I hate Linkedin

Today I received an email from a professor at the school where I did my year of a hellish graduate program. Seems innocent, right?

Wrong.

I won't go into much detail about the message but I do want to talk a little about the time I was in grad school.

To start I want to say that I by no means expected graduate school to be easy. During my time in undergrad I worked in an academic office that had a master's and Ph.D program and since I worked there for four years I became friends with a couple of the master's students and saw there journey from master's to the first few years of Ph.D work. While this was a second hand experience, meaning I did none of the work, I do think that knowing them and seeing what stress they were under gave me a very realistic view of what a master's program would be like. 

My program was nothing like I, or any of my cohort, expected.

When I began the process of looking for a program and applying I found three schools that I really liked. One was a long shot and because of a mix up between one of my letter writers and the deadline I was not accepted into that program. 

The other program looked awesome on paper. I was so excited about it. My career focus has always been to work in public health but from an anthropological point of view. This program had a dual degree path with the public health department. I applied, I visited, I was accepted to the program. But it didn't feel right. Everyone I met was amazing. The professors was so friendly and helpful, the head of the graduate program responded to a ridiculous amount of emails sent by me. I thought, going into the visit that I had found my home for the next two plus years. But when I left I didn't feel relief. I didn't feel like it was the right fit. Everything felt just a little off.

The third program was just a whatever application for me. They had a medical anthropology program and I felt that even if I didn't go with a program that had a public health aspect at least the medical anthropology would open a few more doors career-wise for me. I applied to the program and didn't think much more of it until I got an email saying I was accepted into the program. I felt odd about it because no one had contacted me at anytime. I didn't have any questions for them about their program because I didn't really expect to get in. So when I received the email I was a little surprised. I emailed the graduate coordinator asking if I could visit the department and she enthusiastically said yes. I visited my dream school on a Friday and this program on the next Tuesday.

Everything about this visit was magical. I was nervous about the city because you never hear great stories about Memphis. But the campus was beautiful. The two graduate students who gave me the tour were so nice and didn't give me the bullshit fluff reasons to attend the program. The professors I met with were again, awesome. They were all doing research in everything I was interested in. I left and immediately called my mom telling her I found my program. I found an assistantship and everything was in order.

But then, the closer it got to time to move I started feeling nervous and anxious. The nerves weren't the good excited to be starting something new kind. I was sick to my stomach daily. I was having nightmares when I would finally sleep. I was scared. I texted my friends from undergrad asking about what I was experiencing and they reassured me that it was normal. I spoke with my doctor and he placed me on an antidepressant because it's completely normal for someone on the verge of taking a huge life step to be nervous and anxious. 

So I moved. I found an apartment near a beautiful park for Jack. I met the other members of my cohort. I started class. 

Immediately the feedback I was getting was that my work was subpar. One professor said that everything I turned in looked like I did it the morning it was due. Another critiqued the terms I used in a paper as if I could read his mind on the correct words he wanted to see. Every paper I wrote I was told it looked as if I spent a day at most on it no matter how long I worked at it. When I participated in class I was told my interpretation of readings was wrong. If I didn't participate in class I was given marks off and received emails saying I need to talk more in class. I never made above a C on a presentation. (This I expected because I have severe social anxiety and speaking in front of a group is not easy. As hard as I tried this was never going to get better and I had accepted that and all of the professors knew it also.)

My anxiety became worse. At one point I couldn't even leave my bed over a midterm break. I hated getting up in the morning. I hated talking to friends. I hated talking to my family. The only person I really spoke to was NOG and that was because he didn't tell me I was wrong every time I said something. 

I began to question my intelligence. I wondered how I had been accepted into three of the five programs that I had applied. I wondered how my friends and family could stand talking to me because I was clearly the stupidest person on earth. My drive to campus was filled with thoughts of, "If I had a bad enough car accident I would get an extension (hopefully) on all my school work and a little more time to make it perfect" or "I should just stop going. No one would miss me except my friends". I hid the truth from my parents until I finally broke down during a phone conversation with my mom. I was very surprised that she didn't end up at my door step later that day because she finally realized how depressed I had become.

I finally emailed the chair of the program, who was also my advisor and who I had butted heads with from the first day of class. I told her everything I felt about the program in a nice way. I explained that I didn't understand how I was accepted into the program because I was clearly not bright enough to be a member of this department. She nicely blamed me for everything, reinforcing my insecurities, and pointed me to another graduate program on campus. I emailed my other professors and only one of them reached out to me to express their displeasure in seeing me leave. 

Slowly I began to feel better. I began to feel like I wasn't the stupidest person in the room. I talked more with my cohort and realized that I wasn't the only one experiencing this. That there were maybe three people satisfied with their experience but that everyone else, to some degree, hated it and wished they had never attended this particular program. 

I took an internship in Los Angeles for the summer after my first year of grad school. My plan was to return to Memphis and finish my master's in the new program my advisor had told me about. I felt good about it all. But then the closer it got to return I started feeling anxious again. The nervous and depression returned. Then I got a call from my assistantship saying they couldn't hire me back because I was on academic probation. I took a fail in one of my spring classes because I was on the verge of a breakdown. I knew it was coming and my professor, the only one to reach out to me, completely understood and even said that we might could work something out so that I didn't have a fail. I was planning on working with her once I returned to school but I didn't get the chance. 

I made the decision to go ahead and move permanently to Los Angeles. It was always my goal and that was part of the reason that I butted heads with my chair. I wanted to do my practicum in LA but she felt that I wasn't experienced enough to do that, plus she had a litany of reason to stay clear of LA, including the cost of living, finding living arrangements, getting around the city. I assured here all of those things were taken care of already and that seemed to piss her off even more.

All of the anxiety and nervous and depression were gone when I made the decision to stay in LA. I was finally able to live full time with my partner. We had been together for four years but until this past summer we had never lived together. Our visits were maybe a week at a time. Finally we would be in the same state, same city, same house. I was so happy, and still am. 

Until today. I received an email from one of the professors at the program through LinkedIn saying it was unethically for me to have the graduate program I didn't graduate from on my account. Suddenly all those nerves, anxiety, and depression came back. For a brief moment I was back in Memphis, unhappy and sad and sick because of a stupid email containing information that isn't true. 

So instead of looking for a job for the past hour and half, I've been googling articles on how to list a graduate program that was attended but no degree was attained. I've let one of the people who made my life hell for 9 months ruin my day. But I'm done. I have my articles to back me up and I'm moving forward. To hell with Memphis and graduate programs that suck.