When the historian Jacques Barzun turned 100 in 2007, the New Yorker published a long piece by Arthur Krystal on the occasion of his birthday. It included a description of the Columbia University undergraduate colloquium taught jointly by Barzun and English professor Lionel Trilling from 1934 to 1975. To quote from the article:
“It was awe-inspiring,” the historian Fritz Stern, a 1946 alumnus of the Colloquium, recalled recently. “There I was, listening to two men very different, yet brilliantly attuned to each other, spinning and refining their thoughts in front of us. And when they spoke about Wordsworth, or Balzac, or Burke, it was as if they’d known him. I couldn’t imagine a better way to read the great masterpieces of modern European thought.”You may be under the impression that you will experience something like this in graduate school. Unfortunately, you almost certainly won't.
Here's a summary of my semesters of coursework. I took 2-3 courses every semester until I got to the dissertation stage. Here are the highlights:
ReplyDelete1st semester of MA
Critical theory seminar with ancient man of foreign origins. Read verbatim his yellowed lecture notes from 30 years ago with thick accent while students scribbled frantically. If you dared to ask a question, he would glare at you first and then, more often than not, tell you it was a stupid question. Scintillating intellectual experience!
2nd semester of MA
Linguistics seminar with professor who lacked confidence and brought out immature tendencies in students. Even if you’re only 22, you should know better than to pass notes and giggle just because you don’t like the professor. Is this graduate school or high school?
2nd semester of MA (yeah, this was a great semester!)
Shakespeare seminar with creepy male professor. Most students were female. Creepo hit on every single one and then gave us all A minuses because no one actually slept with him. Grounds for sexual harassment complaint but no one cared enough to write it up.
3rd semester of MA
African American lit seminar with young, passionate assistant prof. Conversations were intense and carried on after class ended. This is what graduate school should be like. Too bad I only had one class like this in my MA experience.
4th semester of MA
Victorian lit seminar with very old, quaint, avuncular yet boring little man. Nobody talked. Ever.
1st semester of PhD
American lit seminar with Distinguished Scholar-Teacher who played the part well. I enjoyed the readings and liked this professor, but students were afraid to talk. Class discussions were awkward.
2nd semester of PhD
Drama seminar with a different Distinguished Scholar-Teacher but freakin’ slacker students! People, if you’re assigned to do a group project, do your part!
3rd semester of PhD
Poetry seminar with yet another Distinguished Scholar-Teacher (guess I had a lot of those now that I think back on it) but same freakin’ slackers. Seriously, if you’re assigned to work with someone else, don’t lose your partner’s notes!
4th semester of PhD
Dissertation workshop for those just getting started on their dissertations. This was my last formal class. We formed writing groups, which could have been an OK experience, except that my group members were having serious mental health issues. One was depressed (to the point of barely being able to get out of bed in the morning), and the other was visibly suffering from an eating disorder. I mention these last things not to make light of them but because, by the time you reach the dissertation stage, graduate school will have begun to take its toll.
Apologies for the length of that comment. Your blog is cathartic.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your contributions. Don't hold back.
ReplyDeleteWell, yeah, but seminars always seemed like a small part of the experience anyway compared to writing papers, meeting with profs, exams, giving conference papers, teaching, etc.
ReplyDeletestaff meetings or "brainstorming sessions" in almost any other industry, while perhaps not a totally apt analogy, can be terrible and awful, too. also, tell me which other professions are devoid of competition between colleagues wrt project assignments, promotions/raises, et. al. and, of course, academe/graduate school is the only environment rife with "pride" and "pecking orders." Oh, wait...
ReplyDeleteThis is so true. All of your professors are going to be too busy worrying about research-related issues to worry about academics (at least in psychology). Also, all "intellectual" conversations are forced, and, not very intellectual at all, actually. What a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteStopped reading seriously after i read "focus is on humanities and the social sciences"
ReplyDeleteThat surely explains the boredom encountered...
okay wtf where did you get this information? this leads me to believe you either attended a very poor graduate program or not at all and just base this whole blog on hearsay.
ReplyDeleteseriously seminar is not that hard, you read the fucking text, you show up, you say a few clever things and you leave after two hours and don't have to return til next week. I'm sorry is that too hard for you???
I'd love to throw your lazy ass into a fast food or factory job and see how much better you find the workload there since this is so hard for you.
ReplyDelete