This spring I left the goodness of a small group of excellent and intentional men. We were the five men in our cohort of our grad program who lived in Upland and through our breakfast meetings, we got quite close. We would update each other on our lives and struggles and very soon our only updates were on "the thesis" and "the job search".
These things nearly consumed our lives.
We quickly found that these professional pursuits were far more personal that we could have been prepared for. We poured our time, efforts and hearts into the things we wrote in our research or in job applications. It was pieces of our very selves that we submitted to strict thesis supervisors and heartless hiring committees. When the latest draft came back covered in red (or green) ink and we got a regretful email from yet another school, it was so easy to see our value diminish.
Thank God for our excellent professor of the semester before, Dr. Scott Gaier and his overwhelmingly true words: "My value is in Christ."
Amen. When I received rejections from schools I really had an interest in or had (foolishly) allowed myself to imagine my new life there... it hurt. I would typically hang up the phone or close the lid to my computer and look off into space for a while. Then I would take a walk. It was a time of re-realizing reality and the potential future.
The same would take place when I had written a section of my thesis. A good one too: I had known what I was going to say, I had backed up my claims with evidence from the data and the words had practically rolled from my fingers through the keyboard to the page. It was great and I was proud of it. Until my thesis supervisor didn't think so. He liked to use green pen because it was less abrasive than red. It still hurt. Again, it was a time of re-realizing reality (that he was much smarter than I and able to help through this criticism).
Degrees have such lofty titles that I always thought that calling oneself a "Master of the Arts" was pretty pretentious. I still do. But I can see where it's coming from a little better now. I think that facing all that rejection this spring has helped me to hold my idealization of reality lightly and I can be more agile through trials. But it will be a long time before I really consider myself a master.
These things nearly consumed our lives.
We quickly found that these professional pursuits were far more personal that we could have been prepared for. We poured our time, efforts and hearts into the things we wrote in our research or in job applications. It was pieces of our very selves that we submitted to strict thesis supervisors and heartless hiring committees. When the latest draft came back covered in red (or green) ink and we got a regretful email from yet another school, it was so easy to see our value diminish.
Thank God for our excellent professor of the semester before, Dr. Scott Gaier and his overwhelmingly true words: "My value is in Christ."
Amen. When I received rejections from schools I really had an interest in or had (foolishly) allowed myself to imagine my new life there... it hurt. I would typically hang up the phone or close the lid to my computer and look off into space for a while. Then I would take a walk. It was a time of re-realizing reality and the potential future.
The same would take place when I had written a section of my thesis. A good one too: I had known what I was going to say, I had backed up my claims with evidence from the data and the words had practically rolled from my fingers through the keyboard to the page. It was great and I was proud of it. Until my thesis supervisor didn't think so. He liked to use green pen because it was less abrasive than red. It still hurt. Again, it was a time of re-realizing reality (that he was much smarter than I and able to help through this criticism).
Degrees have such lofty titles that I always thought that calling oneself a "Master of the Arts" was pretty pretentious. I still do. But I can see where it's coming from a little better now. I think that facing all that rejection this spring has helped me to hold my idealization of reality lightly and I can be more agile through trials. But it will be a long time before I really consider myself a master.
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