Graduate School

What's the deal with applying to grad school? Why is it such a pain in the ass? Why do I need to send you a check for 75 bucks just for the honor of you rejecting my application? It's all a big conspiracy as far as I'm concerned, and the conspiracy is global.

Today marks my entry into the grad school race. While I've been in preparation for at least the last 6 months (or maybe even 4 years, depending on how you look at it), the first recommendation on my behalf was sent in this morning. It's official. I'm a certified candidate for graduate school. There's no turning back now.

In all honesty, my undergraduate performance was rather underwhelming. I was comfortably positioned smack dab in the middle of most of my classes, about equidistant from the top performers and the underachievers. While there are definitely worse positions to be in, unfettered academic mediocrity is not exactly the quality most sought after by university admissions counselors. As a result, I'm trying to de-emphasize the academic stuff (it was over 5 years ago afterall) and talk up all of the cool stuff I've done since graduation. I don't know if that's actually a winning stategy, but let's face, it's the best I got.

So after spending a great deal of time (and money) visiting schools, attending grad school fairs, taking classes, and sucking up to professors via email, I'm just now at the point that I'm actually filling out the applications. It's been a long process, but hopefully in the end it'll pay off. If not, I'm really going to have to cut somebody.

Assuming that some school out there wants me, I still have to figure out how I'm going to pay for it. It seems that after all of the crap you have to go through to get in the door, the least they could do is pick up the tab.

But, alas, this is America. The only person you can expect to pick up the tab for anything is you.

In the same vein as the mid-life crisis, we 20-somethings out there have come to realize our own quarter-life crises. While the quarter-life crisis is arguably not as cool as it's mid-life cousin because we generally don't get a brand new convertible out of the deal, it's no less angst-inducing.

We've all seen our friends from high school and college going on to start great things and venture down exciting new paths only to realize that we don't know what the hell we're doing ourselves. Are my comrades from school starting to leave me behind? Am I beginning to languish in this dead- end, yet surprisingly comfortable, job? Why do I feel like I'm the only one that doesn't have his life together? Nobody really knows, but let's talk about it, shall we?