I am steadily coming to the end of my year as a Masters student. My dissertation is due in five weeks and honestly once this is over with, I'm not sure what I'm going to use my brain for. I've spent the best part of a year thinking about very little else and too busy filling my spare time with doggo walking, note taking and boyfriend seeing to think much about where to go afterwards.
For a long time I was sure that I wanted to do a PhD. My plan was pretty solidly to find a funded PhD (Oxford or UCL, y'know - somewhere I could feel smug about) and start my career as an academic. But things have changed. While I LOVE academia, and will always cherish my time as a postgraduate, the reality is that I just don't think that it's the future for me. The world of academia is largely very traditional, rigid, and somewhat humourless, and getting an essay back with glowing praise and a first grade isn't quite enough to take away the snitty comment in the feedback about how the little joke that I made halfway through was 'detrimental to an otherwise professional and impressive piece of work'.
For a long time I was sure that I wanted to do a PhD. My plan was pretty solidly to find a funded PhD (Oxford or UCL, y'know - somewhere I could feel smug about) and start my career as an academic. But things have changed. While I LOVE academia, and will always cherish my time as a postgraduate, the reality is that I just don't think that it's the future for me. The world of academia is largely very traditional, rigid, and somewhat humourless, and getting an essay back with glowing praise and a first grade isn't quite enough to take away the snitty comment in the feedback about how the little joke that I made halfway through was 'detrimental to an otherwise professional and impressive piece of work'.
This was a tough decision to make because the idea of being a university lecturer and researcher was one that I have held on to for a long time, and still think I would be really really good at. So in some ways parting with that future feels just a little bit like a breakup, where you grieve for a future you aren't going to have any more, even when you know it's the right thing.
Maybe I'll come back to it eventually. I could be one of those cool 40 something PhD students who aren't terrified of a class full of teenagers staring at them, but also maybe an academic career is just one of the many lives I won't actually get to live - like being a women's football player, or a masked vigilante.
And so of course this begs the question: What exactly am I going to do now? The reality is that this year in academia has starved me slightly of something that I didn't realise was important until now. It turns out that what I've missed most, while being super busy with essays and research and learning the intricate formatting of academic work, is being able to be creative. There is an element of creative thinking in academia, of course there is, but before I started my MA I was working on a novel, I had various short stories on the go, and I was getting into writing (really bad) poetry. I was gleefully reading thirty-fifty books and year and watching films and even starting to learn about art.
And so of course this begs the question: What exactly am I going to do now? The reality is that this year in academia has starved me slightly of something that I didn't realise was important until now. It turns out that what I've missed most, while being super busy with essays and research and learning the intricate formatting of academic work, is being able to be creative. There is an element of creative thinking in academia, of course there is, but before I started my MA I was working on a novel, I had various short stories on the go, and I was getting into writing (really bad) poetry. I was gleefully reading thirty-fifty books and year and watching films and even starting to learn about art.
When I started my MA all of that got sidelined. I wanted to do the very best that I could, and so I didn't give any time to the creative things I really enjoyed. I did start playing around with painting and an art journal, especially after Alex sent me new paints when I said I was struggling with no creative outlet (what a champ) but that creativity was about switching off and relaxing. I missed the creativity that is more vibrant and active, and I only get that when I'm writing and creating stories.
I realise that this all sounds like a build up to "OMG LIFE UPDATE I'M BLOGGING FULL TIME!". I'm most definitely not. I enjoy blogging, but honestly I'm sick of not having a set work structure and not being part of a wider network. I know that people fetishise 'working for yourself', but actually the isolation and lack of structure isn't for everyone. I miss having coworkers, and feeling part of a team. I've had great friends on my course, but ultimately my two jobs and my MA were almost entirely about working as a solo unit, and it's made me pine for going into my job at Waterstones every day and picking up the conversations you left off, and sharing your day with people. I'm the most introverted person in the world, but when there are days in which your only face to face encounters are a dog you're walking and a self checkout machine, happily alone starts to get a little lonely.
This post has really been a big pile of not much at all, but if you've read all the way down here frankly you only have yourself to blame. Effectively my point is that sometimes you take a big step and realise that it's not going to work out quite as you wanted, but that you can still appreciate the time you spent working on that project, and what the experience has taught you. Doing my MA has made me very proud and even though it's ultimately shown me that academia isn't for me right now, I don't regret it for a second.
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