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As
I try to navigate the demands of graduate school and the exhaustion it entails,
I find myself searching
for the “perfect recipe” that will help me attain the coveted “successful
graduate student” status. I have spent precious time ruminating over this,
trying to chase it. Is it excelling in classes? Is it being involved in half a
dozen research projects? Is it assuming leadership positions? Is it
contributing to community? Is it developing professional relationships with the
professors? For those in clinical and counseling programs such as myself, the
demands of graduate school extend beyond research, classes, and assistantships.
Successful clinical and counseling students also need to demonstrate continuous
progress and improvement in their clinical work. It seems a bit much, doesn’t
it? If we consider all the roles we are expected to excel in, it is not
surprising then to experience that our demands often exceed our resources. How
many of us can relate to feeling exhausted after just three weeks into the
semester? Many experience feeling stretched, fatigued, and burned out.
Self-care starts becoming a luxury. Mental health days begin to appear as a
privilege.
It
is not an unfamiliar experience for graduate students, particularly female
identified graduate students, to feel like they are not meeting scholastic expectations. While, the
imposter syndrome is true, it is also true that women experience it far more
than men (Parkman, 2016). It is not a figment of our imagination as it is often
made to seem. After careful consideration, I found myself discovering that I
had a problem with chronic fatigue being termed as a “phase.” Well-meaning directors,
advisors, and supervisors will readily offer encouraging words about perceived
expectations and ways to go about managing them. Being productive, busy, tired,
and sleep deprived is normalized and in some cases glorified. It also doesn’t
help that within the academic community there are not many role models for a
convincing work life balance. Rarely though do we speak about what leads to the
development of these expectations that graduate students place upon themselves.
Is it just a personal attribute as it often made to seem?
I
find it unconvincing that high need for achievement and high expectations of
self are
just personal
attributes. Sure, there might be some individual variation with respect to what
people feel driven to accomplish. However, it is bizarre to explain an
overwhelming majority of graduate student experience as a product of individual
difference factors. While there is nothing wrong with an adaptive achievement
need, believing in productivity, and a desire to be successful, there is
something grossly problematic about superimposing a certain criteria of
achievement on students. Individuals differ in their experiences in graduate
school. Minority stress affects students differently as well. However, I challenge
the explanation of this shared feeling of stress and fatigue in graduate school
as being due to individual personal attributes. I have heard of professors
blaming students for the stress they experience, minimizing the reality of the
situation and expecting the student to control factors beyond plausible control.
There is some recognition in the field that graduate education is difficult and
rigorous. However, I wonder how that view evolved. I wonder why a system that
affects the mental and physical health of students continues to function
without any accountability? The patriarchal and capitalistic nature of graduate
school is hopefully not unnoticed by individuals in the profession. I wonder
the reasons then as to why this system continues without any change? I wonder
how many programs actually focus on self-care and mental health of their
students? Professing values of self-care does very little when provisions to
incorporate those are never made. Similarly, espousing feminism does little
when institutions and systems perpetuate the very idea that feminists critique.
As
I thought more deeply about this topic and shared my thoughts with colleagues
and
friends, the pervasive
patriarchal philosophy of graduate school
became more and more apparent to me. Patriarchy
is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the control by
men, rather than women or both men and women, of most of
the power and authority in a society.” In higher
education, the manifestation of patriarchy is through domination and acceptance
of the ideas of success and excellence. Thus, my dilemma about this
“perfect recipe” for a successful graduate student became clear to me. There
indeed is a “perfect recipe” and my opinion is that graduate school expectations
are rooted in this “perfect recipe.” Students are not imagining the demands,
rather there are certain explicit but more often implicit demands placed upon
students. When we deviate from these patriarchal expectations, there are
consequences. This issue is compounded for individuals of color, individuals
with disabilities, and other individuals with one or more intersecting
marginalized identities.
Today,
we have more female identified individuals enter higher education than what was
true in the
past but there is also more stress that is experienced at the graduate school
level. When we think about graduate education from a cultural lens, we have acknowledged
the White privilege embedded in higher education in the U.S. We are also aware
of sexism at even the most premier pillars of higher education. However,
patriarchal pedagogy is a prevailing yet less acknowledged factor. Not to
mention the faulty notion held by many, there exists equality of sexes, hinders
a true acknowledgement of the deep entrenched patriarchy around us even in the
most basic professional conversations. Jeong (2001) in his article Pedagogy of Patriarchy: A Window on American
21st Century Gifted Education, describes the differences between excellence
driven patriarchal philosophy and equality driven matriarchal philosophy. Jeong
is proposing a patriarchal pedagogy in gifted education because it matches the
U.S. society’s striving and acceptance of individualism and masculinism as
superior. We are caught up in a excellence driven system at graduate school
which helps explains the heap of expectations, tasks, and roles to be fulfilled
in order to be considered successful.
Higher
education is assumed to help us challenge and question biases, at least in the
field
of psychology.
Many of us chose to pursue higher education to make a substantial difference,
to give back to our communities, and to dismantle systems of power. Personally,
the realization that I am caught up in patriarchal system was shocking and
revolting. The idea that I might be consciously and unconsciously perpetuating
the system was even more disturbing. However, I believe that reflection of what
seems like an ironic situation is a starting point. An awareness of my roles and
expectations in higher education is the stepping stone toward modifying it.
Written by Urvi
Paralkar, M.A.
References
Jeong, T.
(2001). Pedagogy of Patriarchy: A Window on American 21st Century Gifted
Education. Journal
of Secondary Gifted Education, 12(3), 160-162.
Parkman, A.
(2016). The imposter phenomenon in higher education: Incidence and
impact. Journal
of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 16(1), 51.
