GRADUATE STUDENT: ALL I NEED TO KNOW? PROBABLY NOT

A graduate student goes to graduate school. If they finish, they get an advanced degree. Then the rest of us can look up to them. I do, don’t you?

If not, why not? They deserve admiration for getting a Masters Degree for mastering their major. Still doubting the process?

After reading this you’ll be an education fan, guaranteed. But first a few details:

I’ll start with the GRE, the Graduate Record Exam.

There are six GRE subject tests, each designed for students who have majored in or extensively studied the exam subject.

 According to usnews.com, those subject are biology, math, physics, chemistry, literature in English, and psychology. Is that enough to make your blood run cold? It should be.

I’ve tested in rooms with proctors on guard, and they are vey serious about the job. To a roomful of students plotting their future, the proctor is the person at the gate.

If you make it through, the next stop is the Ivory Tower, or so the rumor goes. That’s where graduate students go to look down on the rest of us. And that’s a wrong assumption.

Student debt is not a rumor, and paying it back on Adjunct Instructor pay? That may take some time.

“Though you can technically call [adjuncts] ‘professor,’ on the roster we’re usually just listed as ‘Staff.’ We may even ask that you not call us ‘Professor’ so that you recognize that the school treats us differently. But many of us have doctorates, so we like to be called ‘Doctor.’ But some of us don’t!”

Though there are many fantastic teachers working as adjuncts, part-time lecturers, and instructors, this position can be difficult and frustrating. In fact, some adjuncts have even regarded the experience as “terrible” because of low pay, little-to-no job security, and a lack of professional resources and workplace benefits.

And you thought an Ivory Tower wasn’t full of angry, bitter, academics smart enough to know better? Now you know.

What I Learned In Kindergarten

After nine months in the oven, then nine months in kindergarten, I was good to go on the education train. Let the learning begin.

It started, stopped, began again, stopped again, then sputtered like a lawn mower full of bad gas until I crossed the stage in Portland’s Memorial Coliseum. There’s a picture of that around here. I wasn’t a graduate student, just a student who graduated.

A big inspiration came between starts and stops. I leveraged my Army Medic training for a job on the wards at the old Portland VA hospital. I lived in SE Portland and took the bus up the hill.

One night after work I was on the bus and recognized one of my high school classmates. We got caught up. They were in medical school at OHSU, a graduate student, and I was a college dropout bedpan jockey. Together we could start our own clinic. After that chance meeting I made a commitment to finish what I started.

Sounds easy doesn’t it, like something a kindergarten teacher might say.

My enthusiasm for education grew more urgent after I married a graduate student and had kids. If I waited long enough I could finish college with them and we could all graduate together? Oh, hell no. My sharp wife started looking at the same mail I’d been ignoring a few years.

“What’s this,” she asked?

“Student loan stuff.”

“And this?”

“Same.”

“From a different school?”

“Uh huh.”

“And this?”

“G.I. Bill stuff. Don’t worry about it.”

“We’re married now and we have a credit score. In the adult world that’s important enough to worry about. We’re going to get this cleaned up.”

“What?”

“We don’t need this hanging around to hold us back. You’re going to graduate from college and pay back these loans.”

When I said “I do” at the alter, I didn’t know how far it went. Now I do.

So, I did.

Non-Traditional College Boy, Not A Graduate Student

The best results of a college education for me was harping on my kids about education, and education reform.

“College is fun,” I said.

“Is that why it took you three decades to graduate? You were having too much fun?” one backtalked.

Since I’m an evolved, sensitive, parent who shares their feelings, I told him to shut up, but in a nice way.

“It wasn’t three decades.”

“From 1970’s to 1990’s? I see why you weren’t a Math major,” the other said.

“As a History major, I understand the importance of specific dates,” I said.

“Like the right time to graduate? However long it took, it was longer than a four year degree takes,” the other said.

“It was longer than you’ll take, because you’re not dropping out, joining the Army, or changing majors every term. You’re not starting on one class catalogue and stretching it out until the next and you have to take classes over. It’s not going to get any cheaper, either. I paid $200 a term for tuition,” I said.

“We were at your graduation,” they said.

“Yes, you were, but not my kindergarten graduation. I was at yours, and I’ll be at your college graduation.”

And we were all there together.

Twice.