December 26, 2004

For those senior college students whose future still remains an "open book" (the nice way of saying "fearful, overwhelming void"), that is, all of us, there is a way of prolonging the inevitable dump into the toilet of actual reality - grad school. Our professors love pushing the idea, as it is their primary means of reproduction (followed closely by "budding").

Well, as the naïve college student that I am, I decided to think about the idea of grad school. Naturally, I decided to think about the idea of grad school the September of my senior year, which, in grad school application terms, is four hundred years too late. Also, by "think about the idea" I mean precisely that. I do not mean "begin the application process," "study for the GRE," or "do anything that might be considered useful by anybody." So I thought about it. It sounded something like this: "Hmm."

I glanced over the applications a few times, or at least the first page or so. "Name, address, Social Security Number.. I can handle this," I thought, and went back to pretending to work on SoftDev ("O woe is me, woe is me, for this work doth be so hard! *click on FreeCell*").

Sadly, if I had only thought to check out the very next page of the application, I might have been healthily scared away from the whole process. This was the page where you were supposed to list all the things that would make these highly selective graduate programs deeply desire you as a student - "Please list all patents received in the last four months" or "Please specify, in no fewer than 7,000 words, your major world-changing discoveries, inventions, and/or publications" or "Please include transcript from all attended post-secondary institutions. For specific directions, please see applications from other schools you are applying to and do the opposite." It's a little intimidating. I'm not sure what I was expecting, exactly - "Please indicate highest consecutive score in Microsoft FreeCell" - but I wasn't quite expecting to have had to be preparing for graduate school since the second stage of my fetal development, or even my junior year.

Everyone assures me I'll have no trouble getting in. I typically blame such rose-colored assumptions on the thickness of my glasses - "he must be grad school material if his lenses weigh enough to inflict kyphosis on a guard at Buckingham Palace." But the glasses have been dispensed with (or, at least, until the next Lasik appointment. 6th time's the charm, right? Sigh.), so I must lay the irrational blame elsewhere. I turn to my own reputation as a very smart person, despite my occasional inability to remember to open a door before walking through it. Or perhaps it's my hair. I've been told I have very professorial (meaning bad) hair. There isn't a lot on top, and plenty streaming out of the sides. But needless to say, I don't feel that such confidence in me is justified. I may very well get into some graduate school or other, but it will be from lack of competition if anything else.

The reason I say this is, while I am indeed very academically capable blah blah and have all the right personality quirks necessary to enter a life in academia (absentmindedness, fear of people, arrogance), but unless these blanks in the application are meant to be optional, I don't think I've been preparing myself the right way for this.

No matter! Filling out applications doesn't take very long (especially when you have no publications or research experience in your field), so what harm could there be in at least applying? Especially to such an insignificant, noncompetitive school as MIT? Sure, they only allow so many people into CSAIL (pronounced "sea-sale" and standing for, I am practically certain, something), and the competition is often from places like Asia, where every student has a grim-faced father employing an actual whip to spur them on to bursts of academic research and development ("Some day, some foolish American undergraduate child will have a mathematics professor who does not understand the concept of the English articles or the consonant 'r!'" these fathers routinely say to their children. "I want that professor to be you! *crack whip*"). Sure, the competition is steep. But I have a chance, right?

No. No I do not.

I blame my professors, on the unassailable basis that they are not me. My professors did not exactly crack a whip over me to get me to do research projects. The courses offered at Harding aren't designed to prepare one for graduate school. They used to be, back before the ridiculous late 90's, when computer science students were getting job offers the instant they declared their major, sometimes before. During those wonderful glorious years, the demand for graduate school kind of dropped off, and the courses were removed from the curriculum (although that one course in FORTRAN is still there, and will still be there even when the United States has been obliterated by nukes). So what does that leave students like me, who plan to go on to a career of grad school academic glory in a city that is only marginally cheaper to live in than the Magic Kingdom, or the MIR Space Station? The answer: cramming on our own for the GRE Computer Science Subject Test, not that we are bitter!

The GRE Computer Science Subject Test was a wonderful, non-stressing experience involving a several-hour drive through Eastern Arkansas (the ugly half) to get to the nearest testing facility, a stay in a hotel room directly across from a party of about what sounded like several million middle school band geeks practicing their tuba songs* through the night, and a walk across Arkansas State University campus ("Where the Nearest Parking Lot is Under Construction!") in the 20 below (Kelvins) weather, only to discover (thanks to an icicle covered notice) that the testing facility has been moved across campus. To add insult to injury, this was all followed by the drive back. But in the end, I'm sure it was worth it. Because I have cognitive dissonance.

You will probably be hearing more about the application process as I'm not exactly done with the applications yet (the instructions are cryptic, and often involve numbers that won't exist until the end of the year, and then they'll only exist because I made them up). And I plan on vigorously attacking those essays just as soon as I feel like it, which will be after I'm done playing World of Warcraft. I hope they don't mind getting their applications in August. Maybe I'll have patented something by then. Merry Christmas everybody...

*"Random Arpeggios"