Well-Meaning Advice and Other Methods of Dream-Crushing
By Abigail Zajac, 20, Missouri
Prologue: “This is gonna be like senior year, except funner!” – and other advice from Elle Woods
Society told me that college was for “finding yourself,” or whatever that means. Countless movies promised me that college would include glamorous makeovers, revenge degrees (à la Legally Blonde), and swoon-worthy romances. I was not told how much I would love the work of it: the labor, the research, the reading. How much I would relish Socratic conversations over cups of coffee and linger after lectures to ask just one more question. I was told I would find myself in college: they did not tell me that college would become who I am.
Chapter 1: “Do I dare eat a peach?” – and other advice from T.S. Eliot
Unfortunately, this story does not begin one crisp autumn, when even the leaves seem to fall collegiately. Instead, this story begins one humid, late spring afternoon. The kind that feels like summer, but my skin still looks vampiric from winter’s frost.
I fussed over what to wear, like I did for every meeting I attended, painfully aware that this conversation would change the trajectory, or lack thereof, of my career. I chose the most distinguished professor I knew for my first interview.
He sat as far back in his chair as possible, wearing a baseball cap with his jeans pulled up far too high to invoke the youthful air he was hoping to project. He sat with the posture of someone who was used to thinking more than doing while he explained and re-explained the difference between MAs and MFAs to me. He advised me practically: “You have to be willing to dedicate yourself to this. This is a commitment. Everyone in your life has to be on board with this decision because you will need support.” I took notes dutifully in my purple polka dot notebook where I plan all my biggest projects. Seemingly mid-conversation, he declared “now if you’ll excuse me, I have a game of racquetball to get to,” and left me with a mock salute. I only saw him one more time after that and in that next encounter he recited Chaucer from memory and left me with a wink.
That first meeting left me overwhelmed and daunted. The scholar-verse seemed too vast for me to conquer.
Chapter 2: “You get the best of both worlds” – and other advice from Hannah Montana
I find myself unable to do just one thing, to hold down just one job. I suspect it is because I am so young and so curious. The world seems so immense, and I would hate to make up my mind before seeing everything it has to offer. So far in my life, I have held the following jobs and positions: reporter, babysitter, baker, development associate, waitress, tutor, and visual journalist. None of these jobs lasted for more than a few months, with the exception of tutoring. Either the offer was only a contract, or my employer failed to treat me right. My rotating employment is not abnormal. Millennials and Gen-Zers are the most likely generation to change jobs, according to a Gallup poll. This switch occurs every two to three years, according to Zip Recruiter. While networking, I found that most Millennials view this frequent job changing as a tactic to increase salary and job satisfaction. It is a means to an end, which is to stay afloat in rising financial tides.
While performing in this capitalistic circus, I am still a full-time student. I volunteer, I network, I indulge too much, I dye my hair rainbow colors, I present at conferences, and I fall asleep during class, but most importantly, I research. Late at night, when all other tasks are done, I open up my homemade Notion spreadsheet and dive deep into the world of English PhD programs. It was scary and overwhelming at first. The language these schools use seems purposefully evasive and full of jargon, as though they don’t want people like me to apply. Nevertheless, I persisted, finding and ranking programs, then sending countless emails, of which all but one received responses.
My spreadsheet grew more intricate and filled with information, yet, I grew no more confident that I would get what I wanted from these programs. There has always been this divide in my life: there is work and there is school. School is not work to me. School is a pleasure. My education is a challenge, a place I go to escape, where I am fully capable and confident in myself. These feelings are best summarized by a brief conversation I had with my grandmother. It was Mother’s Day, and I was on the phone with my grandmother after working an eight-hour waitressing shift. She asked me the usual question: “So, how’s school? Are your grades good?” I replied while grabbing my chocolate milkshake from the drive-thru window: “Oh yes, school’s easy, it’s everything else that’s difficult.”
It has never occurred to me or even seemed reasonable to just be a student. I feel the constant need to be doing more, from my hard-won perfectionist streak, my role as a first-generation university student, and my internalized capitalistic values. If school is not work, then I need to be working. I need to be struggling to succeed, and it is a struggle to find a job that supports the rising cost of living, works with a student schedule, and is not inherently abusive and mentally draining. I found spaces that I liked to occupy, analyzed each part of my job, found what brought me satisfaction and what drained me. I learned that I am a writer, researcher, and teacher at heart, that I am a planner, an organizer, a speech-giver, a system-creator, a big picture thinker, that I am a leader. I came to find that having a job wasn’t special. Being employed somewhere wasn’t a magical privilege that made you “an adult.” Jobs are everywhere and most–well, all–of them suck. Some jobs do more good for the world than others, but they are all just a means to an end: money.
This idea is best summarized in a quote from “Work Won’t Love You Back” by Sarah Jaffe: “The idea that the work is provided for love serves to paper over the fact that sometimes workers have needs that cannot or should not be subsumed by those of the people they serve.” This revelation was depressing to me, because I, like every other American, strive to one day find my “dream job.” As an only child and first-generation student, it is my responsibility to make more money in a profession that is more enjoyable than any other member of my family. Only 27% of college students graduate within four years, most taking on an average of $20,000 in debt to gain a bachelor’s degree, according to the Center for First-Generation Student Success. First-generation students who graduate and go on to serve in higher ed are dubbed first-gen faculty. UC Davis’s Center for Education Effectiveness profiled several first-gen faculty members and had them reflect on how their background changed their teaching methods. Each faculty member mentioned that their background helped them connect with students and make their classroom more inclusive.
Chapter 3: “You gotta go your own way” – and other advice from Fleetwood Mac
As a journalist at heart, I go to the experts when I am trying to learn about something. This instinct has led me to several disheartening conversations with various professors and industry professionals. Through these I learned that the world is not kind to ambitious young women, chiefly because the world is threatened by their power. “You don’t want to go to Harvard; that’s where all the nepo-babies are,” said one of my professors while leaning back in his ergonomic office chair. The English building was still quiet, and the sky was a soft gray out his office window. I glanced around his cluttered space, embarrassed and desperate to look at anything but his computer screen as he clicked through the Wiki of job listings for English professors in 2022. There were only 39 listings for generalists.
Besides the tanking job market, I was also told that I was too young to be embarking on this adventure. In the words of one of my favorite professors: “You should really wait. Slow down. You’re too young, too naive. Your brain doesn’t fully develop until 25, so why would you want to waste all the money?” she said, practically yelling at me through the screen. My roommate snored gently in the background, unaware of how my feelings were being hurt. “I’ll think about it,” I told her. (I would not be debating it. My mind was made up.) I proceed to hang up and go buy a new lipstick to make myself feel better.
“Guess who’s got a meeting with the Head of Graduate Admissions at Harvard?” I said, feeling like a little kid again, standing in my father’s office, waiting for him to pay attention to me, to be proud. “What? Harvard, you can’t afford that,” he replied before turning back to his computer and continuing to work on his server migration.
“LOOKING AT YOUR INTEREST, IT SEEMS THAT YOU WOULD BE BETTER SUITED FOR FRENCH THAN COMP. LIT. IT IS, OF COURSE, YOUR DECISION.” The Harvard director of graduate studies emailed me this one afternoon.
Even reflecting on these instances now still hurts my heart. It took me so much courage to approach these people with my dream, and their brisk, dismissive responses took a chunk of my confidence and pride away. Feelings and situations like these are not uncommon for me as an ambitious young woman. In an attempt to counterbalance what the outside world tells me, I keep two quotes from the Roosevelts taped to my car visor. This is so every time I go to look in the mirror, to reflect on myself before going into the world, I am reminded that “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the realization that there is something more important than fear” and that “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I decided not to let the words these people said have power over me, but I still listened. So even though I choose not to incorporate their perspectives into my decision-making, I still have not touched my spreadsheet since the last conversation I had with the Harvard director.
Epilogue: “You have only got to figure to yourselves a girl in a bedroom with a pen in her hand” – and other advice from Virginia Woolf
My college experiences have allowed me to let go of the idea that there is a “right” thing to do after I graduate. They have brought me closer to myself and strengthened my sense of identity. I am still conflicted on where the “right” place to put my talent is, but that is a war I face with myself, an evaluation of my morals and values, not someone else’s. I know what I want, and that is to spend my life teaching, reading, and writing. When I think about that, the “right” thing to do becomes very clear to me.
The best advice I have received came from a professor whom I did not care for at the beginning of the semester. At first, he seemed self-righteous and aloof, almost always walking into class just a few minutes late with his leather briefcase. Now, he is the first teacher I email when I need advice, and one of the most empathetic faculty members I know, usually staying after class to help his students. He told me: “Students often come in asking me ‘Oh what should I do? Where should I go?’ and I tell them, ‘That has to be your decision because you are the only one who is going to have to live your life.’”
Writing this essay was kind of like therapy for me. I wrote it with the intention of better understanding my feelings about the experiences I’ve had in college picking up and putting down various jobs. I want to go into this career with my eyes open and that is why I reached out to these people to get their opinions. I don’t want to come off as ungrateful for the time or advice any of these people gave me. I simply wanted to process how their projections damaged my budding aspirations. I don’t believe any of these people spoke to me with the intention of hurting my feelings, after all, I put “well meaning” in my title.
@abigailzajac
