curate: on being a grad student 
The context for this post was a question: my friend asked if i knew of any blog posts that dealt with the question of mental health issues and graduate school. After not really recalling anything, I thought I’d write some thoughts down. Clearly, my perspective is colored by the…
“ …there is so much that graduate school leaves you completely alone to figure out, then punishes you for not having figured out already. “
“…it’s a fact, i think, of doing this kind of work within the various kinds of hierarchies that are endemic to working in the neoliberal academy. what frightens me is seeing former grad student colleagues become colleagues, and to see the ways in which they participate in the consolidation of this kind of stuff, the ways in which institutional pressures lead to microhierarchical attitudes and such. it’s scary, but the regularity with which i’ve seen it happen makes me sense that it’s not something that has to do with people being corrupted by the system or anything. rather, there’s something lawlike in the way it happens, even though people negotiate it in very different ways.”
Oh my gosh yes. I especially saw the latter paragraph in action during the last year, as I transitioned from post-grad-school-joblessness [and all the depression and self-doubt that goes along with that] to a not-my-first-choice-but-i-need-money job in a department at my alma matter, which again engulfed me in all the political bs and social hierarchies that are cemented into the university system, but this time on The Other Side [an agent within the system, rather than a student at the mercy of the system]. I was so so happy to leave after a year, even though I’m now jobless again.
Thank you so much for posting this.
All thanks to lowendtheory. And to you for sharing. I think I’m walking a similar path as yours. It feels bitter now and hopefully will sweeten.
(Source: lowendtheory, via heyosita)
