precariat65

Great thread. There is absolutely nothing more infuriating than working your ass off on application after application, going through the existential trauma that is writing an average of ten personal statements, receiving more than one acceptance, agonizing over the choices, and being met with various degrees of indifference from those around you. Here are a few of the worst reactions (and I do not just mean reactions toward the news, but also, variously, toward the decision-making process, and the general situation or combination of choices): -Blank-faced, cold, "oh hey, congrats." -"OK..." -"Great... so what's the problem?" -"I've never heard of that. You should go with <insert name of ivy league/famous school>. What's there to think about?" -"What's the big deal? I'm not surprised you got in." -"Sorry I keep tuning out, I'm distracted, I was thinking about my love interest whom I met at work which I started right after finishing undergrad while you were having mental breakdowns about PhD programs, and which is providing me with income while you continue to pay for applications. What were you saying?" .... "OK so they are all programs you like, and an education is an education, and funding is a factor, so just go to the school giving you the best package. What is there to think about." -Being introduced to people like so: "This is my friend XYZ - she's going to <insert name of prestigious school> in the fall!!" upon deciding on said prestigious school. but being treated with apathy/no special introductions when I was still hung up on going to the less prestigious but more attractive option before. -My mentor being super excited (like me) about the former option (the non-prestigious but more exciting one) but then treating me like I am politically problematic upon coming to my senses and switching programs due to financial circumstances (among other last-minute realizations/factors arising). -In general, all the ignorant elitist assholes in the world who treated me like a pity case/nutjob or otherwise just treated me with total apathy/ blank faces when I was choosing school A (non-prestigious) and then instantly switched to grinning at me and being super celebratory when I switched decision to school B (prestigious). The commodification, itemization and valorization of your future vs. genuine concern for your wellbeing and the fulfillment of your ambitions at a program you love. Sorry. I think I am still smarting from the behavior of certain people close to me. This was a very emotionally draining process and very few people really understood what I was going through. In fact, apart from my mother and my closest academic mentor (who now treats me like an untrustworthy problem child, though that could also be because shortly after making my decision, I quit my part-time job as their research assistant, a job I was barely doing in the first place because I was so consumed with grad school anxiety for months). Really no one else understands or wants to understand how huge this decision is. Somehow choosing a husband after undergrad is still taken very seriously - perhaps even religiously - by most urban societies, but choosing a PhD program is not taken quite so seriously. Does this annoy anyone else as much as it annoys me? I guess it doesn't quite 'annoy' me in any objective way (I understand why, for most people, PhD choices are not terribly intelligible from a certain perspective) - but I suppose even I can surprise myself with how hurt I become when friends I expect to offer their shoulders for me to cry on, will do so only tentatively, not really knowing or particularly caring about what this decision signifies. As the above-quoted friend said, "an education is an education" - the fact that we are talking about two or more substantively different programs at substantively different schools, making substantively different offers, in substantively different departments for work with substantively different professors - coupled with the facts of relocation and medium and long term commitments, immersions.... none of these things seem to make much of an impression on these people, no matter how well you think they know you, or how closely they appear to have listened to you over the last few years. And when you spend so much of your time listening carefully and respectfully to your friend go on and on about more than one love interest and you sincerely attempt to brainstorm with her about strategy, it's like - woah. OK I'll leave it at that. Sigh....

Columbia GSAS emails should be sent out next week.