The Berkeley Graduate magazine is doing a special issue on life after graduate school. I understand they have an article by a student who went into industry, another who went into academia, and another who returned to work for Berkeley. However, there is apparently one more perspective to be presented, and I’ve been asked to provide the dropout’s point of view.
I finished my first draft late last night and should have a version ready for the editors today. It was a challenging piece to write because it’s so easy to hear about someone dropping out and think, “Well, he dropped out because he couldn’t hack it. But I’m better and stronger, so I’ll finish where he failed.”
I’ve tried to capture what I felt so that readers see leaving grad school as a choice to be made, rather than as a sign of weakness or failure. Did I succeed? I suppose we’ll know if grad students start leaving Berkeley in droves after the article is printed.
The opportunity has reminded me how much I enjoy writing. My blog entries can take ten or fifteen minutes, but putting together a piece I can be proud of takes days. It’s something I’d like to budget more time for in the future. You know, once I have an income again.
Also, I’ve learned that “undoubtably” is not a word. The correct spelling is “undoubtedly”. People looking for more nitpicky grammatical errors may find them here. I personally fall on the descriptive side of the prescriptive vs. descriptive linguistics debate, so it upsets me that I really enjoy reading grammar rules.
