RachelRichardson.org

Now that I’ve actually started my graduate classes, I’m increasingly finding out that graduate school is just like high school, only with older kids.

Granted, I am the newbie and since I started this quarter, I’m sure the others are wondering just who in the heck I am, and why I’m in their graduate student lounge.  Yet, save one girl with whom I had previous classes, no one introduced themselves or said nary a word to me.

It was high-school deja vu.

There’s a girl in the graduate program named Amy, who I worked with on the student newspaper at Raymond Walters a few years ago.  At the time, Amy was an education major and on the path to becoming the kind of stern, matronly teacher students recall later in therapy sessions.

But, I was somewhat surprised to see her in the history graduate program, not because of her previous major, but because her writing skills are, oh, about equivalent to that of the grade-school kids she wanted to teach.

Before the newspaper was released, all the writers would gather to copy-edit en masse.  Everyone’s stories were critiqued and noted for errors, including mine, but Amy’s work always attracted more red ink than the others.  And, as the most vocal grammar-Nazi of the crew, Amy funneled her extreme dislike on me.

Still, when I saw her in the lounge today, I decided to try and make nice. Very obviously pregnant, I politely inquired as to her due date, which is May 31.

“Oh, aren’t you worried it will interfere with the end of the quarter?” I asked.

Amy snorted.  “Graduate students get to do their work from home,” she said snidely.

Let me remind you, we are in the graduate student lounge.  It doesn’t take a PhD to realize that maybe, just perhaps, I’m a grad student also.

Undaunted, a few minutes later, I resumed the conversation and inquired about her paper for the class we’re taking on Cincinnati history.

“I’m doing my paper on Cincinnati’s reception of Birth of a Nation,” she said, and then condescendingly, “Oh, haven’t you ever heard of it?”

I wrinkled up my nose.  “I do have a degree in history.  Of course, I’ve heard of it.”

Amy tried to backpedal, saying another history student had no clue about only one of the most influential films in American history.  In kind, I told her I thought it was a fabulous topic, while thinking to myself of at least several articles that already have hashed out the subject in depth.

She reciprocated the question and I launched into my paper topic, which, I had to admit, is totally cool and has never been written about before (a historian’s dream).

She didn’t say a word. Turning back to the computer screen, it was as if I said nothing at all.

I took it as a compliment.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 12:49 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.