On Being a Postgrad

I finally got sick of it last week. Not being a postgrad myself, but hearing so many others whine about their experience while simultaneously not doing a darn thing about it.

Note to PGs: no one in this department is psychic. Everyone in this department cares. Talk to them!

NIECI is a brand-new department, barely out of diapers, really. Last year, they had a handful of PGs. This year they have over 40. That's a big adjustment, particularly when the department doesn't have dedicated administrators. Our head and director of PGs are both busy with their own research, in addition to running the department and helping all of us out with our studies. They've got a lot on their plates.

I just kept hearing MA student after MA student (most in creative writing) complain about lack of direction, that they don't know what they're supposed to be doing, no one is teaching them, and they're wasting their money. Meanwhile, none is asking the department for help, or even attending the events the department does host for the benefit of the students.

Part of the issue is that they all have the same supervisor, who also happens to be head of the school, head of the research council, writing books, teaching courses, and doing way more than any one person can fit into a day. Oh, and he's personal tutor for everyone in the department. There's no way he can meet regularly with everyone, or do everything people are asking him to do.

So we're all going to have to step up and be self-managed units. If we want something, we need to ask - ask for solutions, not just whine about what we're not getting.

Yes, a new department has holes, stumbling blocks. It's going to be disorganized as we grow and feel our way. But the beauty of this is that we students have the opportunity to form the direction of the school. We can tell them what we want, and they'll do their best to meet our needs. We can make things different for later years in the program. We can be pioneers, as it were.

I encourage all who have issues with the services they're receiving to sit down and list all that you feel you're missing. Then list out all the things the department can do to help you fill those gaps. Don't just complain and make them think of everything for you - ask for what you want, and you may just get it.

I let the department know about what I'm hearing. Why? Because they ask. They want to know what's going on, how they can make things better. Hopefully, things will start to shape up in the next couple of months, and people can get on with their research, instead of screeching over how abandoned they supposedly are.

Over the next few weeks the department is hosting several discussions for the students to air their concerns, and for the PhD students to offer what little wisdom we have to the disgruntled MA students. I think we'll get some good solutions for future actions and feedback loops from those, and we can move forward.

The Allure of Research

I haven't posted in a while. One, because the job that is paying for my PhD suddenly jumped the bounds of its original job description, and I lost my marbles. Two, because life itself jumped the tracks there for a little while as we lost our car to the bureaucracy of road safety, and all other activities came to a screeching halt as we tried to replace it (tried to go without - not feasible in our situation. Sorry, Earth).

Anyway, I am now a week behind my self-set schedule for writing a paper that I need to submit by the end of the year. I have spent my weekend furiously flipping through pages and web journals (BTW, if anyone from the BU library is reading this, your journal selection BLOWS), then tap-tap-tapping the info into some semblance of cohesion for the paper.

I find myself drawn to the topics in the books I've checked out, repeatedly distracted by their applicability not to this particular paper, but to my PhD as a whole. Ideas about what draws an audience to a multimedia project, what form collaboration takes, structures that work in hypertext environments, how to transition from print to digital. I have to constantly police my own excitement, restricting it to the subject of the paper: online communities formed in the interaction between author and readers of print novels. They're finite, it's sure, but I think they're a significant step in the evolution toward a mainstream digital literature genre.

It's been a really long time since I wrote anything of an academic nature. The writing itself I don't find difficult. Rather, I'm worried that it's too simplistic, that I'm covering ideas everyone knows like the back of their hands, that they'll be rolling their eyes at such a sophomore effort. Yes, I am aware that my writing will improve, and I will eventually get a better feel for the literature of my area, what level to cover subjects at, what is common knowledge, etc. But as I noticed at the Creating Second Lives Conference, the field is still quite new and I'm not sure there really is a common ground. I guess I'll see.

At any rate, I'm enjoying it all greatly. I love the atmosphere, that ideas are important, that a discourse is being created. I don't feel like I've had that in a really, really long time. I feel like my brain, on some level, was in sleep mode for a very long while. My MPW course at USC didn't ever really make me think about anything; nothing was ever up for debate. We weren't encouraged to contribute to the field - only to write well, get published, and credit the program as much as possible.

But here, I already feel like I'm contributing to some new area of understanding. That what I think about it is helping to shape this new field. My ideas will be challenged, and I'm sure that will deal quite a blow to my intellectual ego the first few times it happens, but hopefully I'll adjust and be able to hold my own.

I like this academia gig.

"A Queen for a King" Published in Electric Spec

My short story "A Queen for a King" has been published in the October 2008 issue of Electric Spec.

Brief description: Mabon’s father warned him about the temptations in the forest. But you can’t stop love, lust, or fairy dust.

Let me know how you like it!