100 Reasons Why I Didn’t Go for a PhD
*Welcome to another edition of the #Nerdflow Newsletter!*
Last week, I published a personal essay about grad school. It wasn’t an op-ed arguing for or against the PhD. Mostly, I wanted to be honest about my experience and what I’ve been seeing.
I was a bit nervous to publish this. I’ve rarely shared something so personal. But I’m incredibly grateful for the encouraging messages I’ve received from friends and strangers.
I wouldn’t characterize my master’s program/experience as a scam. But I can’t say the same about other places. Something that’s being talked about more now, and which I didn’t address in my essay, are master’s-level scams. Recently, the Wall Street Journal had a piece (available beyond a paywall here) about students “financially hobbled for life” by an MFA program at Columbia University. Anne Helen Petersen also has a great post about the Master’s of Arts Program in Humanities at the University of Chicago.
It’s evident that some powerful forces out there are preying on people’s intellectual thirst.
What I’m Writing
Essay: Grad School Blues
If I wanted to spend the rest of my life around ideas and books, and around other people who cared about these things, there seemed to be a clear track. I started to follow it until the path no longer made sense to me and I felt more like a moth flying toward a shiny light that would obliterate me.
Read the full essay here.
Writing Life Tip
On turning the editor/critic voice in your head off and on…
“Writing is about hypnotizing yourself into believing in yourself, getting some work done, then unhypnotizing yourself and going over the material coldly.”
-Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
What I’m Reading
The Master’s Trap by Anne Helen Petersen
Mormonism’s Sci-Fi Swan Song by Andrew Kay
Ishmael Reed Gets the Last Laugh by Julian Lucas
Cabeza De Vaca Invents The Road Novel by Ed Simon
Black Women Getting Free Ambre Dromgoole interviews Deesha Philyaw
Book: Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence by Esther Perel
Song I Love
For being in your feels. For the 90s nostalgia.
No Doubt - Don’t Speak