[pffft] Just like that.
I come to you today heartbroken, devastated—I feel as if I'm watching my dreams go up in smoke.
This year I won two teaching awards. I was recognized by my colleagues for my interesting teaching methods and research areas; at my yearly review, our chair said to me, "Kitty, you are universally loved in this department."
In May, I was passed over for a permanent, full-time Lectureship position for one reason, and one reason only: I have only two letters after my name, not three. Dr. Pepper appointed me to a Temporary Full-Time Instructor's position, though, and told me, "We like you and want to keep you. Even if you work at a Ph.D. part-time, one class at a time, you'll have much more solid ground to stand on when another Lectureship position comes up."
By the way: I was up against newly-minted Ph.D.s from Brown, Emory, and Duke, among other fine institutions. There was no way that my state-university M.A. would hold up in Human Resources to that, even with my two teaching awards and extraordinary service to both the university and my students. I wasn't hurt or surprised that someone with a Ph.D. got the permanent job offer—it was only fair, since that person had more education. But it did open my eyes to the fact that without the terminal degree, I wouldn't be eligible for long-term employment no matter how awesome a job I did.
So I decided, with much trepidation, that I would begin the application process for the Ph.D.—even though I'd much rather take a sharp stick in the eye than go back to the endless discussions of pointless material and intellectual pissing contests between my classmates. (D2U is, thankfully, mostly devoid of weird academic personalities; 99% of our English faculty love teaching and make it just as important as their research.) Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing, I thought. I could use the extra knowledge, and maybe taking a year off from teaching for my first year's coursework would be nice.
D2U has just started offering a TESOL certificate program, and I decided that this would be a great way to ease myself back into graduate education. I have a fair number of English-learner students, and I could finally answer their questions, with some TESOL training. Maybe some of my TESOL coursework would transfer over to my Ph.D. program. I could do the D2U certificate now, I thought, and then start my doctoral work in Fall 2010. So I got Dr. Pepper's blessing—and the State of Georgia's funding—to take the six-course certificate track. I signed up for Intro to Linguistics and was really excited (and nervous!) about returning to classes.
And then the semester began.
On the first quiz, I scored a 70.3—okay, that's barely passing, but I'd been out of school for 11 years, and I knew I could study more and do better on the next quiz.
The second quiz: 61.5. When I returned home, I saw that I'd missed silly things that I thought I knew from my quiz prep. I cried all afternoon.
The third quiz: 81.5. So there was a glimmer of hope.
I was feeling optimistic about the fourth quiz—until today's midterm, that is.
I studied much of this past weekend and thought I was doing pretty well; I was able to explain to an imaginary audience the different concepts we'd covered, and could do the exercises in the book. I got to the midterm........
........and blanked out on the last one-third of the exam. It was as if I hadn't even studied that material. What was fresh in my head 30 minutes before simply disappeared from my mind in a split second.
I could barely keep my composure as I finished the exam and handed it in. Here I was, a graduate student in a class full of undergrads, struggling like hell to study, to keep up, to pass—who was I to have thought I could still do well in graduate school? I bemoaned not having dropped the class after that second stinky quiz. So much for my plan to go back to school. If I couldn't even pass a linguistics course—which is challenging, sure, but not impossible—while teaching, who was I to think I'd be able to pass the courses for my doctoral work?
So I sit here this afternoon completely dejected, with the rug having been pulled out from under me.
Maybe that long-ago professor was right: I just don't have the intellectual capacity for Ph.D. work, and the best I'll ever do is junior-college teaching, or maybe teaching at a good private high school. Maybe I've been wasting my time here at Division II University these last few years—I've busted my butt for nothing. Whatever "it" is that makes one cut out for school, I no longer have.
I do not and will not have a Ph.D., not because I don't want one, but because I am simply lacking the brainpower to do it anymore. I will not ever be eligible for permanent employment (even though I do an excellent job), and the only job I've ever had that I've truly liked is not one I'm going to be able to stay in. I don't have the capability to go for the terminal degree.
I don't have three letters after my name. And never will.
Labels: All Things Professorial, Back to My Future, Teaching
posted by Miss Kitty @ 2:45 PM
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