A Hard Bread

For the last three years, I've been flirting with three different careers. Sometimes I decide I want to become a professor, and do research and apply to wildly competitive scholarship programs. Sometimes I decide I want to work in one of the varyingly ailing humanities-related industries (publishing, journalism, nonprofit culture) and do and apply for internships in those fields. Sometimes I consider that schoolteaching is not only socially respected but also useful for society and (often) recession-safe, and metally accept this possibility without doing anything.

Money has just pushed me (finally, finally) away from the first option. I've been accepted by Oxford and Cambridge but without any funding. Just how much would I have to borrow to get a Masters', you ask? Cambridge's acceptance letter came with a large, bolded number that conveniently includes living expenses for me and Steve: 25,294.25 GBP (37,243.25 USD, as of today). Oxford's acceptance letter was less informative, but I imagine that studying there without being allowed to work would be equally pricey.

I spent the whole weekend avoiding doing anything, and I'll probably keep avoiding the question over Easter as well. I could fill out FAFSA and get enough Stafford and GradPLUS loans to pay tuition and college fees; I could assume that I could work nights; I might hope that Steve could find some kind of work there and pay his own way. Or I might just say "thanks but no thanks" for a degree to nowhere.

To be more specific: I've been accepted to "read for" (we love you, BrE!) a Master of Philosophy in English Studies (Criticism and Culture) at Cambridge and a Master of Studies in English (1900-present day) at Oxford. At Oxbridge, unlike many US universities, PhD programs in English require a Master's degree. More importantly, like in the US, I'd have to apply again to get into the PhD program, and then fight (again) for a slice of a very small humanities-funding pie. In plain words: I would have to borrow money to pay for a Master's degree in something that provides no professional training and no further job options or certain pay increases on the off-chance that I might get funding for a PhD, which again provides no professional training, further job options or certain pay increases.

Considering the above and that I am already barely paying my minimum balance on my Emory Stafford loans, and that the minimum amount borrowed would very likely double the amount I'd have to pay back, I'm not going to England next year.

So where's the difficult part of my decision? What makes this, as the Germans say, "a hard bread"? These most recent (indirect) rejections are the end of a long-running attempt to get scholarship money in exchange for my college resume, on which I've been coasting for nearly three years. With the addition of a few writing prizes and my thesis grade (and the Fulbright, which counts for remarkably little), my resume hasn't really changed since I nearly got the Marshall in 2006. That too-early near-success convinced me then that I had the right stuff to become an English professor, the kind of professor who went to only the best schools with only the least amount of borrowed money. Although the first round of rejections before the Fulbright should have taught me otherwise, I hung onto the idea because of the Gates-Cambridge. I was certain that following the Peace Corps and the Fulbright, Bill Gates would pay for my studies at Cambridge, and glorious success in life would follow, etc., etc. Have decided to follow my heart instead of my ambition, I have started listening to my common sense instead of my ego.

However, studying at Cambridge or Oxford, or getting the Marshall or the Bobby Jones, or going to the Peace Corps weren't really about having a fancy education, or doing research, or representing Emory or the United States. They were all about ME. I wanted to make it big, not by making lots of money or saving the world but by proving myself clever, not by invention but by wordsmithery. Not only was I convinced this way my way to the top, but I was also convinced that I was destined for the top. Anything less than the very best would have been failure.

Was this error of judgment one of arrogance? Yes. Of pride? Yes. Of egoism? Absolutely. A side effect of a "praise, don't criticise" padogogy and writing lots of exaggerated application letters? Maybe. But what is certain is that what I had come to expect from myself, and how I set myself (mentally) apart from my colleagues, my friends, my lover, was nothing other than clever bullshitting to get something for nothing. But like dealing with lost privilege, giving up a beloved dream, however unrealistic, is not easy to chew.



[Footnote one: This whole drama would not exist, of course, if Steve and I could get partnered in the United States. I could easily find generous funding somewhere (Emory gives all of its PhD candidates a free ride, for example) and Steve would (via marriage) get the necessary visa and permits to find work. But we cannot get partnered nationally, and Steve does not have any fancy technical training, so until then, we're staying in Europe.
Footnote two: In case you're wondering why I only applied to Oxbridge and not to any other, less prestigious UK universities, I did so because they were the only I could find that offered any money whatsoever for Master's students from neither the EU nor the Commonwealth studying neither science nor for a research degree (i.e., me).]