Vacillation

[waytooold]

I am a definite outlier here, a midcareer applicant who has run a successful business for many years looking to make a huge leap into academia. Because of this, an acceptance by *nameless dream school* would be a life changing event and really allow me to contribute to my field, whereas acceptances by *nameless four other but decent schools* also present good opportunities. Being accepted would involve leaving behind a very reputable and successful consulting practice, the best relationship I have ever had, at least for a time, my beautiful condo, a fairly comfortable lifestyle (I pull in pretty decent money) and a community of friends, but give me the opportunity to pursue my scholarly dreams and reshape my life.

My application and stats are so nontraditional and age discrimination is so rampant that I continuously tell myself to brace for zero acceptances, but as an accomplished consultant with an 800 V and a 6.0 writing (quant, not-so-much) as well as a 4.0 MA from some years ago, I figure someone will think I offer something. My point? I am as much afraid of being accepted and taking the leap as being discouraged and probably giving up the dream of academia via five rejections.

Does anyone find themselves vacillating in this way? Is anyone else looking at similar sacrifices? If not, thanks for reading. If so, let's share experiences.

[LifeIsGood]

I'm with ya. I own a business as well and would be giving up a fairly comfortable existence and clear career path. I'm getting an MA full-time while I let my employees run the place for a while. In addition, I have a husband and three kids that I'd be uprooting from their friends, work, and schools. I want to move on to the PhD and I love my field, but I often think I'm shooting myself in the foot. I could probably work part-time for the rest of my life and make plenty of money doing what I do now, so why do I want to mess that up by moving into a field where I'll start out making less money and will certainly have to work a lot harder? It seems like a completely irrational decision. The thing that makes me move ahead is that I don't love my current work. I can do it, and do it well, but I don't love it. I want to be doing something that I love, even if it's more difficult.

On edit: In organizational behavior, they'll love your non-traditional background. I've done a lot of professional work around that field (as a vendor to it, not a practitioner of it), and I don't think any of my clients had gotten their PhDs before their 40s or 50s.

Edited January 19, 2010 by LifeIsGood

[johndiligent]

I'm just worried about getting in. I don't have anything to leave behind, really. I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in academia almost seven years ago. It's been a long and difficult road since four and a half years ago I sustained a serious head injury that left me with the cognitive functioning of a six-year old. I had to re-learn almost everything over again, but I've never actually changed my mind about what I want to do for a living.

If I'm accepted, then it's the next step in my life. If I'm not accepted, then I face putting off my life for yet another year and doing the whole damned thing over again. And again. And again.

[starfish]

When I went into M.A. programs, I was in kind of the same boat. I made a nice salary, lived in a beautiful place and was very settled in my life. But settled, for me, didn't mean I was happy. I actually hated my job and I was pretty convinced that pursuing my academic goals was the best way for me to to feel happy and successful in a professional capacity. Still, it was scary to move 7000 miles and give up the paycheck and make new friends and learn how to function as a student instead of a manager.

But I did, and I was right--I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. I miss some things about my old life, but those are the ephemeral, nostalgic things that I think one is bound to miss in a big life change--I miss the weather, I miss the friends that I now only see on facebook, etc. I don't miss my old job, or my old lifestyle, or my old intellectual life (which was practically non-existent).

Anyway, now I'm applying for Ph.D. programs and I'll be as happy as one can be if I get accepted anywhere. Academia is definitely the right place for me to be, and I'm just glad I figured that out before I spent more years doing something that wasn't satisfying to me.

[waytooold]

I'm with ya. I own a business as well and would be giving up a fairly comfortable existence and clear career path. I'm getting an MA full-time while I let my employees run the place for a while. In addition, I have a husband and three kids that I'd be uprooting from their friends, work, and schools. I want to move on to the PhD and I love my field, but I often think I'm shooting myself in the foot. I could probably work part-time for the rest of my life and make plenty of money doing what I do now, so why do I want to mess that up by moving into a field where I'll start out making less money and will certainly have to work a lot harder? It seems like a completely irrational decision. The thing that makes me move ahead is that I don't love my current work. I can do it, and do it well, but I don't love it. I want to be doing something that I love, even if it's more difficult.

On edit: In organizational behavior, they'll love your non-traditional background. I've done a lot of professional work around that field (as a vendor to it, not a practitioner of it), and I don't think any of my clients had gotten their PhDs before their 40s or 50s.

Wow. It is very helpful to hear from someone else with a similar experience. Will your spouse's job be portable? My partner is a solo practice attorney, so the idea of moving someplace with me for four or five years, and then relocating again is untenable. That means a bit of a lonely road, but also the opportunity to meet pretty intelligent and thoughtful people. The weird thing is that at my age, I'll have to socialize with faculty!

[waytooold]

When I went into M.A. programs, I was in kind of the same boat. I made a nice salary, lived in a beautiful place and was very settled in my life. But settled, for me, didn't mean I was happy. I actually hated my job and I was pretty convinced that pursuing my academic goals was the best way for me to to feel happy and successful in a professional capacity. Still, it was scary to move 7000 miles and give up the paycheck and make new friends and learn how to function as a student instead of a manager.

But I did, and I was right--I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. I miss some things about my old life, but those are the ephemeral, nostalgic things that I think one is bound to miss in a big life change--I miss the weather, I miss the friends that I now only see on facebook, etc. I don't miss my old job, or my old lifestyle, or my old intellectual life (which was practically non-existent).

Anyway, now I'm applying for Ph.D. programs and I'll be as happy as one can be if I get accepted anywhere. Academia is definitely the right place for me to be, and I'm just glad I figured that out before I spent more years doing something that wasn't satisfying to me.

Thank you for that. I have a feeling I'm a bit older than you *hint-- I have two daughters who are college graduates* but you encourage me.

[intextrovert]

The weird thing is that at my age, I'll have to socialize with faculty!

Maybe. But where I currently teach, I have lots of cross-generational friendships. I'm 24, and the people I'm closest to (where I live - my closest friends are still college friends, but are scattered all over the world) are 29, 38, 53, and 62! And we all have a great time together. When you all want to devote your life to the same thing, you can find commonalities and solidarity, even where your life experiences and situations are vastly different.

[waytooold]

Maybe. But where I currently teach, I have lots of cross-generational friendships. I'm 24, and the people I'm closest to (where I live - my closest friends are still college friends, but are scattered all over the world) are 29, 38, 53, and 62! And we all have a great time together. When you all want to devote your life to the same thing, you can find commonalities and solidarity, even where your life experiences and situations are vastly different.

excellent perspective. In fact, my running partners and many of my friends are much younger than I am, so I am probably stereotyping unnecessarily.

[melusine]

I'm actually feeling anxious for the exact opposite reason!

I'm 22, currently live with my boyfriend but my parents happen to live a literal ten minute walk away.. Although my family has moved around quite a bit (or maybe precisely because of that), I'm still very attached to my parents and have never actually lived by myself. I pretty much subtly migrated from their apartment to my (ex-) bf's, then back to theirs, then on to my (now) bf's.

Although I really feel like it's time for me to stand on my own two feet, and that I'd do anything to get a place at any of my top choice institutions, the fact that I'll be simultaneously moving to another country that's completely foreign to me (I've been to the US once for a couple weeks when I was about 12), separating for the first time from my parents that are the only family I have and have had for the last 19 years or so, leaving the few friends I've had time to make here, jeopardizing my relationship with my bf who most likely won't end up anywhere near me if he does get accepted to the schools he applied to, all this is enough to make me feel

Factor in the money (lack thereof) and immigration issues - I'm looking at a complete and definite move away from the only support structure I've ever known, and no chance of visiting each other or anything like that for at least a year or more... Ugh.

...alright, that's enough, time to put the big girl panties back on.

Edited January 19, 2010 by melusine

[LifeIsGood]

Wow. It is very helpful to hear from someone else with a similar experience. Will your spouse's job be portable? My partner is a solo practice attorney, so the idea of moving someplace with me for four or five years, and then relocating again is untenable. That means a bit of a lonely road, but also the opportunity to meet pretty intelligent and thoughtful people. The weird thing is that at my age, I'll have to socialize with faculty!

We actually work together. I think we'll be able to keep him working on the same clients, just remotely. We'd considered selling the business, but it looks like that's not going to work out, so we'll need to hire a manager to replace me. About socializing, I can tell you from my experience in my MA program, that there are plenty of people my age (39) and older. There are 20-somethings too, but they're actually in the minority. I carpool to class with a woman who is in her late 50s and our oldest PhD student is probably mid-60s. I wouldn't worry to much about that. Also, you'll want to make some friends outside of the program to keep things in perspective, so...

excellent perspective. In fact, my running partners and many of my friends are much younger than I am, so I am probably stereotyping unnecessarily.

...you could find a running club. The one I belong to is small, but the people are great and it's helped me find like-minded friends. We're doing a Cake Run this weekend: 6 miles, then birthday cupcakes to celebrate January birthdays. At the two schools I'm applying to, one has a club on campus and one has several in the community, so I'm all set.

[Tam]

Waytooold, I'm 35 and not as far along in the career thing as you are, but my situation feels somewhat similar. I have a high-paying job (high by my standards, not quite six figures) that shows no signs of going anywhere, and I could stay here and accumulate things and have a stable life. I live with my boyfriend, who is in a similar position. And both of us are applying to grad schools - some in the same cities, some not. If I don't get in anywhere, part of me will be relieved to be staying in this situation for at least another year. I'm not sure I will succeed in getting the PhD I'm after and, if I do, I'm not sure what I'll do with it. But sometimes the idea of staying in my job another 5 or 10 years feels really intolerable, and I do love school very much. So...we'll see, I guess.

[katalytik]

I work already and in my 30s also so grad school will be a major drop in terms of income. I hope to get in because I really love the field and it is new.......lots of work to be done in research and policy. I will definitely be disappointed a lot if I don't get into a single place, but I guess I can still try to do research without the PhD and also work at the same time. Do-able I guess, but I think the PhD would give me the training that I need to be that much better at research. Also, the contacts at the universities would be immense.

[red_crayons]

I sympathize with a lot of the folks on this thread. I'm only in my mid-20s, but I've been supporting myself financially since I was 18, through pretty much all of college. I HATE Americana pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps stories, because they perpetuate an annoying American mythology, but that's kind of what I've managed to do in a really short span of time.

Although I don't make THAT much, I already make more than my parents combined. They're relative poor, but our family was much, much poorer when I was growing up - the kind of rural New England poverty where everyone in town is poor and barters with their neighbors for things they need and cuts their own firewood and keeps a garden because they can't afford to buy things like food and heating oil from a store. I have a lot of anxiety about money, and it's helped immensely to feel like I'm putting distance between my current position and the financial situation of my childhood.

Now I live in a nice apartment with a nice boyfriend, and in the last year I've bought some nice-ish furniture and clothes that hide the unfortunate parts of my upbringing. I'm hoping graduate school will give me a boost in terms of the kinds of work I'm qualified for, or open up new academic career paths for me, but there's a very real possibility that it won't. It's much easier to continue working and knowing that I'll move up the ladder every year, but I can't ignore the fact that I'm meant to be learning and coming up with original ideas. It's probably going to stir up a lot of old feelings to take a pay cut AND know I might not get a better job on the other end. Then again, the longer I wait, the harder it will be to take that plunge.

[coyabean]

I am in a somewhat similar predicament but I do NOT vacillate. I sold my condo, quit a job in something that for my background could be considered a "good job" and moved back to my UG school to do this. My family thinks I'm crazy. I come from a cultural group for which a stable, salaried position with benefits is the brass ring. Leaving that for something that doesn't guarantee a job is considered insane, and I understand why they feel that way. In fact, I spent so much of my life hanging onto those "good jobs", in large part, because I'd internalized their fear.

But I was miserable. That misery can be seen in my waistline and my mental health. It was not until I embraced the risk and potential reward of this move that I regained my sense of joie de vivre.

I'll be drinking with the profs, too, I suppose. But there are worse things than being older, wiser and behind your age group. Namely not killing myself when the millionth person at my place of work expresses disdain at my reading material -- philosophy! -- or condescends to me because I don't keep up with pop culture as well as I do advancements in public policy.

If it doesn't happen this year I will consider it a huge loss...and I"ll try again.

Edited January 19, 2010 by coyabean

[jmb04]

Similar situation. I'm giving up a well paying job, property I "own," (i.e. have a mortgage on), and a comfortable lifestyle where I don't care about money at all.

My company offered me the position of President in 3 years when the boss retires, and I turned it down because I had to tell them I was applying to school. I was hoping I wouldn't have to say anything until I (hopefully) got in somewhere, but they were starting to subsidize training for me, and my conscience took over.

My family thinks I'm crazy for doing this. They haven't really pleaded their case about it or emphatically told me their opinions, but I can tell by the looks on their faces when I talk about it. Why pursue a career path that requires 7 years of school to make less than what I make now? Especially during a recession! People are losing their jobs and here I am giving mine up voluntarily to chase a pipe dream.

The answer to that, obviously, is happiness. I may be very good at what I do now, but my heart is not in it. This all sounds foolishly idealistic and I worry that I will regret this decision later, but I can't live my life thinking about possible future regret. This is what I want and I am chasing it. If it doesn't work out, I will try again next year.

[kismetcapitan]

I'll be giving up a six-figure net income every year I'm in school. Sounds insane but I'm maxed out - nowhere to go from here. I'm not talking about money per se, it's just that I can't accept that what I know now will be all I know; I need to learn a LOT more. Furthermore, I've got a lot of ideas that I'd like to apply formal research to. Can't really do that anywhere but a university.

[EelAwaits]

I was so happy to see this topic! I'm 39, so if I get in to school (PhD), I'll be 40 when I start. I left a nice job to move to LA for my master's, and decided to go back to work instead of pursuing a doctorate, which was the path I'd planned to take when I entered school. So for the past few years I've been working, successfully - was promoted to director, am making decent money, etc. On paper, it would seem I couldn't really do any better. But like so many of the previous posters, I'm just not quite in the right place. I don't care enough about what I'm doing, I'm not being challenged in any interesting ways and the company itself, while excellent, is not a good fit for my personal values. My job uses some of my skills, for sure, but not the ones I care about and want to develop! So much to learn, and I'm not learning any of it. I try to get some work done on the side, but - well, I think everyone here knows the limitations of that.

All that said, I do think it's insane to leave this comfort zone, especially in the midst of a terrible recession. But if I get in to school, I'll probably go. It will be a drastic pay cut, and I'm not sure how to live on no money again, especially in LA, but having figured it out once, I'm sure I can do it again.

To the OP: I definitely have days on which I hope (to some extent) that I won't get in, and that the "practical" decision will thus be made for me. But that's not really what I'm hoping for!

Edited January 20, 2010 by bongogirl

[rising_star]

Hey, you know what? Even us young kids drink with faculty! And have friends older than us!

Some of that vacillation will ease when you do the happy dance of your first acceptance, trust me.

[caramel_geek]

I was so happy to see this topic! I'm 39, so if I get in to school (PhD), I'll be 40 when I start. I left a nice job to move to LA for my master's, and decided to go back to work instead of pursuing a doctorate, which was the path I'd planned to take when I entered school. So for the past few years I've been working, successfully - was promoted to director, am making decent money, etc. On paper, it would seem I couldn't really do any better. But like so many of the previous posters, I'm just not quite in the right place. I don't care enough about what I'm doing, I'm not being challenged in any interesting ways and the company itself, while excellent, is not a good fit for my personal values. My job uses some of my skills, for sure, but not the ones I care about and want to develop! So much to learn, and I'm not learning any of it. I try to get some work done on the side, but - well, I think everyone here knows the limitations of that.

All that said, I do think it's insane to leave this comfort zone, especially in the midst of a terrible recession. But if I get in to school, I'll probably go. It will be a drastic pay cut, and I'm not sure how to live on no money again, especially in LA, but having figured it out once, I'm sure I can do it again.

To the OP: I definitely have days on which I hope (to some extent) that I won't get in, and that the "practical" decision will thus be made for me. But that's not really what I'm hoping for!

I'm definitely with you on that one.

I'm turning 25 end of this year. And to some, it might seemed like I'm too young to even have the right to say anything about not enjoying my job. I graduated more than 2 years ago with flying colors for my undergrad degree, and was immediately offered a job at a high profile tech company. I didn't really think about continuing on with grad school until like a little less than a year ago. I have the same exact feeling as bongogirl. While I love all the people that I work with, and they're freaking smart people, I weren't given the space to grow and the resources to be creative (economical reasons, bla bla bla). I'm the type of person that gets all excited about a new challenge, and will not stop until I get to the bottom of it.

With that said, I'm a bit on both sides. While I'm anxious about not getting in, there's another part of me that's a bit worried about leaving my current life behind. I live a pretty comfortable life (nothing near six-figure, but definitely more than what other engineers my age would be earning), and going back to school where I'd be earning near zero is a bit scary. And going back to college would be a really different experience all over again. It's really comforting to know that I"m not the only person feeling like that. At some point, I thought I've gone back to my teens where I don't really know what I want. LOL.

There's one thing I'm sure of, going to grad school is what I really want. And that's the only way to go for me to grow and to do the things that I love.

[Pamphilia]

Nope. Not vacillating at all. I am freaking out way more about not getting in anywhere. Having a stable, well-paying corporate job with excellent benefits is the thing that made me realize I MUST do something else. So I left the country and wandered around the world and lived in a car for a while...and now I am applying to grad school because it is what I am designed to do. Well, I might be designed to drop everything to dance full time, but then I'd probably need to trick some rich fool into being my sugarparent, which I'd prefer to avoid.

The only part of grad school that makes me a little nervous is the idea of being in ONE place for the next 5-10 years. I get itchy feet. Here's to applying for travel grants!

[genotype]

I am definitely much more anxious about not getting in. Getting in would be a life changing experience for me, in a good way. Not getting in would make things much more complicated, because I would have to possibly uproot my family to attend another school next year. I am lucky enough to have a great program close by, and I'm really hoping they'll take me.

[socnerd]

There's pretty little vacillation on my part, mostly I'm convinced I won't get in anywhere (which is why I've applied to 14 places) but sometimes I think maybe they'll take pity on me. Unlike other people here I have nothing to fall back on and will probably end up working as a despondent Wal-Mart greeter if I get rejected everywhere.. I can't imagine leaving a stable, well-paying job to pursue an unstable career. I understand that its something you love and you want to fulfill a higher purpose, and I love my discipline as well, but all I want in life is to be able to support myself and I may never get that chance.. So maybe think twice about the practicality of it all and let some of us who really need it get a chance (said in good humor of course)

[piccgeek]

If I got in, I would not be giving up a wonderful career...but I would be leaving a fully-funded MA halfway through for a nonfunded (writing) MS. Granted, my job opportunities are WAAAAAAY better with the MS, but still....The cost of the MS, if I'm offered NO FUNDING AT ALL, will be equal to all my student debt from 4 years of undergrad. That's just frightening.

So I am DEFINITELY vacillating. One day I want to get in to my program so bad that I can't even concentrate on the reading in front of me, and other days (the days when I look at my bank statements) I secretly hope I am forced to stay put and collect my stipend like a good little composition TA. I really do think science writing is a perfect fit for what I want do with my life...but I still love literature, so it's not like I will hate my life if I *have* to spend another year studying lit.

[waytooold]

It is so interesting to see the range of applicants here, and how the perspective on picking up and changing our lives varies from circumstance to circumstance. For those of us who've been in the professional world, the idea of being a full time student involves entirely different changes from those coming in from undergrad, or near to it. What I love to think about is the mix of it all -- different lives, perspectives and approaches, and it makes me hope that wherever I do go (assuming I do go) I have an awesome cohort to bond with and learn with.

In the meantime, it would be lovely to get a letter or email telling me something, ie hello, we have your application.