The Transformative Aspects of Grad School

When I was a young teenager, I sometimes watched a local Presbyterian church service on television. Occasionally the pastor would be out sick for one reason or another and might be replaced by a seminary student; these students would always be timid, wooden, and so attentive to detail that I felt uncomfortable listening to them speak. (Ex: One seminarian, discussing "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as a religious metaphor, felt the need to tell the congregation three or four times that he did *not* believe God was actually in the Ark.) I'd always blamed this on the natural discomfort involved in public speaking and let it go at that.

As I ran into more seminarians over the years, though, I noticed that most of them are very, very uncomfortable discussing religion. Are the seminaries really so vicious, I asked myself, that these people feel the need to defend themselves at all times?

But it's not just the seminarians who are nervous discussing their area of focus; almost every graduate student I've ever met has been uncomfortable discussing his or her area of focus over a coffee table. A guy studying for an M.A. in history, focusing on the civil rights movement, might freeze when I want to discuss one of Dr. King's speeches. A guy studying philosophy at the graduate level might be *horribly* anal-retentive on matters of formal logic, to the point of spending two paragraphs retracking the faulty syllogism involved in the reason he gave for having a bologna sandwich for lunch. I have yet to meet a graduate student in physics who really likes to sit back and chat about the possibility of a unified field theory.

Meanwhile, I'm a lucky guy -- I earned my B.A. pretty much by examination and my M.A. pretty much by correspondence, so I have never felt intimidated in discussing my own fields of specialization. Want to chat about Harold Bloom's concept of J as a subversive political figure? I think it's hogwash, just like I said in my thesis. Want to chat about whether "The West Wing" would be classified by Nietzsche as Apollonian or Dionysian? Well, I don't really have an answer for you, but I'm always willing to take a few guesses. And when I did take three residential graduate-level classes, I was by far the most comfortable guy in the room -- so much so that I think my professors found me very irritating sometimes.

So I always figured there was something different, attitude-wise, about distance learning at the graduate level. Traditional students are supposed to be *cautious*.
They're supposed to be worried about whether what they say might reach the ears of a professor and result in a bad grade, or end up published somewhere, or whatever.

Or maybe it's just good old-fashioned caution: nobody jumps down my throat when I'm wrong, so distance learning gives me the freedom to fail on my own terms.

I've gotten sick of MSNBC.com over the past few months ("HOLIDAY LOGJAM: Interfaith Couples Try to Cope" was probably the last straw; every interfaith couple *I* know considered the Christmas/Hanukkah overlap a happy thing), so I've switched to the much more mature and readable Christian Science Monitor, which recently put this wonderful article online:
http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/cybercoverage/thaller/p-022001thallergrad.html

And suddenly it all makes a litle more sense to me: graduate school is the arena and, like any good gladiator, you get a little better every time you survive a fight.

Some of this clearly does carry over to any good distance learning program, of course; now that I've finished the CSUDH M.A. program in humanities, I can say with total confidence that I really do feel like a champion discussing interdisciplinary themes in the humanities. I may not have the right answers, but I've learned to formulate the right questions.

But nobody jumped down my throat, and for the most part I've only had to defend myself in writing -- a medium where I can carefully measure every word I say. There was no oral defense and there has been no student research community to challenge my every move. It's all me, in what Steve has described as "the lone wolf experience": books, a blank sheet of paper, Tom Head, and God. Using my own mind as a battlefield for abstract ideas convinces me that, just like the Bhagavad-Gita says, I'm capable of being my own best friend and my own worst enemy (sometimes at the same time). And armed with books to process, assignments to write, and a mountain of arguments to sort through, I've come out of the experience with a sharper tongue and a more calloused brain.

Now, as I prepare to do the same thing on a doctoral level, I find myself wondering: as an independent student, am I really missing anything important? I pulled A's in two of the three residential graduate courses I took, so I would imagine that, academically speaking, the answer is probably no. But transformatively speaking, does distance learning create a stranger Master of Arts or Doctor of Philosophy? Does independent study take rugged individualism a little too far, or just far enough?

Well, I have my guesses -- but now I'd like to see yours. Thoughts?


Peace,

Tom

 

Are you really alone? There are professors, peers, family, friends, acquaintances, the guy on the bus (or wherever), all of whom get a dose of what's on your mind all the time.

A beauty of distance education is not the absence of a classroom, but the limitless expansion of its walls. That's what traditionalists don't understand. They imagine students sitting all alone in the library or at home, missing out on all that human contact found in a traditional classroom. Well, I've spent quite a bit of time in that gloried classroom, both as a student (a little undergrad work between exams for my own Regents degree and almost the entire National MBA) and as a professor (Webster University and San Diego State). I'm not convinced you're missing a whole lot. As John and Mariah quote, "A college is a machine that transfers information from the notes of the professor to the notes of the student without it passing through the mind of either." (Traditional) That about sums up the experience in many--but by no means all--classroom situations.

But the independent learner, faced with less convenient communicative media, seems to be much more "in the loop." Maybe its the challenge, maybe she/he is more able. But maybe the lack of the casual, provided-for environment of the classroom causes this student to try all that harder develop a distanced community of ideas.

Sure, isolation hurts some distance students, but I think it is a self-inflicted wound.

"Rugged isolationism"? Or "Person-Centered Graduate Education"? (The title of Roy Fairfield's book on independent-study doctoral programs of the late 1970's, a delightful and insightful read for those serious about understanding nontraditional higher education's roots.)

I know exactly zero people from my bachelor's and master's programs. But I have developed lifetime friendships and associations from my studies at Union and CEU. A community of scholars, indeed. And it knows no walls. (Get it?)

Rich

 

Note to Bill Huffman:

See!? I should've left you alone withoumaking the criteria/criterion wisecrack! (And no, as one person recently wrote in an e-mail regarding another poster, this wasn't fueled by Babelfish and alcohol, though it sure looks like it!)

Rich

 

"withoumaking"? I'm melting, melting....

The Wicked Witch of the Rich

 

Hi Gang,

I think some people are afraid to speak on a topic for which they are considered an expert because the risk is there for discredit. In my opinion, those who talk freely about their subject do so because they love their subject while those who remain guarded may care more the status their credentials afford them. Give me the wacky physicist who wants to discuss time travel over the cautious type anyday!

As the holder of an MBA, I am unafraid to discuss business issues because I am one of those wacky guys who loves to talk business. In fact, I had a stimulating conversation with my boss tonight about the automobile dealer industry. However, I've met many business types who are guarded out of fear that they might reveal themselves to be less of an 'expert' than thought. Sad really.

Your seminary students seem to fit this description.

Ron

 

Rich, don't take it all so seriously especially me. I don't take me serious so others shouldn't either.

 

Not entirely related to your point--when I entered my Ph.D. program someone gave me some great advise, that I will now, sage like, pass on to you:

You should have 3 versions of your dissertation research always practiced for coffee table, conference etc. talk. A 1 minute version, a 5 minute version and a 10 minute version.

It's amazing useful to be able to answer the question "what are you working on in grad school". It's also useful for networking when at a conference you unexpectedly find yourself in a one-on-one conversation with a luminary in your field (notwithstanding the fact that the luminary in my field and I spent the entire time talking about flying planes)

-dave