Failure 2.0

I just returned from a three-week field research excursion with my nephew. I really didn't know him when we got in the car. My objective on this journey was to get an idea of the man this kid had turned out to be. We had a lot of conversations, he and I on our 7000+ mi journey. At one point, he and I got into a discussion about something...I can hardly remember what at the moment....and my nephew made a sweeping, unflattering characterization about black people. Something along the lines of "all black people are lazy."

I told him in no uncertain terms that all black people are NOT lazy, that the same could be said of white people in general terms, and of him in particular, and, you know, that he sounded incredibly, undeniably, idiotic.

In his most incredulous voice, he said to me, "You act like I'm racist." He explained that in the neighborhood he had lived in in Louisville while he went to school--a neighborhood that was probably 50:50 black:white and probably a heavy on the poverty (it is a college area, after all)--that THOSE blacks were lazy and not trying to improve themselves. Clearly, this was meant to portray that he wasn't racist about ALL black people. In his mind, somehow, it was acceptable to be racist about those poor lazy black people in his neighborhood in Louisville.

I didn't point out (although I should have) that he was, in fact, a college dropout...that his life lacked any direction whatsoever...that despite being given an opportunity that most of the world would kill for...HE was the one who wasn't capitalizing on this incredible opportunity that his parents had made available to him. I didn't say that. But it was dancing on the end of my tongue.

I did explain to him that not everyone was able to attend college nor had the aptitude for it and some of THOSE people had to live in his neighborhood because their economic reality, so while he had to slum it for a bit to sacrifice for a college education (in an apartment that his mother was paying for and tuition that his father was paying for), there were others that had risen as far as they were likely to go and for them--this was a decent life. They were not lazy. They were not trying "not to improve themselves". They were living out an alternative life path that--even if it didn't live up to his standards--didn't mean they weren't trying. To call those people stupid and lazy was petty and irresponsible.

Now I am the first to admit that my nephew has some serious misconceptions about the world and is in rather deep denial about himself. When I informed him that the apartment he complained about (and that his mother bought for him) cost 3X the cost of my mortgage, he acted like I must be some sort of supreme failure. He has a fairly well developed sense of entitlement all right. More than I am used to seeing in any of my college students I complain so bitterly about.

But looking at the larger issues here, I can't understand what it is that makes us look white and black people in exactly the same circumstances and only see the negative in the black people? What is it that makes us blame black people for their plight? What is it that makes us look down on black people at the same time as we co-opt their language and sense of style? What is it that makes us look at poor black people and forget that their poverty might have more to do with keeping them down than a lack of ambition? What is it that makes us not see an angry Harvard professor, but a black man out of control in a high-class neighborhood?

When it comes to this, it isn't just my nephew. I think it is a white cultural thing. White people are conned into thinking (by everyone from television news to hip hop artists) the black community glorifies the gangster-slum culture.

If his status ain't hood, I ain't checkin' for him
Better be street if ya lookin' at me
I need a soldier
That ain't scared to stand up for me
Known to carry big things, if you know what I mean 
Destiny Child, 'Soldier'

Even in the younger generation where friendships are much more colorblind, they still see the general population "out there" as fitting those old stereotypes. And I just don't know how chipping away at one false premise at a time one person at a time is going to make any difference at all. It is important to me that my family do what it can to stop the perpetuation of white supremacy in this country. And I thought that in that one little bit of real estate that I might actually be able to effect change.

And that's what I was trying to do. Only I was trying to do so without tearing the kid to shreds. My nephew is trying. He just extraordinarily protected. And I'm not sure my message came across as well as I'd hoped. But while my nephew sat there, incredulous that I was calling his racism racism, I sat there wondering why the hell I didn't have a better grasp on how to tell a white person that their privilege was showing.

Two Roads, One Destination

Today, I recalled something D-friend J (not to be confused with D-fav J) said to me not too long ago. He was speaking about his difficulties in initiating his dissertation research and noted that he struggled to design an appropriate research project, and in the process began to doubt his abilities and strength as a future scientist. He mentioned that he spent nearly a year in despair and thought seriously of quitting as he worked through the process. I can now happily report that J came out the other end with a viable project that was eventually funded, and he now sees a silver lining in the experience. He was glad that he stuck with it and that he hadn't been handed a project as some of our own colleagues have. To D-friend J, the struggle was part of the process.

This got me thinking about my graduate experience and that of those around me. There really are two different graduate experiences. There are those who walk into a well funded project designed by an experienced researcher, and those who don't. Now, I will leave J to his opinion, but I have given this some dichotomy some thought and I have come to quite a different conclusion.

The merits of walking into a project are many. Obviously, you don't have to worry about designing a project. You hit the ground running. Don't underestimate the value of skipping this hurdle because graduate school has a timer on it. Your departmental support will run out and some departments, mine included, have unreasonable expectations for when the finish line should be reached. Second, you don't have to write grants in support of your research. Designing and getting support for a project is time consuming, stressful, and virtually guaranteed to send you to the brink of depression. Finally, there is another merit that is often overlooked. If you are walking into a funded project, especially if that project has NSF funding, it is most likely that your advisor is an established and respected researcher. The importance of training with a successful researcher should not be under-emphasized.

The young professor seems eager, and in fact he or she is. They are eager to get a mini-me in their lab so they look and feel good about themselves. Unfortunately, they don't tell you that their one big accomplishment as a professional scientist is in getting you to work with them. They probably haven't established their own research program, haven't got a handle on their teaching assignment, and are going to be entirely too busy on those tasks to appropriately mentor you during the first months while you are struggling. Let's face it, a naive graduate student is a young professor's meat and potatoes; they are the first rung in the tenure ladder. The professors are untested as mentors, and often haven't quite made the mental adjustment from worker on someone else's research program to designer of a research program. That crap they have up on their web site--total bullshit. It is as simple as that. Whether or not a young professor will have the ingenuity and creativity to establish their own research program remains to be seen. Aligning yourself with such a researcher is a crap shoot. Are you willing to bet your future on a crap shoot?

The problem with graduate school is that no professor, young or old, is going to tell you this.

Looking to shift the emphasis of my research program, I elected to work with a professor that was better established than the one I had worked with on my masters. After one semester, I proposed my project to my committee. Imagine my dismay when my committee told me it wouldn't work. I wondered why my major advisor hadn't pointed out the problems with my research design. It was back to square one. That was when my master's advisor stepped forward and said that I should work on a project similar to my master's project and if I chose to do that, she'd be happy to advise me. Crushed by my initial failure and lured by the seemingly easy project design, I switched labs. Yes, this put me on a path that went away from where I wanted to go, but it was better than having no project at all.

I assumed a lot in that switch. I assumed that my advisor would offer the same level of support she had during my masters program. I assumed that my advisor would help me secure funding for this project. I assumed incorrectly.

I spent the next semester designing the project and forming a new committee. My advisor offered little to no guidance on the scope of my project. In fact, she expanded it in ways that made me uncomfortable, but assured me that no one ever finishes the project they propose and we would just "cut that part out at the end". My committee liked this project, noted its amibitious scope, and each member assured me that it was a fundable project. Never doubting my grant writing skills, I was poised and ready to work with my advisor to secure funding.

I wrote a few small grants which were promptly rejected. I approached my advisor about writing an NSF grant, but she had already obligated herself to submitting to the very same program as a co-PI with a better established researcher outside our university. Ultimately, that grant was never submitted, but I was never informed. No mention was ever made of submitting for another deadline. In fact, my advisor seemed to think that funding my project was entirely my responsibility. I wrote eight grants in my first year. I had no field season for lack of funding. I wrote twelve grants in my second year. I had no field season for lack of money. I wrote nine grants in my third year. Most of these were to fund a research project that supported the new direction my advisor wished to take her lab, but that had nothing to do with my dissertation project. My advisor felt that this was an exciting new direction and that funders would jump on the project. They didn't. I went back to writing grants in support of my project. I was able to get out to do some field work by paying my own way and piggybacking on the research of a lab mate. I owe her big time for that. In my fourth year, I wrote five grants. In four years, no grant I wrote was funded. To this day, I have no idea what the problem is with my project. One of my committee members suggested that I have someone other than just my advisor read over my grants before submitting them, but when I asked two professors to look at them, both claimed they didn't have the time. Finally, at the end of my fourth year, I received a two-year fellowship for which my major advisor claims that I am ill suited. So much for faith in me. The fellowship pays well enough that I will be able to pay for my own research. I will be able to finish--that is if they let me have both years of the fellowship.

When I received the fellowship, the chair of our department expressed his displeasure because he feels I should not have been awarded support that would necessarily include a sixth year of university funding. Honestly, I am incensed and confused by this attitude. After struggling for four years, after writing more than thirty grants in support of my research, I finally got the support I need to pay for my own research out of my own pocket, and I am being told that the money came too late? WTF?

Imagine how different my experience might have been had I walked into a predesigned, well funded project. I would not be facing my fifth year only now getting my field work underway. I would not be facing the pressure of trying to finish a four year degree in one year. Honestly, I don't think it can be done. If they strip me of the second year of funding, I have every confidence that I will be walking away from this project empty handed. Had I had funding at the beginning, I would probably be finished by now. I would not be the laughing stock of my department. Instead, I spend every day trying to cope with the stress that never seems to end. I stare at the bottom line on my student loans and wonder if I will ever be able to afford the minimum payments. I wonder if I will ever own a new car or my own home once I move away from this place. I feel humiliated nearly every day that I walk into my building. I'd quit, but I can't. I can't afford to walk away with anything less than a Ph.D. because that is what it is going to take to pay off those loans. All in all, in this economy, I see nothing but economic ruin for me.

Sometimes, I wish for a swift and painless death. And I'm not kidding. I'm not suicidal, but I would welcome an end to the stress if it befell me. I don't feel my future holds any real, well future. I made a mistake--not in coming to graduate school--but in aligning myself with an untested researcher who, either through lack of experience or lack of interest, didn't take a vested interest in my success. I still feel that my advisor should have taken a more active role in seeking funding for my project. Instead, she has distanced herself from me. She has certainly taken greater interest in the projects of other students. Whether it was through gross incompetence or willful negligence, I paid the price for my choice and no one else. And I will continue to pay for it for the rest of my life.

I used to be considered one of the top students in our department. Now, I feel as though I'm something of a departmental joke. Professionally, I wonder if this is something that I will ever be able to overcome. Unlike D-friend J, I woud not recommend designing your own project. I do not feel like it will make me a better researcher. While he came out feeling worthy, I'm four years in and my confidence is shattered. My only suggestion to others is to go for the pre-designed, well funded project working with an established, tenured professor. Don't put yourself in this boat with me. If it sinks, no one will save you, and others just stand on shore thanking their lucky stars they aren't you.