Brown (trying to try to be a Dr.)

I remember when I first found out it was possible to be a "Dr." without cutting people open. I was in elementary school, and it was report card season.

As kids we couldn't open the report card, only examine the envelope home to our parents. We would compare envelopes, trying to analyze each others family situation based upon the address label. Some kids had two envelopes, one for each divorced parent. Some kids had "Mr. and Mrs. _(last name)_" and some kids had "Dr. and Mrs. _(last name)_," which meant their dad was a doctor and they lived in a big house. It was an unrefined, vaguely cruel exercise in elementary school social comparison. My envelope was unique and therefore brag-worthy: "Dr. and Mr."

Mom's Graduation

Cue the first conversation about the "Ph.D." with my mother, a clinical psychologist, who (happy mother's day!) got her Ph.D. with 3 children and many more obstacles than I will likely face. Cue the first time, of many, I would count how old I would be when I was fully "educated." How many years until I graduated from middle school, then high school, then college, then got my PhD (I think 4 was the number in my head, although that number seems laughable now). Eventually, that age turned into just "old" and the idea of being "educated" faded away. That's when I knew I was ready.

Not What Anthropology Is, Unfortunately

Trying to try to be a Dr. was not always inevitable. In elementary school, I didn't know about "years off" and South America and the academic job market. Or that people who write books aren't usually famous, or wealthy, and sometimes people with Ph.D.s turn into crusty professors with nothing interesting to say in real life, or no sense of what real life is.

I didn't know it would take me 13 applications over 2 years to receive one single acceptance to graduate school. Why don't more people say that? That tons of capable people in the world want to be (fully funded) anthropologists and getting into a program is this absurd gauntlet (for being fully funded)? I did interviews with faculty members who spent the whole hour trying to talk me out of their university, or the Ph.D. in general. I went to one interview weekend which was so ridiculous in its applicant one-up-manship, it felt like a jargon-filled reality television show. Feature characters included the former pro baseball player (anthropology of sports) and the already practicing M.D.  (anthropology of medicine, apparently 6 years of postgraduate work was not enough).

So here it is: In September, I begin my Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at Brown University. It's a small cohort (8) and we all got the big prize (full funding). Providence looks like a nice place to spend several years, and the Anthro building is on the corner of Hope Street and Power Street (which I can only take as a positive sign). I'll be back in Ecuador during the summers for my research. 

In case you read this post a year ago, I haven't forgotten about you, aimless 20-somethings. I'll finish with the same Samuel Beckett quote: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."