Grad school is awesome, wonderful, challenging, exciting, overwhelming, exhausting, stimulating, and mind blowing all at once. Fellow grad students are currently nodding their heads as they read. Non grad students may be wondering why we put ourselves through the madness! There are a variety of motivations that drive individuals to pursue different graduate school degrees. Some might be looking for financial security, some for a position or a promotion, others for academic interest alone. I relate more to the latter. Though a PhD will hopefully land me a full time teaching job one day, that’s actually not a main motivator for me. When I started applying to graduate schools, it was primarily because I simply missed being in school. When I first finished my Master’s in English, I didn’t imagine I’d ever return to school again. I was exhausted. But then I recovered! And I missed the work, the people, the teachers, the conversations, all of it! When I started exploring schools, I discovered a unique program that means more to me than any standard grad program ever could. In studying mythology and depth psychology, I am not only an academic journey but an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual endeavor. Every minute of it, despite the pressures of deadlines and hard work in conjunction with teaching and trying to have a personal life, is absolutely precious. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. So even though I sometimes look like the distraught figure above, I love it.

Why are you in grad school?