Grad School Blues

When I made the (rather last-minute) decision in the spring of my junior year of college to apply for an MA in English at the same college I attended for my BA, it felt right. I was excited to get to prove (to myself? to my well-loved professors?) that I wasn't just like every other English major, that this was my thing, my calling in life -- to stay in college forever and keep analyzing literature and writing papers. This was what I was meant to do. No, I wasn't going to be a teacher, like everyone assumed when I said I was an English major; I was meant for bigger things than just that. I was getting my MA, maybe even my PhD, eventually, and I would be a professor. I would go on to be one of the people I spent my college career admiring.

Well, not exactly. Now that I'm actually in grad school I realize how wrong I was about so much. (First and foremost, the idea that teaching was somehow a "smaller" or "lesser" objective for me than being a professor. My mom's a teacher, I come from an extended family of teachers, and I would never presume to be better than a job like that. But for some reason, I had the idea that it wasn't for me. Maybe now it is. Who knows?)

Mostly I was wrong about myself. And that's a really hard thing to try and reconcile -- the student I thought I was with the student I actually am. I was really good at what I was doing in undergrad, but I just feel unfulfilled in grad school. Maybe it's because I'm at a strange in-between, since I'm completing my MA at the same school I attended for undergrad. I'm not doing anything new, but the classes are so different. I'm not meeting any new people, but so many of my old friends have graduated and moved away.

I'm also in a strange place because it's just an MA program, not a PhD or anything. Sometimes it feels like I'm stuck between wanting to go for my PhD, wanting to be surrounded by people who live and breathe literature, and then feeling like an infant student next to fully employed teachers who are getting their MA to enhance the careers they already have. I don't even know what kind of career I want, let alone what's available to me as an option. I feel constantly torn between not feeling good enough and taking myself too seriously. Where's the balance?

Working a GA position also leaves me feeling like there's no time for fun, like I'm spending all my time doing homework, when I know that's not true, because I'm usually so stressed or depressed that I'm lying in bed binge-watching Brooklyn 99 and getting behind on my work, which makes me more stressed.

Luckily we're about 22 days away from winter break, so I know I'll get through these last few stressful weeks of the semester and have nearly a month off to recharge. But I can't help feeling like my insecurities about job hunting led me to pursue a degree I don't really want or need. My program is so short (I'll be done in May) that I know I need to just stick it out, but I've definitely thought about quitting multiple times this year, feeling like grad school just isn't for me.