Entering grad school, I always assumed this term was an epithet thrown around unfairly at those who, at 22 or 23, opted to eschew Cubicleville to spend their 20s pursuing something more akin to the life of the mind. Sure, I met a fellow Ph.D student who had been on campus for almost 10 years. He made time for every union meeting and many campus causes, but never mustered the same verve for his languishing thesis.
Years ago, I read about a guy at a branch campus of the University of Wisconsin who took 13 years to finally earn a bachelor's degree (my Googling turned up nothing, so I'm trusting my memory here).
The urge to put off the big finish, to delay the plunge into a life less familiar--I suspect we can all relate to this, even if we lament the failure of youth to Suck It Up And Finish. Yet there is another breed of professional student whose "professionalism" smacks not of procrastination, but addiction.
Rumor has it that my department will soon be graced with a doozy of an applicant for the M.A. program. Zhe is approaching early middle age in a higher ed culture where non-trads are vanishingly rare. Zhe has a singular sartorial style (suffice it to say that zhe dresses far better than I do), and zhe appears to be something of an institution unto hirself. For years, I have seen hir around campus and assumed zhe was a fellow lecturer until, very recently, someone explained hir deal to me. Zhe will earn her B.A. this year from a related program at AtSU -- it is not at all unusual to have our own alumni applying for graduate study -- but the real kicker is that zhe already holds a doctorate in a completely unrelated field.
Zhe's too young to have accumulated much work experience between these degrees, so this isn't exactly a change-of-career narrative. Just a cycle of getting one degree done, then on to the next one. And the next, and the next. To borrow Hiram's phrase, I am baffled, yet also strangely fascinated. And so I put to you this Thirsty:
Q: Have you encountered anyone you could call a "professional student"? What was their story? What do you see as your role in their endless educational saga?
I used to have a very narrow view of professional students. I imagined a slacker gene somewhere in them, regardless of their age, that made them want to postpone life indefinitely.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've had a number like that.
But more and more I find honest to God lifelong learners. It's one of those locutions that I used to think was bullshit, but perhaps not.
I've had some terrific folks in the past couple of years who simply stay in college for reasons unconnected from the normal ones.
I'm not clear how the student in question is all that unusual, though. Given that few PhD graduates today will find TT jobs, and that some PhD fields are difficult to apply to business or industry as an alternative, it's not uncommon for a PhD grad to find that he or she needs more, different education (you said the BA is in an unrelated field). I know of a number of PhD grads who then went on to do a community-college training program -- what else is someone supposed to do when there is no work at all even remotely matching one's qualifications? Over the last few years, it's even become nearly impossible to break into sessional teaching work in many places -- isn't it better to go back to school and get a degree or diploma in something else that's interesting and meaningful to you, rather than to just work as a greeter at Walmart until you die?
ReplyDeleteYou make some good points, CBB, but there's just something that doesn't add up in this case. Zhe's PhD in Field X should give hir *zero* problems getting an industry job around here. Meanwhile, our program in Field Y is a complete departure from this field, and it's one far, FAR less marketable both in academia and in industry. It's not just a certification process for hir to be able to teach Field X in the future.
DeleteThis person is waaay too young to resign hirself to this culture's equivalent of the Walmart greeter, but I have to wonder how exactly zhe is funding these curricular adventures. AtSU is most definitely not a CC, and we have the price tag to prove it. As a non-trad, I don't see how zhe could be getting scholarship funding (as far as I know, non-trads aren't eligible for any). There is no way zhe has a full time job, since I see hir on campus at random hours of the day, year-round, and this culture considers it neither feasible nor desirable to hold down a job and study at the same time (hence why we have no night classes).
I am just dying to know what the enabling factor might be behind all of this effort, when chances are zhe will wind up penniless and forced to take a crap job in Field X that zhe could have started out with 10+ years ago.
Interesting. Wealthy spouse or big inheritance, I suppose? (That's probably what I would do if I had either of those.)
DeleteEdna, the campus was the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The student's name is Johnny Lechner, and he is the reason that there is a "Johnny Lechner" rule on the books here in Cheeseheadland. Long-term students like Lechner (if there are any) pay double the in-state tuition.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/45315862.html
THAT'S THE GUY! Thanks, BC!
DeleteI've actually considered getting a B.A. in Psychology when I'm done with my PhD. I can't tell if that makes me a lifelong learner or fucking insane.
ReplyDeleteA lot of MA programs will take a student with previous degrees in another, very different field, though they may require some additional coursework.
DeleteIf you are insane, at least you can give yourself a discounted rate for therapy.
DeleteI lean toward insanity for anyone who does a second (not dual) Ph.D. (though I sometimes think "well, at least I'd know how to approach the whole grad school/diss thing this time" myself. Then again, I never claimed to be entirely sane). M.A.s or second B.A.s, especially in quite different fields, are, I think, more defensible.
DeleteThis person doesn't need a job, probably because they have plenty of money, and would rather learn than work. Once you remove the necessity of earning a wage, people do all sorts of perplexing things.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, my favorite place to be is in a classroom--as a student--studying something I love. If you asked me right now what my ideal life would be, it would be in a funky college town, working on another Ph.D.
What Stella said. If I were independently wealthy and didn't have to worry about making money for my family, I would definitely get more degrees.
ReplyDeleteI have a dream of going back for a Philosophy degree. Just 'cause.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I see "professional students," my mind goes to the song, "If you got the money, honey, I got the time."
ReplyDeleteI'm with Stella too. And I'm currently a 'life long learner' of sorts, working away slowly at a mathematics qualification through a long-established distance learning university (my original degree was in a STEM discipline but with limited maths requirements, my research field is becoming more mathematical and computational, and I'm the 'go to' person for teaching these skills to my own undergraduates, so it all made sense. Although I also did want to do maths as a kid, just knew I wasn't quite as good as the 'real mathematicians' in my maths classes in sixth form). It's surprisingly enjoyable, and it keeps me in touch with 'being a student' which I think helps with my teaching too.
ReplyDeleteMy guess would also be independently wealthy or rich husband (or other monied situation where working is not normal) and surely studying is a much better way to use your time than lunching and shopping...
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine used to teach in a department where the chair was a perpetual student. He didn't want to start paying back his prodigious student loans, and he was allowed to take up to six hours a semester at his own institution for free... so he accumulated Master's degrees. Masters of Public Administration, Masters of Public Health, Masters of Theology... he had six or seven of them. Fields totally unrelated to his. It was the weirdest but coolest thing I ever heard.
ReplyDeleteNow there's a clever solution to the "student loans are non-dischargeable" issue. Though I'd hate to be paying them off using my social security check (or see my spouse/children forced to sell the farm to settle the student-loan-burdened estate).
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