Surviving Grad School

Ok, the title of this post is a bit hyperbolic. I want to talk about how Christians can not only just survive grad school but also thrive in it. Over the past four years, I've learned what it means to be a grad student, a wife, and a Christian, at varying speeds and levels, depending on the day. Part of that journey has been figuring out what it means to be me, what my identity actually is beyond the I'm-a-really-good-student-please-like-me-because-I'm-smart-please. Said identity is the paradigm I have operated under for the better part of the past decade of my life. I was the "good student," the "mature for her age" kid who the parents liked and the other kids tolerated. I'm sure you can think of a few kids like that from your high school or freshman experience. Remember that girl who sat in the front row and got visibly angry when the conversation wasn't going that way? The one who the teacher liked because she had a way with words and knew how to look properly pensive/thoughtful/worshipful when appropriate? That was me.

So like I said; I've learned a lot over the past few years. Lots of praying, lots of crying after bad situations, or seemingly bad situations. Lots of venting to the poor husband. Lots of God thunking me in the head with insights.

I hope to share these experiences with you because quite frankly, there aren't a lot of Christians in grad school, especially in a Postmodern English department on the West Coast. I h

ave no problem with secular education and can't really see myself teaching at a strictly Christian university or school (a topic for another time). But teaching and working in a department populated mostly with atheists/agnostics makes it hard to find people to share my journey with, mainly because they don't believe in the same underlying world 'logics' that I do. I know I've futilely Googled "Christian" and grad school related terms more than once, unsure of how to handle an personal or academic situation.

I AM NOT trying to do the pity party. I was cured of that with a conversation with a Jewish professor my first year in grad school (future post). I do not believe that the American Christian population is under mass persecution. What I do believe is that it is helpful to see how others operating from your same paradigm approach different situations. This blog is an attempt to hopefully fill that gap for someone questioning the relationship between academia and Christianity, or religion, or God, or general theological ideas.

About me: I do not have a lot of natural confidence. I might have had some at some point, but a stringent upbringing that didn't allow for dissent squashed a lot of that out of my system. Most of the time I can cover up this personal lack - smile and nod, rinse repeat. But there are times where it is a struggle to figure out what exactly it is normal people would do in xyz circumstances.

First response to that: there are no 'normal' people. Everyone is insecure in their own way - part of the fun of being human.

2nd iteration: ok fine, but there still is a level of expected normalcy in any given social situation. How exactly do I get there?

3rdly: How do the above two get completely transmuted within the pressure cooker that is grad school?

I have no definitive answers to the above issues. What I do have are insights, however meager they might seem to others, that have radically transformed the way I view the world and try to act/interact within it.

I hope you enjoy my journey, or that it will be useful to you in a concrete or theoretical way.