The Grad School Diaries: Santa-tized For Your Protection

It’s time. I take a deep breath and stand up. “Ladies and gentlemen!” my voice booms out, cutting through the hundred or so people talking at once. “The First Year Cohort proudly presents our interpretation of Clement Moore’s classic poem ‘A Visit From St. Nicholas,’ better known as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas!’”

I hit the play button on the remote, and our video segment comes up on the big screen behind me. Now I just have to read the poem in the cadence we’ve rehearsed in advance, which should time the words to the images on the screen, and the rest should be a walk. My cohort and I will have completed our first semester as doctoral students and we can all go home and sleep. Or whatever we like, I suppose…

Finals Week was every bit as grueling as we’d thought it might be; even without an actual final in HR I still had two exams, and our Methods final was even worse than they told us it would be. But unless my luck is a lot worse than it has been so far, I should at least have passed everything. Which means that if I can just make it through another 56 lines of poetry I’m done with that critical First Semester and ready to move on to my next mind-boggling challenge. Still, I wonder…

I know I’ve complained too much about the process; the lack of direction or feedback; the monumental workload and break-neck pace; even the absurd, hazing nature of the exercise I’m currently involved in. Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I’m infamous for not suffering fools lightly, if at all, but is that really what I’m doing? With no way of knowing what’s a fiendishly clever test of my intellect (or character) and what is simply the sort of bureaucratic inertia common to every large organization, how am I supposed to know when I’m out of line?

“And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!” I declaimed with a flourish, and waved out into the audience.

On cue, my friend and counterpart, the other Large White Guy in the cohort comes in, doing Santa’s voice as he calls to the team of reindeer. No one outside the Cohort knew he was going to speak, and his booming delivery makes at least half of the audience jump. It’s a tricky performance, jumping into the cadence, but my friend makes it look easy, matching his lines exactly with the images of various creatures being waved on long sticks on the screen. The first of these is actually a picture of a reindeer, but the others wander all over the map, including a donkey, a pig, a duck, and actor George Clooney. The audience laughs, and at all of the correct moments, I’m pleased to say…

Still, I wonder. Is it arrogant of me to think that I could have anything to add to this process; that my opinion as an example of the lowest form of Academic life could carry any weight in how this passage should be conducted? I’m not just some 20-year-old rebel (without a clue) anymore; management has been my profession for over 20 years now, and whatever one may think of my abilities as a scholar, in my working life I was actually quite good at my job. I would never be so arrogant as to challenge the scholars assembled in this room on any matter of theory or empirical proof, but does that mean my opinions are as invalid as they are irrelevant?

Looking out into the audience I can see at least three people whose work I would cite if I were actually insane enough to raise such objections; whose own words would disapprove of many of the things we’ve enduring on this journey and whose own scholarship would support the conclusions I have drawn. It’s all too likely that once upon a time I would simply have been a malcontent newcomer, looking to assert my value (or at least my understanding) by claiming to know more than the experts. But I have not been that petulant child for many long years now; I have come so far and learned so much, and now I am beginning to understand the theory behind that hard-won practical knowledge. If you asked me to, I could indeed explain all of the complaints I have made using the actual theory that underlies our field of study – and I could use the work of many of those listening to support my argument…

And in that moment, I know that the process is real, and that like all of the rest of my cohort, I too have been changed by our journey through the fire. Some of what we’ve been through is clearly part of the process of making new scholars; some of it is almost certainly not, unless these people are far more Byzantine than they appear to be. But which part is which, and how will we ever know where to draw the line? How much of the medium IS the message, and how much of this process is real? I suppose we’ll never really know; even if we are one day tasked with making new scholars ourselves, we can’t ever be sure about this passage itself. But there is no longer any doubt that all of us are starting to learn how to ask the questions. Even me…

“But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,” I conclude, as the rest of the cohort get to their feet and brace themselves.

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!” we all bellow in unison.

Applause breaks out all over the room. Our last challenge of First Semester is over, and we have survived it. We have a few weeks to rest, recover, and prepare ourselves. Because we already know: the next semester will be harder…