20SomethingMom chronicles of a young mom

Applying to Grad School the Mommy WayPosted by admin on September 16th, 2009

Last May, when I graduated from Rollins, I swore I was done with school.  Done for good.  I was so relieved to be finished with two decades of learning on someone else’s terms, and was ready to teach myself a few things.  

A huge part of my academic exhaustion was generated by the then-4-month-old in my arms.  School mattered to me enough to finish my degree, but he mattered more.  

Now, after a little over a year of working from home as a tutor and mom, I feel ready to revisit the things I love most: reading, writing, researching, teaching, and traveling.  I’m in the process of applying to Ph.D. programs in Political Science so that I can ultimately become a professor and enjoy doing all of these things for a long time.  

Given that the most computer time I can manage in a toddler-filled day is a few minutes for an email/facebook check, this process is not going to be particularly quick.  I am anxious and excited about the potential for an exciting grad school experience in an exciting city, but the applications (due in December) are intense.  My biggest frustration with mommyhood used to be that I didn’t have time to finish a book.  Now, it’s that I can’t write more than a sentence at a time, much less a coherent statement of purpose (or a blog post).  And I have four of them to write.  It is practically a grad student hopeful’s sin to put all my eggs in only four baskets, but I simply don’t have time to expand my list and devote myself to each and every application in the way I feel is necessary.

I’m considering this balancing act practice for my days in school, when I’ll have far more work than just a few essays in a few months.  I’ll also have more support.  Contrasted with other careers, academia is relatively family-friendly.  The most appealing thing about it to me is the schedule, or lack thereof.  I would much rather attend or teach a few classes per week and do the rest of my work at whatever hour, and in whatever place, I choose than clock in and slave away on someone else’s terms.  Add in conferences, research abroad, and built-in vacation time, and it’s truly the dream job that I never recognized as such.  There are certainly less-than-fun professorial obligations (think faculty meetings and advising), but the potential rewards far outweigh the annoyances.  

Grad students and professors alike get pretty spectacular benefits and options for childcare, which is one expense I struggle with now.  Subsidized high-quality preschool programs are the norm.  If I were to enroll next fall, my son would be 2 1/2, and more than ready to be introduced to baby academic life.   

Should I fall into that slim group of accepted students, I will dive into the 5-to-7-year commitment with vigor, and have no doubt that I’ll emerge with an even greater understanding of the things I want out of life.  I used to laugh at perpetual students — those who just can’t seem to earn enough degrees to be satisfied.  I understand it, though; school is work that inspires and facilitates lifelong achievement and connections.  People working in universities make the world move, and then they get to stand back and observe it.  What could be better than engaging in intellectual experimentation and sharing it with fellow inquisitives?  

When I submit my applications in a few months to UC-Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, and NYU, my fate will be in the hands of the graduate school directors and political scientists who happen to work for the respective departments this academic year.  It could be just the right handful of people to relate to my research interests and positively evaluate my GPA and GRE scores…or not.  Admission into top graduate programs often seems random, and is most certainly a more difficult game than undergraduate admissions.  Both the best and worst part is that I am now so invested in the idea of earning a doctorate in political theory that I cannot see any other alternative.  This drive is an asset, unless I am forced by mere chance or deliberate decision to find an alternative.  

So, all that’s left to do is read, read, read, write, write, write, and hope, hope, hope.

As difficult as it is to stay focused on any of those tasks and keep a child out of the dog bowl or the pantry all day, being a mom makes the aspirations just as important as the outcome.  Nonetheless, wish me luck.

Technorati Tags: academia, Columbia, Cornell, grad school, graduate admissions, motherhood, NYU, PhD, political science, political theory, professor, Rollins, time management, UC-Berkeley