and sports
were not an option. This impacted scholarships and applications for
undergraduate. It meant Mom had no idea how college worked, so I applied to a
couple, but went to state school because it is what I could afford and it was
close to home. I still remember reporting to campus, and both of us being
confused about how it all worked. Instability was the watchword of my
childhood. Mom did her best, but most things were uncertain growing up. I
remember one Christmas, I guess times were tough, because Mom led us outside to
the garage to get out presents. When I asked why Santa delivered to the garage
instead of leaving our presents under the tree like he normally did, there was
no good answer. I found out later it was a charity group that worked to make
sure kids got Christmas, and that was the easiest way for them to deliver. We
lived in trailers when I was 4 and 5, government housing in D.C freshman year
of high school, my mom, my sister, and I with my godmother and her daughter in
a 2-bedroom apartment. Throughout middle school we moved often, bouncing from
off-season tourist housing October to March, then having to find something
else. We often lived with others, on couches and sharing rooms, when we had
nothing else. When I was little, super little, we lived in a commune house, so
I do not know what I ever thought the way we lived was odd, I think it was
middle school before I realized other people had real homes, permanent homes,
where they lived, their parents had lived. I was on free and reduced lunch
through most of school and I remember some mean lunch ladies during those
years, but I suppose because of how Mom raised us, I did not notice the
economic and cultural differences until they were pointed out to me, and even
then, I do not think they impacted me until deep into grad school. I wanted the
toys, the Cabbage Patch dolls, the computers, I saw other people have, but
other than passing jealousies, I do not remember thinking of it much. If there
was one connecting thread it was that culturally and economically I never fit
anywhere. I was poor, and I had no background, no family roots, no extended
family, no history. I was defined by my lack, there was nothing to ground me or
connect me to anything.
Cultural Divides
When I was finishing my M.A. I had
to take a course in literary theory. I am pretty sure I sat in class during a
discussion on Lacan and said “I do not buy it.” A lot. My marginal notes are
full of incredulity and question marks. In part I think I lacked the language,
the background to grasp the abstractness of it all. In fact, I believe part of
the reason in my PhD work I gravitated towards psychoanalysis, feminism, and
Marxism is because I easily understood, grasped, and could apply these more
concrete approaches. Later, as I sat in classes for my PhD, it was not just the
abstract nature of literary theory that confused me, it was how students in
seminars seemed to use it, or not use it. I would sit in classes and listen to
students, mostly men, go on, and on, about Derrida, Foucault, Hegel, and I
would look around class, at other people’s faces, nodding yes. To me, the entire
talk was indecipherable. Incomprehensible. Literally. I did not understand
anything they were saying. I was confused by this ten, or twenty-minute rant
that, to me at least, seemed pretentious. And unnecessary. It seemed like the
point could have been said more concisely, more clearly, and certainly using
less words. Yet as I sat in more classes, I learned this was not the exception
but the norm and I seemed to be the only one sitting in class who had this
reaction. Everyone else just nodded and agreed. This was just one of the many
clues that I lacked the cultural capital to navigate my program. Not only did I
not get the references, but to me, it seemed like an “Emperor’s New Clothes”
sketch- while others nodded, and clapped, I wanted to yell, “BUT HE DID NOT SAY
ANYTHING!”
In my PhD program in your first
semester you take an intro to the field class. It is meant to introduce you to
graduate work, literary theory, and professionalization. The class differs
wildly depending on who teaches it, and the professor changes every year. I liked
the professor who taught me but I hated the books we read for the most part.
One in particular sticks out, Zadie Smith’s 2005 On Beauty which encapsulated a lot of what I did not get about grad
school. In the novel, a privileged, professor, Howard Belsey, at a made-up,
small, liberal arts college in Wellington, Massachusetts is an art scholar, who
is a despicable human being, but no one seems to mind that. He does not really
teach, or produce scholarship. He is petty, and awful, and elitist. I did not
understand anything about the book. I read it. But I did not get it. I did not
get why I should care about this man, this class, this world. There was nothing
in it I recognized. I certainly did not see myself, as a student, or scholar,
in it. So, I was not sure what I was supposed to get out of it. Was this
supposed to be a role model for me? Was I supposed to aspire to this? My
classmates all seemed to read it as an inside joke, or loved it, gushed about
it in class. But I did not get it. I did not understand the text; I did not
understand the lesson. My professor seemed amused the day we opened discussion
on it and I am pretty sure I remember speaking first and saying I did not get
it, I hated it, and threw it across the room a couple of times. Here was a book
that seemed to encapsulate every inside joke, every cultural reference I had
never understood in grad school. The lesson of On Beauty for me the first year of my PhD program was that there
was a very narrow definition of what a scholar looked like, and I did not even
come close to fitting it.
Another cultural divide I faced in
my PhD program centered around my teaching. I was a high school teacher, first
in Brooklyn (my first week of teaching I watched the Twin Towers fall from our
English lounge), then in rural North Carolina. For me, teaching is core to my
personality. I am very transparent to my students about my upbringing and use
it to inform my teaching. The last couple of years I have taught Shakespeare
online for my university and our population for online classes is very
different than our face to face students. Most work full time, they may be
hours from campus, many have children, or aging parents they care for. They
carry 18-21 credits. Online classes provide them flexibility, but also, many
have a lot of things other than school that they are juggling. It is a
demographic I understand, so I think I serve it better than some. So, I suggest
$5 Dover editions, and point them to online resources. I explain what they can
prioritize if strapped for time and what they cannot. I try to adapt my course
policies, and expectations to understand, to believe, to side with them, and to
help them. I try to teach them the way I wish I had been taught, and that idea,
that concept, has become part a guiding practice for me.
Yet one thing I have been told
repeatedly though in my program (and heard from other scholars and grad
students) is “teaching is not why you are here.” Teaching is characterized as
something Rhet/Comp people do. It is a waste of time for literary scholars. It
gets in the way of “real” scholarship. I have been advised to spend as little
time as possible on it, and not invest in it. This is not a unique position.
Many programs de-emphasize teaching and It is not just described as unimportant
but many scholars see it as just a thing their job requires that gets in the
way of their “real” work. I have lost respect for scholars on Twitter when they
have made fun of their students, make fun of teaching, how stupid their
students are, and their misunderstandings, their failures, their shortcomings.
I have received comments from professors who are scholars but clearly are not
teachers who tell me my work is sloppy, or crap, but they cannot teach me how
to fix it. Like the scholars in On
Beauty, these are not the type of scholars I want to be. I love being a
teacher. I love teaching. I love the idea that I am uniquely qualified, both as
a high school teacher, and someone who grew up poor, to serve my students best.
When I apply for higher ed jobs I will do so with this in mind. I am looking
for places where they value teaching, where the students are diverse, first
generation, where I can make the most difference. These thoughts though, these
beliefs, are not something grad programs generally support. Where I have found
this support though is online, through social media.
Twitter and content specific groups
on Facebook been a great resource for me in navigating grad school and in
figuring out what kind of scholar I do want to be. On social media, I have
found a supportive group always willing to answer questions about navigating
grad school and the maze of an academic profession. In addition, the scholars I
have found, specifically on Twitter, are role models for the type of scholar I
want to be. They are engaged. They care deeply about issues of accessibility,
race, class, and how these issues affect our students. They focus on producing
scholarship and model how we can share our scholarship with all sorts of people
and connect our scholarship to the world around us. They are for the most part
kind, understanding, and supportive. I have found them to be invaluable not
just for validating the type of scholar I want to be, but for filling the gaps
of support I have. A side effect of being the first in your family to go to
college, then grad school, then get your PhD is that no one will understand
what you are doing. In many ways, the working poor work ethic is in direct
opposition to academia. You have to write articles to get a job, but you do not
get paid? You just sit there and think? Understanding the ideas of reading for
work, invisible labor, working all the time but producing little, will come
hard to your family. My stepfather listens to me, but does not understand what
I do. My godmother empathizes with my job hunt, but does not get how it works.
They want to help, but they are no better equipped to navigate academia than I
am. So, my Twitter network has become invaluable for answering my questions,
providing role models, and showing me how it can be done.
Economic and Practical Issues
One of the
reasons my Twitter support network has been so important to me is because many
of them come from similar backgrounds or understand how the economics of my
situation impact me because of their teaching experiences. I wish I had known
about this support network when applying to graduate schools. Those students I did
not understand in my Master’s program had cultural capital about more than just
English literature. They knew how graduate school worked. They understood that
you should choose schools by reputation, by the scholars you would work with.
The ways that these choices will impact your studies and the success of your
job hunt. They were invited, courted, to attend programs and could afford to go
visit to try the schools on to see if they fit. I applied to four schools.
Because that was how many applications I could afford. I chose them because
they had either medieval programs I had heard of (University of Washington,
Duke) or an intersection of popular culture and Milton (Middle Tennessee State
University) or a medieval program in a state I knew I liked to live in with a
professor I knew from MA program who I thought would be a mentor for me (the
University of New Mexico). I was rejected from the first two, accepted to the
third but without funding, and waitlisted from the last. Ultimately I was moved
off the waitlist and offered funding at the University of New Mexico so that is
where I went. For me it was not a decision based on the scholars in the
department (although there are good people here) or the reputation of the
university (the name is not going to get me job). I came here because it meant
a TA ship, which meant that while I would have to take out student loans, they
would only have to supplement my life, not cover all of it.
This practicality is familiar to
many students, but not to faculty. In fact, not only will many of your
professors not understand these situations, they will not want to hear about
them. They will not be able to grasp how not having any money will affect how
you finish coursework, or what texts you can and cannot purchase. There was a
recent conversation on Twitter about how most department’s approach
reimbursement for funding assumes the student has the money to pay up front.
This is not an isolated instance. Most department and university policies seem
to assume you have parental, or spousal support to cover what your TAship does not.
Working to supplement your TAship will be looked down on.[2]
There will be judgement. You should choose your scholarship. You should privilege
your academic life over your actual life. If you do not, faculty, peers,
mentors, will not understand. They may not understand the practicalities of
student debt. They may not understand having to live just off your TAship (mine
was just $14,400 a year). They may not understand that you cannot afford $200
in books for each class. I remember speaking with a faculty member about
wanting to finish as soon as possible because I could not afford to take on
another year of student loan debt. They literally did not understand. As I
neared finishing and started to apply for high school teaching jobs to pay the
bills as a safety net against the higher ed job market, my classmates and
faculty seemed by confused by my decision. I know others who have worked full
time, or picked up second jobs while dissertating to lessen debt, or pay rent,
or live a slightly better life than we did growing up. I did it because I do
not have a husband or rich mom and dad who can cover my bills while I try and
perhaps fail at getting a college job. I have no safety net other than what I
devise. This decision though has widened the gap between me and my university,
my program. I am disconnected from that community. I cannot attend talks, take
advantage of on-campus events during the day. Scheduling office visits are now
more complicated.
Despite all of this, I do believe
that people who have grown up poor, who are first generation, or other
marginalized groups who lack resources, pedigree, or background, can do well in
graduate school. I have never been the smartest person in any of my classes or
seminars. I do not have an academic pedigree. I did not come from a social
network that would open doors for me. I only have what I have worked for, what
I have built. I have worked all the time, because that is the only way I know.
I work seven days a week, because I do not know how to do anything else. I work
until there is no more work to do. I am not glamorizing working all the time.
Scholars like Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega have written about the “glorification of
academic busyness” and I agree with the issues he and others have brought up
with it. It is often presented as a way for scholars to lord their
accomplishments over others, it represents the privilege so many scholars and
professors have that they CAN work all the time, not worrying about paying
bills or money. It also creates a false narrative that ignores the invisible
forces of anxiety, depression, exhaustion, lack of a support network, and the
impact these things have on what we produce, how we produce, and when we can
produce it. Throughout my PhD program I have suffered from anxiety, depression,
and have had issues with suicide. These are not issues addressed openly or
enough in grad school. In part this goes back to culture. Neither the
privileged culture or grad school nor the culture of poor, or working poor, are
good about acknowledging these issues. They are also not good about providing
support for them, and these are all areas where grad programs can improve. For
good or ill though, I worked through these issues. I am not saying I have done
it in the best way, or the healthiest way, or the easiest way. I have cried on
the floor of my home office. I have slammed my fists into walls. I have made
rash decisions. But I have always, eventually, picked myself up and continued
to work. I do not ignore those of us who have not been able to. I do not
discount those of us whose anxiety, or depression, or suicidal thoughts and
actions, prove to be too much. These are issues I can only acknowledge, while
also acknowledging they are beyond what I talk through here. I, perhaps
cowardly, leave that work to others. I can only speak for myself. And for me, a
lifetime of working my ass off, with little reward, with no help, with no
choice, a lifetime of these work habits has given me the tools to keep going.
My mother juggling two jobs, raising two kids on her own, through awful
situations, a culture that looked down on her, is a role model I cling to, even
though she died before I started my PhD. A lifetime of internalizing I was not
smart enough, good enough, to do what others did, this lower-class chip on my
shoulder, this desire to prove people wrong? These have all served me well. I
often think of, and share with others, the movie quote that encapsulates my PhD
experience. In the movie Gattaca, Ethan
Hawke’s character, who was born defective, less than, when explaining to his
genetically blessed brother HOW he gamed the system, HOW he got so far simply
says this; “You wanna know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton. I never
saved anything for the swim back.”
For me, not acknowledging my
limitations, not accepting the pigeon holes other people wanted to put me in,
not giving up, has served me well. I have taken advantage of social media platforms
like Twitter and Blogger to brand myself, share my work, network with scholars I
would never know otherwise. This has enabled me to make connections, get
invitations to conferences, write book chapters, get published. I have blogged
about my dissertation process, my ideas about teaching, how to bridge high
school and college divides, and social activism. These are all tools that can
help even the playing field. Two of my chapters in edited collections are
because other people had to drop out and the editor needed quick turnarounds
and posted these needs on social media. Like most of the working poor, working
class people I know, we are used to working all the time, and juggling more
than one job, so I have found it is easier for us to juggle the many hats of
grad school. We can be students, and teachers, and scholars. We can budget our
time. We can meet deadlines. We can handle the workload. These lifetime habits
serve us well and can become advantages. They are advantages as students,
because while I may not be the smartest person in the room, I have a
well-visited blog, senior scholars in my field know me and my work, and I have
(as of May 2017) three articles published in good journals and three chapters
in edited collections, not including a wide range of editorials, short essays,
and reviews that demonstrate and showcase my interests in folklore, popular
culture, and Marxist and feminist studies. My work output does not just show
the range of my interest but shows that I can produce. As a future faculty
member, I am a good bet. I consistently produce. Also, as more and more higher
education institutions move away from just hiring scholars, as they realize
they need TEACHER-scholars, I think my experiences, and my approaches will be a
selling point.
But lifetime habits can also hurt
us. A lifetime of poor eating habits, poor workout habits, no support for
anxiety or depression, not being able to talk about these things, or know how
to ask for help can prove to be a great disadvantage. These things will impact
how we live, learn, and teach and we may not have to tools to navigate. Grad
school can amplify the effects of poverty, depression, trauma, so I think It is
important to try and relearn how to eat right, work out, take a break. As I
said, in many ways academic life is in direct opposition to a working poor
life, so I have found it hard to relearn and learn these things. But I also
believe that they are vital to doing well. Especially if you do not have a face
to face support network, you have to learn how to be your own.
There are a lot of issues associated
with grad schooling with poor that I have not addressed here. LGBTQ+ students,
people of color, people with disabilities, international students, single
parents, these are all stories that need to be told. There need to be more
resources, more help, more mentors for underserved or unserved populations.
Faculty and mentors need to not just be informed about how the class,
backgrounds, and struggles of their students affect them but they also need to
actively work to improve conditions, bridge the gap. Books like this, websites
like my wiki “How to Prep for Grad School While Poor” (https://howtoprepforgradschoolwhilepoor.wikispaces.com/ which has since moved to https://howtogradschoolwhilepoor.blogspot.com/), podcasts like Graduates Anonymous
(https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/graduates-anonymous/id1224791435), and You Tube Channels like
Academic Vigilante (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUDR0egPaLM), as well as current sociological
work on poverty, trauma, and ACEs (Adverse Childhood Events), all seek to
inform a general populace and provide a sense of community to students. But we
need to do more. Many of these cultural and economic divides are institutional
and therefore changes to it have to be made by people in power, senior
scholars, not poor graduate students. I continue to be encouraged by the number
of graduate students who are not waiting for tenure track jobs, stability, and
institutional power before they speak out, and actively work to improve things.
There are a lot of us who blog about our class, our poverty, and how it informs
our social activism and teaching. We tweet stories to expose and inform people
about the parts of the academy senior scholars do not know about and we carry
this knowledge, and these commitments to helping others into our scholarship
and teaching. If and when those of us who are current graduate students can get
into the academy, the ivory tower, I have high hopes that we can work for real,
widespread, institutional change. Until then, I hope that students will read
resources like this and realize that it can be done and they are not alone. I
hope too that faculty members will read this and realize the situations their
students are in and work with them to help them overcome the cultural and
economic issues they face and help them succeed.
[2]
Please be sure to check your TA
contract before seeking outside employment. Your contract may forbid, or limit,
seeking work outside of your TAship. It may have income caps. Some universities
may have a sort-of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy as long as it does not
interfere with your university responsibilities. However, you need to know this
before you accept an offer. If you’re planning on supplementing your income,
and find out you cannot, it will have a big impact.
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