February 25, 2005
Whither Bound?
Three years ago this month I was (for the first time in my life) almost out of short-term plan. I was running out of high school fast, and had not yet settled on a university to attend. I had long-term goals by the truckload, and the short-term had always kind of tended to work itself out naturally, but . . . Well, I never hear anyone talk about intermediate goals at all, and I've certainly never had any.
In this case, I wound up previewing at LeTourneau that month and decided that it felt right for me . . . Short-term taken care of for four more years. The long-term, as always, roils and writhes as various hopes and dreams bubble temporarily to the surface before sinking back out of sight for the present. My future is like poor man's stew. I toss in whatever comes along, stir well, taste regularly, say grace, and hope it's edible . . . after all, I can't throw it out.
All that to say that by late February of 2002, I knew where I'd be for four years and I knew where I wanted to be 10-15 years after that, and I wasn't in a position to put a lot of useful thought into what fell between.
Well, a lot can happen in three years: Things like changing majors, shifting priorities, making lifelong friends . . . etc. All of these and more have happened to me. And I have emerged from this process still knowing where I'll be for the next year and a half, and still knowing where I want to be within 10-15 years, and still having really no concrete concept of what is going to happen inbetween.
Then Wednesday night came along, and the Webb Historical Society held their monthly meeting. It was presided over by Dr. Coppinger and Dr. Johnson, and they spent an hour talking about graduate school. I had a vague idea about a year ago that I might possibly wish to wander in the general direction of grad school, but what with life happening and all, it kind of got shelved for further consideration at a later date.
Wednesday night reminded me of this, and I did a little online research as time permitted on Thursday. This site was of great help to me in getting a feel for various aspects of the decisions I would need to make. Everything that I saw made me more confident that I simply do not want to stop with a BA.
I also visited Dr. Coppinger (who is my academic advisor) in his office on Thursday afternoon. I told him that I would go to grad school (i.e. that I had the desire), and that I needed and wanted him to convince me that I could (that the means were not beyond my grasp) and that I should (that it would be worth my while with respect to my education and career). To make a long story short . . . he convinced me.
So . . . grad school then. I want my MA. Like, really. I'm leaving off any vague dreams of a PhD for later consideration. Much later. So, as to answering the 6 important questions:
Who? Me, stupid.
Why? The short answer: I have always been at least somewhat a creature of academia. This is where I thrive and excel, and it is where I find the most fulfillment. No matter where exactly I wind up and what I wind up doing, I want the additional education and self-actualization that I can get from pushing even further into my field of choice. I'm not looking at this as a hard push until I slam into a brick wall and can't go any further, but rather as a flapping and soaring to ever greater heights until I finally break through the cloud cover . . . or at least until the clouds aren't blocking as much of the sun as they still do now. Literature and narrative are my passions, and I'm nowhere near satisfied with the extent of my current explorations of them.
How? This question I'll have a hard time answering until I have solid answers to the other three. The oversimplified answer involves lots of elbow grease expended in heretofore unidentified directions. I don't know what sort of work I'll be doing or how it'll fit in, but it needs to make me enough money to be feasible without making it impossible to study and not burn out. Meanwhile, I'm working now . . . I'll be working this summer . . . And I'm setting things up for a nice, light course load during my senior year in the hopes of generating even more money.
When? Within three years . . . and that's all I know for sure. I might drop directly into it after graduating, or I might work for one year (or even two) to pay off a few LeTourneau loans and generate some sort of foundational fund that I can eat off of later. I don't know if I'll need a bit of time to stabilize, find my feet, and look around me right after college or not. And there are one or two other large factors to take into consideration. Hopefully I can bring the extraneous considerations into the fold sooner rather than later, because the ball needs to start rolling down some hill by the end of the summer at the absolute latest.
Where? Ah, yes . . . One mustn't discount the importance of this question, which is partially reliant on the next. At the moment, I haven't found any compelling reason to leave Texas for grad school. My connections, such as they are, are better in this state than in any other, and state residence is a financial factor at many schools. I have a still-growing list of about a dozen schools that I want to investigate with regard to all of the pertinent factors (money, size, faculty, available fields, etc.). So, that'll be going on, then . . .
What? As a double major, I will graduate from LeTourneau with a BA in History/Poli. Sci. and a BA in English. I love history and it is inextricably linked to the study of literature, but I am not at all interested in pursuing the study of history in grad school. Linguistics, too, is right out. Really, what I love to do most is read, write about what I've read, and just generally write about whatever strikes my fancy (fiction, nonfiction, philosophical ramblings . . . doesn't much matter). I could potentially study creative writing, and that might be the route I take, I suppose, but in the end I'll probably just devote myself to the study of literature. Which leaves open the question of what area to specialize in.
This one will be very difficult to answer, but I can pretty much already narrow it down to Britain or America, probably the former (but don't throw out any major European nations just yet). But . . . don't ask me to pick a time period until I absolutely have to. In Britain's case, anything from the late 1500s on is fair game (with a few periods, like Victorian, being more likely than others). In America's case, I'm not overly fond of anything before the Civil War, with the exception of Poe, Melville, etc. . . . but there's just a lot of good stuff. And one more consideration: Film Studies. I would be very sad if I blazed through grad school without even a glancing look at cinema. At least one school that I've looked at in Texas offers a minor in Film Studies (that's criticism, theory, and history). I absolutely adore the study of film, as I discovered in Watson's summer class last year, and I would probably be very nearly as happy there as in literature . . . in some ways more.
So I have a lot to think about, and a lot to talk about, and a lot to pray about. I'd probably pretty much be going nuts right now with trying to get everything straight if it weren't for something particularly helpful I've picked up in the past 21 years. The perfect vision offered by hindsight has, time and again, revealed the hand of God guiding my life in the proper directions . . . preparing me for future experiences and moving me towards areas that don't seem to make much sense at first, but later reveal an intricate and beautifully-planned design that is the perfect fit for where I want and need to be.
I can't tell you how many times I wondered why I might be growing up in Guatemala, and I can't even begin to ennumerate or quantify the difference it has made or the advantages it has provided (in the strangest areas!). When you think about it, it's rather odd too that I wound up at LeTourneau . . . I never would have if I hadn't had the bizarre idea that I wanted to be an engineer despite my love of reading. I still don't know what got into me with that, but . . . here I am because of it. After I visited, I said I'd come if God worked out the finances, and He did and continues to in unexpected ways.
And if I hadn't made such incredible and solid connections with certain people here just in that first semester and a half, I never would have stayed . . . And look at the difference that has made. The english program in particular is really very solid here and the teachers are just what I need. And what of all the people I wouldn't know and lessons I wouldn't have learned if I had bailed? It had to be LeTourneau.
Basically, I count myself extraordinarily lucky in that I can look back even at this young age and see something that makes sense . . . New reasons for why my life has been what it has been reveal themselves every day, but I can see a lot of the reasons already and there's just no way that I couldn't trust God, knowing what I know. I know everything will work the way it's supposed to, and instead of being worried about how exactly life will play out, I feel more like a little kid on Christmas Eve. The future is God's gift and I can't wait to see what's in it.
Posted by Jared at February 25, 2005 06:12 PM | TrackBack