Poor Perfect Affluent Kids?

Snarky as the title sounds, I'm not entirely kidding. I caught Bitch, Ph.D.'s summary of Sarah Rimer's New York Times article on "amazing girls" - girls who are smart, attractive, high-achieving, confident, personable, and apparently still "not enough". Coupled with the fact that I read Alexandra Robbins' "The Overachievers" not too long ago, it seems like the focus on the plight of those who have everything is rather high-profile as of late.

Robbins states immediately in her book that she doesn't want her readers to roll their eyes and scoff at the problems of fortunate kids, emphasizing that while the rich and opportunity-laden subjects of her books may not be your standard poverty-stricken protagonists, the problems and stresses they face are very real to them and should not be dismissed lightly. I was careful to heed this warning as I read the book, since my background is quite different from the students she wrote about. The particular topic of my earlier education is a subject for another post - so bear with me and with these authors and, if necessary, suspend your disbelief about how unfortunate these students *really* are.

What both Robbins and Rimer are rightly focusing on is: who, exactly, is telling this students they are inadequate? Are these students simply unhappy because, well, you're not supposed to be happy with yourself in today's world? You're constantly supposed to be seeking self-improvement and combing yourself and your resume for flaws that potential employers/admissions officers might pounce on.

You're Supposed to Be Perfect
The article describes the standard-issue cookie-cutter Perfect College Application: president of everything, AP classes everywhere, three-season varsity so-and-so, volunteers with underprivileged this-and-that, popular, good-looking, confident (not feminized, but still feminine, of course), perfect GPA, perfect SAT's, and a compulsory "quirk" or "hook": fluent in Russian, spent a summer working with animals in Thailand, won a national award for science, blah blah...wait...

THIS has become STANDARD? Good lord. No wonder these kids are giant lumps of insecure. People, especially my more insecure peers, like to scoff at these lists: "Oh, god, how hard is it to get a 5 on an AP test these days? The SATs are soooo easy. Come on, they're letting everybody and their brother onto the varsity squad now." Well, guess what? It's still pretty goddamn hard. Just getting to the level of a standard "good applicant" has become ridiculous.

You're Not Supposed to Be Happy
If I had had all of those credentials after my name in high school, I doubt I would have been so insecure. I would have thought I was Hot Shit. Hell, I had decent credentials that weren't nearly as impressive as these kids and I still thought I was Hot Shit. It wasn't ugly arrogance (well, not much) - it was more a case of "Yeah, that's me! I did all that myself! Woohoo!"

I see two explanations behind this: one is that these kids are not idiots, and they recognize that they've been handed opportunities on a silver platter. They KNOW that they're doing this well in part because they can afford to live in the Newton North or Whitman school districts, because their parents pay for violin lessons and drive them to soccer practice and hire college counselors and buy them the clothes that allow them to fit in. There is something missing in terms of their being able to say "I did all that myself!" They could be scared that, when the support system drops away, they'll disappoint people. Call it privilege or imposter syndrome, but it seems like a real scenario to me.

The other is that someone is telling these kids they're not good enough. In truth, I suspect these might be the rich, talented, affluent parents making sure their rich, talented, affluent kids don't get swollen heads. As someone who is none of these things, I feel safe saying that being a Rich Talented Affluent is socially out of style at the moment, particularly among the liberal crowd. You're supposed to be apologizing for your good fortune, after all, not enjoying it.

Conversely, there are also people (college counselors spring to mind) who are living so deeply inside the bubble that this level of achievement really does seem ho-hum. In my experience, these are the folks who start resenting the students like me, who had what I've heard one counselor call "the underprivileged hook". This implication that being underprivileged is actually a privilege is so ridiculous I can't even go into it here - but it starts tying back into the general resentment women and minorities face when they start getting pieces of what used to be someone else's pie.

You're Supposed to be Perfect and Unhappy for the Benefit of Others
One of the girls in the NYT article mentions pressure to get a high-paying job so she can give her kids the life she's had. It's easy to see how this can spiral out of control - the better you're doing, the better you have to do so your future children can do better than you, etc. etc.
Parental and societal pressure is also obviously enormous. Think of Little Johnny Legacy - if Senator Daddy went to Harvard and former-CEO Mommy went to Yale (remember, Yale women "opt out" when the kids come along! *grumble*), it's a lead pipe cinch he's not going to be going to Harvey Mudd, Oberlin, or Reed, even if he wants to. (and those are all still Really Good Schools). For the love of god, these kids are eighteen - selfish has become a dirty word, but if you can't pursue your own personal interest as a naturally self-centered teenager, when can you?


In general, this topic seems to be a popular trend as of late, and one that intrigues me as a bit of an outsider. I'll probably write about it more in the future (Bitch, Ph.D. covers the gendered aspect of it quite well, which is something I haven't even touched yet), but for now I'd be interested to hear what other people's thoughts are on this.

*dance of coding triumph*

I have just written a long and hairy computer program...

And it compiled! And worked! ON THE VERY FIRST TRY!!!

Take THAT, Evil-Archaic-Language-From-Hell!


I am one of the only grad students in the immediate vicinity who knows how to program - thus, in need of someone with which to share my triumph, I turn to the Internets. (whether it's programming or doing that fancy long-named bio benchwork that usually sounds way cooler than any of my research*, I'm sure you all understand the first-and-only-try brand of excitement).

*dance dance dance*...


*Biochem friend: "I have to run a poly-trans-methyl-thissy-thatty-whoserface-iptase this afternoon. What are you up to?" Elli: "Poking a computer."

Coming Soon: Talks, Teh Tehsis, and The Office Space Follies

While I was hoping to keep blogging during spring break, it appears my plans were cleverly foiled by the arrival of TB and various fun escapades in Hot State. I couldn't actually finagle leaving for spring break for $$ reasons, and given our schedules it was easier for TB to visit here (and, of course, grad students aren't REALLY students so we don't get spring break, much like how we are not REALLY employees and only get paid part-time). Suffice it to say that much relaxation ensued - I worked from home when I could, I got to reap the various bonuses of having my partner *around* (*:D*), and we clocked the fastest "vacation" on record, taking off to another part of Hot State for about 40 hours over a weekend and cramming in much outdoor fun. Life is good when TB is around. Sadly, he has just left, which always makes things seem a bit quieter around here. It also tends to have me listing in my head the conversations we were supposed to have had but never got around to - those State-of-the-Union-type long-distance relationship questions ("Where's this going, anwyay?" "Are you happy?" "How's the future lookin'?") that are really preferable to have face-to-face. Sigh.

Fortunately, I have a new season to keep things interesting. I tend to parse life by vacations, so in a way it is kind of nice to be solidly cemented in the "post-spring-break" portion of my semester, where I expect several things to be dominating my time and energy:

1) Talks. I am actually giving several talks in a few months: Big Scary Talk (at a meeting), Fun Interesting Talk (for people who could be helpful with what I have come to call Teh Tehsis - see #2), and Mandatory Talk (standard-issue student presentation for the department). The one thing they all have in common is that they are unusually long - 15 minutes to 45 minutes (who schedules 45-minute talks anyway?) Individually they're nothing to panic about, but...that's a lot of Powerpoint slides.

2) Teh Tehsis. In addition to Dr. Awesome, I have two advisers here, Dr. SuperWoman and Dr. Talks-A-Lot. Dr. SuperWoman is totally amazing and constantly encouraging me to think about Teh Tehsis, people who might be able to help me, fellowships that could come in handy, field work that sounds interesting, conferences or meetings I should go to, etc. It'd be nice to see this take shape a little more over the next semester.


3) My college dorm had something called "Room Draw" every year, where we picked new dorm rooms, and it was ridiculously overdone - a person's graduating class, their current room size, how many semesters they had been in the dorm, and their relationship with their past and future roommates and neighbors were all factors (we were also all geeks so there was always an attempt to stick all of this into a mathematical formula. Yeah, that worked great.) I assumed this was one of the more ridiculously-elaborate student-designed systems.

Then I heard about the upcoming Office Space Follies, the grad-student-governed process by which we all choose new workspaces. Oh my fucking god.

They count years you've been here. They count your officemates. They count your windows (yes! Some of the students here have windows! We realize how lucky we are). They count your square footage. They count the SUM AREA OF DESKTOP SPACE. They consider whether you're at masters or Ph.D. level. If you want to move into an office, you need to charm everyone in that office to make sure it's okay - and since they're moving too, you pretty much have to sweet-talk every grad student who could possibly be sharing a space with you. Some people want to be near their adviser's office or their relevant workshops/labs/equipment/whatsits. Some people want to be as far away from those as possible. Perhaps most ridiculously, the TEMPERATURE of the office is a major factor - some people make their offices insular little cubes of heat, while others use the A/C to cryogenically freeze their officemates, so everyone gets a "Hot/Cold" tag and attempts are made to pair likes with likes.

Yes - it is nice that the grad students are in control of these decisions and the department basically lets us go where we want among the designated grad spaces. Yes, it is nice that we all appear to care so much about each others needs. But for the love of god, this is so elabroate that it is discussed months in advance and all research grinds to a halt during the actual process. And most people wind up dissatisfied and grummbling about it for months to follow ANYway. I propose we all line up at the front steps, fire a starter's gun, and sprint pell-mell through the halls: whoever gets to a space first claims it.


So, expect developments in the next few months. And I promise I won't disappear again!

an open question to professors:

Are you hiding from us?

More specifically, are you hiding from ME?

I have been hunting for a single word of help all day. ALL. DAY. I'm TRYING to use a particular doohickey with a horrendous users manual that rife with mistakes. I can dig through and handle 90% of the mistakes, but there are a couple funny little snares I can't fix, because I am a first-year grad student who has never touched one of these things before. In search of answers, I have gone to the guy who oversees said doohickeys. I have emailed the guy in another country who wrote the manual. I have emailed the techie guys. However, it has been suggested that I find professors who have actually USED the thing and asked them.

I have now gone to no less than four professors' doors, and they are not here. I started trying at 10AM this morning and have been returning every hour or so. No dice. I am not looking for an answer to "what is my purpose in life?", but something more along the line of "The manual is vague; am I working under conditions A or conditions B?" Anyone who has used this thing could answer the question in five seconds. But they are all gone. ALL of them. Gone. GONE. All day. There is no departmental seminar. There is no all-day faculty meeting. There are no special secret pow-wows. Where are they?? Some of them have students, for god's sake - what are their students doing these days?

I know grad students occasionally hide from their advisers (just this morning I did a side-dive into the ladies' room to avoid starting ANOTHER "I just had an idle idea for something you should do that will be pointless and take four weeks" conversation). I'm SURE that advisers occasionally hide from their own grad students - after all, we can be pestering and curious little pains in the ass. People in my department also do their fair share of traveling. But - jeebus. The odds of the four guys I need ALL being away at the moment seem pretty slim. Can we just have some kind of, like, tagging system in place?:

"I'm in, knock."
"I'll be back soon."
"Out for the morning/afternoon."
"Out for the day, don't bothing looking for me"
"Out for your entire graduate career."
"Nobody can see the great Oz! Not nobody - not nohow!"

It's all I ask. If nothing else, it would cut down on my curious and foolishly-hopeful trips down to hall to see if doors have magically opened or will suddenly start responding to knocks.

Despite the fact that some of the grads around here are lazy kids who roll in at 11AM and out at 4PM, many of us are here from 9AM until 7 or 8PM every day. If we are here for 11 hours a day, you'd think that we'd OCCASIONALLY intersect with the people whose help we actually need.

*cutting self off before a rant about how much longer we work and how much less we get paid gets going full-bore. Back to my puzzle of a doohickey...*

...i like that word. doohickey, doohickey, doohickey. it's satisfying to say! try it! doohickey, doohickey, doohickey...

and Happy's back!!!

As I got caught up on what I missed this week, I wandered, sad and forlorn, over to Happy Feminist, only to discover that she's back!!!

Sounds like she's had an enormously trying time over the past few months, but hers was the very first feminist blog I started reading and I am SO GLAD she's going to back among us! Good to see you back, Happy!

The Silence of the Students

[apologies for the temporary break-induced silence. now back to your regularly scheduled peanut butter]

One of my classes last semester was a small one, comprised of four women, a guy, and an older female professor. Throughout the class, getting the group to answer questions was a painful, painful process. In part this was because the professor asked either really tangential questions or really obvious questions - she once literally asked, "And when we add one to this number we get..." and refused to move on until someone assured her that we could add. Throw in twenty seconds to tune back in to what was already an easy and ignorable lecture, plus a minute of everyone staring at her in disbelief, and you have an ample amount of wasted time.

What got me is that, half the time, when a person decided to pipe up for the sake of moving on, it happened to be the guy - the class focused on his particular subject of interest (not true for the rest of us) and the professor was his adviser, which encouraged a lot of "eager-to-please" sentiment. However, whenever he answered she would jump down the girls' throats for letting the big bad boy trample our voices and "get" all the questions. Because, clearly, we're too meek and feminine to brave the pressure and answer "1+1". In addition to reminding us loudly that we were, after all, the poor oppressed female majority in the class, it made the poor guy feel like a white male entitled jerk who mowed down his female friends in class, all for daring to express interest in his subject.

At first I was just flat-out annoyed: "My vagina has nothing to do with whether or not I talk in class!" Thinking about it a little more, however, it seems that this is not an entirely ungendered behavior - although perhaps not in the way most people think.

When I don't talk in class:
1) I don't know the answer. Simple. Some people love to pipe up with harebrained guesses, but usually professors take these off on a long and pointless tangent. I prefer not to be the cause of that.

2) The answer is indescribably obvious, i.e., "1+1". The moment a question like this is asked, I am off to the next page of my notes to finish the to-do list I am writing or get back to my proofreading. Everyone in the class unarguably knows the answer - let someone else answer it, I'm busy.

3) I've recently tuned out, probably from the question asked in #2. At this point I usually have something of an urge to answer the question, sparked by guilt, so I'll put a super-contemplative look on my face and pretend I am intently focused on working out the mysteries of the question. This can sometimes be rather ridiculous when it turns out to be another question along the lines of #2. When singled out I'll usually just say I wasn't paying attention. Why not? It's the truth.

4) This is the one that strikes me as gendered: I won't pipe up if I know the answer. By definition, if I am certain of the answer then I assume the question must be easy. If someone like ME knows the answer, so must everyone else. And answering an easy question is like answering a "1+1" question - what sort of tool bothers to show off their mastery of something so easy? If I answer such a easy question, people will think that I actually find it challenging and worth answering. And that's embarassing. And embarassing is bad. Girly silly bad. I highly doubt that guys think this way, that they have this fear of being assumed incompentent because they actually admit they KNOW something. Quite a weird thought process, if you think about it.

Honestly, the only time I'll answer a question is the exact situation when most psychologists think females WON'T - I'll pipe up if I'm unsure of the answer but have an idea. It seems to be the only situation where I - or anyone else, for that matter - will benefit from my speaking up, i.e. "I have an idea, I wonder if it's right, if I answer the professor will tell me and explain, if it's wrong, why that is." (of course, in a discussion-based or journal-club sort of class/seminar, this model is a bit different and we all talk substantially more).


Do other students think this way? Do other WOMEN think this way? Why don't you/didn't you talk in class? (come on professors, you sat quietly and squirming just like all the other boys and girls, admit it). Was it a serious sexist issue? (I've BEEN in a class where being female = uncomfortable speaking up. Not fun.) Did the males overrun the class by never shutting up (also not fun)? Did the teacher simply suck? Was the material too hard? Too easy? We're a pretty vocal and confident and intelligent group, so why exactly are grad classes so silent?

that most fabulous of mistakes...

From a grad student's point of view, anyway...

Sent an email to my field's major professional organization about an upcoming conference. I got a nice prompt reply. The cool mistake? The email began as follows:

"Dear Dr. Blogger..."

:D I LOVE when they do that...


...unfortunately, I am not actually Dr. Blogger yet, and must still take my qualifying exams. Damn.