In the 3 1/2 years since graduation, I have taken three graduate-school entrance exams and applied to four types of master’s programs at nine schools, with 23 letters of recommendation, 17 essays, $550 in application fees, six acceptances, three rejections, five “no-thank-yous” on my part and one “hold-on-I’ll-call-you-next-year,” followed, the next year, by a hesitant “never mind.”
Yet here I sit again, this year’s crisp application on the far side of the couch, opening its pages to mutter “deadline” at me like a Parkay margarine container.
“Would you still love me if I never had anything but a bachelor’s degree?” I ask the man cooking me dinner.
“That little thing from Stanford? Yeah, I’d still love you.”
Shoot, I was hoping for an answer that would solve my dilemma. Go to school to keep people loving you—there’s a reason. Now I have nothing more solid to guide me than the penny that landed on heads yesterday. I can’t say my indecision is the mark of a young alum trying to choose a career, because, crazily enough, through all those applications and essays over the years, I actually figured out what I want to do. And what’s more, after talking to people who do what I want to do—journalism—I’ve learned that grad school isn’t necessary. Could it be that I yearn to ponder the universe for a while, or prepare to better my fellow man? Alas, I’m just not that deep.
I do not need a graduate degree to further my career. I don’t want to spend the next two years reading about what my job already has me doing. And I’m happy with that job, which keeps me learning all the time. So why is the application now standing on end, holding its pages open for me like a trench coat with fake Rolexes? Because I want the degree, any degree, to put MA after my M-O-O-R-E, to make my parents proud, and mostly—and I don’t think I’m all that unusual here—to be cool.
In the next few years, most of my college friends will become MDs, PhDs, JDs, MBAs and on and on. I want that stamp of approval. Everyone understands what goes into getting an MD, and just about everyone is impressed. Summer Moore, I’ve-had-three-entry-level-jobs-but-I-swear-my-career-is-going-somewhere, just doesn’t have the same ring.
My desire for graduate education, therefore, is completely superficial. The application grabs onto a cushion and bangs its cover in frustration, but I’ve lost interest. I realize that I’ve been trained—by my parents, by Stanford—to believe I can do anything. On the other hand, a wise man once told me, “You can have anything you want. You cannot have everything you want.”
Do I want a graduate degree? Yes. Is it the option I should pick? Considering I just wrote, for the world to read, that my sole mission in studying for years and writing a decade’s worth of monthly checks to Loans-R-Us is to be cool—I’m going to say no.
I am already on a path to what I want, and grad school will not get me there any faster. Maybe someday I will go, with better reasons and real motivation. But until then, those around me will just have to learn that my credential takes about 700 words to explain, rather than their convenient two or three letters. Maybe I will have to learn that as well.
The application enacts a poetic death, gasping for air beside me. This should be a moment of clarity, but in truth there is no great epiphany. Either choice would be fine. It’s a big decision, but in my case, not life-altering. Will I be cool? I may not be very deep, but I’m also not a kiddie pool. Who cares if I’m cool?
Right. I didn’t think I could fool myself with that.
“I’m not going.”
“Okay,” says the man making dinner.
“No, really this time. I’m not applying to grad school.”
“Cool.”
Well, then. The application is on a shelf now, with a book on top of it to stop it from Parkay-ing at me, and I’m not applying. At least, not this year.
Summer Moore, ’99, joined Stanford in August as editorial assistant.
