By Kayla Justice, English MA Student
Two years before the writing of this post I was working for a SCUBA diving company on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and the thought of graduate school was non-existent. As is the case for many over-achieving undergraduate students, graduate school seemed like an inevitability someday, but upon my graduation in December 2015 I realized that I had no clear academic goals or direction to pursue, so the obvious solution was to teach SCUBA instead. To be clear, I loved my time on Kauai and teaching diving. Many of the people I met over the course of the two years I lived there remain important personal friends and I hope to go back to either Kauai or to professional diving, or perhaps both, at some point in the future. But the academic itch set in in spring 2017 and I knew I wanted to go back to school.
Recognizing that school was calling my name again, I decided to take the GRE on Oahu (Kauai did not have a testing center) and, unsurprisingly, did not do incredibly well. Standardized testing certainly does not showcase any of my abilities as a student and my GRE scores indicated that this reality had not changed for me since taking the SATs in high school. Unperturbed, I began researching areas I thought might be fun to move to (I had no concept of what school I was looking for or even what program at this time). For some reason unbeknownst to me, Maine spoke to me. I began researching schools in Maine and eventually decided that the University of Maine in Orono would have to be the school I applied to, but I still wasn’t sure about a program. My background is in the Communication Arts and Philosophy departments, but I had the thought that it might be a good idea to get a Master’s degree in a field I hadn’t majored in in order to make me a more well-rounded student. Needless to say, after much riffling through graduate programs I landed on English.
The application I submitted to the University of Maine in January 2018, like my GRE scores, also did not showcase my abilities as a student—I had no idea what I wanted to study in the vast discipline of English. Why English? Why Maine? Why graduate school? My application did not have these answers and I consequently did not get accepted into the program. By this point my desire to return to school had taken over my life and I knew I couldn’t be happy on Kauai anymore. I went back to the drawing board and, after an offhand suggestion from my friend, found Minnesota. Similar (ish) climate, access to the great outdoors, relatively (and compared to Kauai) inexpensive, Minnesota had become my newest obsession. I found St. Cloud State University because, admittedly, their application deadlines had not closed yet. By this time, it was March 2018. I reviewed and repurposed my Maine application to reflect that yes, I am a student who has coherent thoughts about research and I chose a paper that better demonstrated my abilities: “The Role of Liminality in Early Irish Immrama and Echtrai.” The choice to use this paper would become important in my second fall semester (aka now…as I am writing this post), but more on this later. After a much needed revamp from the Maine attempt, my application was accepted and I was headed to grad school.
Flash-forward over lots of traveling and moving pains from Kauai to St. Cloud, MN, I started the English Studies MA program here at SCSU in August 2018. Having been out of school for almost three years, my first semester was a shock. It was a shock in terms of the classes I was enrolled in as a graduate student (how does one type on a keyboard without looking, again?) and as a graduate teaching assistant. Juggling these two responsibilities simultaneously left zero time for thesis thoughts. And I continued to have no thesis thoughts even through the majority of the spring 2019 semester. I began to get nervous around the end of March when whisperings of “culminating project” were becoming louder in the graduate TA office, in the hallways, in my classes…these whispers seemed to be everywhere and I, still, had no thoughts about a topic. This was unsettling for a student who has prided herself on being an engaged and interested researcher. Why was this proving to be so difficult?
When I registered to present at the April 2019 Huskies Showcase student presentations event, I decided it was time to at least pretend like I had an idea. The paper I was presenting on was titled: “Consumption and the 19th Century Novel of Female Adultery.” Perhaps there is a thesis there? Sure. Let’s go with that. I began asking my Seminar in World Literature professor (whom I had written my “Consumption” paper for originally) if she would be interested in helping me, in even perhaps maybe someday being on my committee? She graciously agreed to be available via email correspondence over the summer and that was that. I had an informal advisor for a thesis with a topic loosely concerned with women in the 19th century. Or was it consumption that was the more important piece of this puzzle? Or maybe I’m interested in the role of literature in the 19th century novel of female adultery? Yes, that sounds right. I can research the extensive history of literature, female adultery, and the 19th century (none of which I have much of a clue about) and craft my thesis out of that inquiry. Good.
Not good.
As the summer began, I consoled myself with the thought that I have literal months before the start of the fall 2019 semester and so thesis work didn’t have to start today today, but could start tomorrow. And then June and July were done and it was August and I had not written or read a damn thing about literature, or female adultery, or the 19th century. It was in the first week of August that I had to have a talk with myself about my topic. While I peripherally found the various untethered ideas floating around in my head interesting, I had no passion to pursue them because I felt so utterly uninformed. How could I possibly educate myself on these rich areas of study and then have something original, or at least partly original, to say in two short semesters? And, really, its more like one-and-a-half semesters. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this topic and therefore the endeavor was abandoned. I decided, in that first week of August when I realized I had done nothing, none of the things I said I would do that summer, I decided that I would write my thesis about my favorite animated mini-series, Over the Garden Wall because I love it and why not. After all, it’s grad school! I can do what I want! Why Over the Garden Wall? Because Adventure Time was too huge and Steven Universe had already been extensively examined through a gender studies lens. Over the Garden Wall was a little edgier, a little weirder, and only 110 minutes long so a reasonable amount of material to engage meaningfully with in the shortening period of time available to me to write this thing.
Much like my choice of school, my choice of artifact for my graduate thesis was random (but beloved) and in Part II of this mini blog series I will discuss the intricate, but not unique, struggle of my thesis writing and process.