Adventures in Applying to Graduate School

The time has finally come. I have been anticipating this moment for four years, and now that it is upon me, I am both riddled with anxiety and beaming with excitement. It’s time to apply to graduate programs to begin in the 2014-2015 school year, and I think I’d like to document this experience. One of my most viewed blog articles is a guest article by a close friend of mine who wanted to share his account of the journey to grad school. To atone for my complicity in sharing his vulgar, though admittedly popular narrative, I’ve decided to share some bullet points on my own experience. It is my hope that this can be helpful for those of you that are preparing to apply to graduate school in the near future, or that this might elicit some response from those of you who have experience with this process.

I am applying to seven programs, one of which is a dual MPH/PHD program, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, for a total of nine applications. Three applications are already open (which I have started), but the rest will open in early to mid-September. To satiate my organizational needs, I’ve constructed an Excel file that lists each requirement, fee, deadline, and special notes for each application, though many of the finer details, I’ve discovered, are not available until one actually begins the process.

The Gecko (Dakar 2013)

My host has been keeping me out all hours of the night. The other morning, about 3AM, we quietly walk in to the house, up the stairs, and down the hallway. I’m leading through the dark with the light of my cellphone, and flip the switch to turn on the light in the hall. I turn to my bedroom door and unlock it, but I notice that at the other end of the hallway, my host is frozen in his tracks. I whisper, “What’s up?” and he motions to the ceiling where I see a small gecko, perhaps 4 inches max.

Ah, cool! I think; I see lizards everywhere, but they’re always running and I can never get a picture. I duck into the bedroom for my camera, pop off a few shots, and then motion to my host, “I’m done, come on.” Then I realize, this big brawny former-goalkeeper of a man is petrified, and I don’t know why. The guy who laughed as I firmly gripped the back of his motorcycle through the streets of Dakar is now afraid to walk past this gecko. “Is it…dangerous?” I ask. “Yep,” he nods. “Does it…jump?” I ask, confused about how it could be a threat from the ceiling. “Yep,” he repeats. Okay, I need more information. “Is it poisonous? Is it lethal?” “No it’s not lethal,” but before he can finish his thought he dives into my bedroom for shelter. The gecko scurries across the ceiling, and startles my host. “Okay, what does it do?” I ask, snapping photos and getting a little too close to the gecko for my host’s comfort.

Dear Obama: A Short Guide to Dakar

Dear Mr. President,

I hear you’re coming to town at the end of the month, and I understand that it will be your first trip to Dakar, “The Gateway to Africa.” I’d just like to suggest some things that might make your stay a little easier.

1. Eat some ceeb u jen at least once. It’s great food, but it gets a little old rather quick, but I should warn you: eat small bites slowly because there are a lot of bones. Bonus points if you do it like the Senegalese: Sit with your family on the floor, eating from a single large plate with your hands.

2. Drink ataaya. It’s Chinese tea, mint, and sugar, but it’s some of the best stuff in the world. The trick is, you have to find someone that you can sit with while they make it, because it really is better with friends. Where I live, we have the tea every night, making the tea in a kettle over a portable gas burner. Three glasses is the standard serving amount, and sometimes it can take 30 minutes or more to prepare the tea between those glasses! But that’s okay, because it’s not actually about the tea; it’s about the circle of friends.

"T'as peur?" (Dakar 2013)

The time I was on a motorcycle, I was maybe 13 and I dropped it. When I was a kid, my dad took a spill on his motorcycle and never looked back. So when my Senegalese friend wanted to take me on a ride through the streets of Dakar to see the celebrations of Balla Gaye's victory, I was torn. "T'as peur  (You scared)?" he asked. "Non, je n'ai pas peur (Nah, I'm not scared)," I said against my better judgement. My hands have never sweat so much. Despite the fact that it was probably one of the dumbest things I've ever done (i.e. riding on the back of a motorcycle through Dakar with few or no street lamps, no helmet, and a borrowed Nikon), it was absolutely amazing. At the end of the night, I turned to my friend and said, "C'etait formidable, hain? Mais plus jamais ca (That was great! But never again)."

Gendered Health, Reproduction, and Biosociality: An Exploration of Senegalese Men's Health-Related Schemata and Praxis

Last summer, I fell in love with Senegal while studying French in Dakar and using that opportunity to research traditional medicine. At the end of this week, I am returning to Dakar for five weeks of ethnographic research into men’s reproductive health, behavior, and decision-making. Many of my questions are related to how the construction of gender overlays healthcare and reproduction. I also have a philosophical interest in parsing out the influences of Islamic, ethnic (Wolof, Serer, etc.), and French epistemologies and ontologies.

Like last summer, I intend to blog about my research while I’m there, except this time with more photos and probably some video too – stay tuned.

This would not be possible without the incredibly generous support from following people (in a semi-particular order):

Willow Rosen

Dr. Barbara Hoffman

Dr. Mamadou Seck; Abib and Malick Seck

Dr. Deirdre Mageean

Dr. Rosemary Sutton

Rick Jr. and Sue Powis

Dr. Maggie Jackson and the Department of Anthropology

David Rosen

Richard Sr. and Mary Jo Powis

Thadd and Lisa Evans

Joseph and Mary Wargo

Mary Lou Johnstone

Brian Johnstone and Carleen Almasy

Jeff Johnstone

Rev. Walt and Charlene Powis

Faith Jones

Marietta Smrdel and Cynthia L. Werle

Sue Fout

Lois Bryan

Chris Kraska, Natalia Buchwald, and Sydney Stark

Mansplaining: A Proposal to Study the Power, Knowledge, and Miscommunication of Intergender Speech

This semester, I am finishing up an anthropology class in "Language and Gender." The class is focused on a hit parade of scholarly literature, starting with Robin Lakoff's 1975 "Language and Woman's Place" and following the development of the field through to more recent inquiries, like Elise Kramer's 2011 paper on internet rape jokes. As an undergraduate student steeped in the academic Twitterverse and Blogosphere, I feel like I might have a lot of exposure to the criticisms and questions that are raised - as they are raised - about conflicts between the genders.

For example, maybe you noticed a little over a week ago that Kate Clancy, Katie Hinde, Robin Nelson, and Julienne Rutherford made waves capsized the damn boat with their survey, analysis, and subsequent presentation of sexual harassment in environments of anthropological fieldwork. (The study is ongoing, and now includes all manner of scientific fieldwork.)

Perhaps you remember the silly editorial in Nature about "Womanspace" when Ed Rybicki suggested, as one commenter put it, "the uterus is a tracking device."

Or, if anyone is the least bit familiar with the goings-on of the online atheist community (most notably the so-called "Elevatorgate" debacle between Rebecca Watson and Richard Dawkins [and the disgusting amount of abuse she has taken since then]), you have an idea of what I'm talking about.

And then there's mansplaining. Lakoff, Zimmerman, West, Maltz, Borker, O'Barr, Tannen - all of the sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists that we've studied this semester have come SO CLOSE to describing our current conception of mansplaining, and yet no one hit the mark  - not until Rebecca Solnit's incredibly popular L.A. Times opinion piece, "Men who explain things." Why? I have no idea, and frankly I was kind of shocked. So, I did my final presentation on it, and here it is (after the jump).

“We are all Bostonians”: Thoughts on Appropriating Empathy

Yesterday, the nation was shocked by the tragic events of the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Two bombs were detonated near the finish line, apparently timed to injure the greatest amount of people. Naturally, social networks are aflutter with condolences, support, conspiracy theories, admonishments, and clicktavism. Between things like Patton Oswalt's uplifting note on the goodness of humanity, and the immediate dissemination of services like Google Person Finder to locate loved ones, I have to say: We have come pretty far since 9/11, and I'm rather proud of that fact.

I want to comment, though, on the adversarial nature of some social media users. I have observed two types: those that shut down conspiracy theorists in their tracks and those that cry out for equal empathy for foreign tragedies. The former gives me joy. It is a sign that more and more people are finally getting tired of Alex Jones and Mike Adams. It is a sign (though singular and weak), that we might be heading toward a more rational (or at least reasonable) social consciousness. The latter, on the other hand, I cannot abide.

It is true: Many people die in bombings outside of the United States on a regular basis. It is terrible and tragic, and I blame centuries of colonialism and empire-building for their loss. There are entire populations that live in fear that any day could be their last; we absolutely take our safety for granted. And it is true: Many Americans are not globally aware of the goings-on in such communities. Even if they do catch the title of an article in the back pages of the newspaper or on the margin of a news website, they will not think that it’s “news.” I agree that these are lamentable realities, and I too wish that Americans had the same kind of empathy for the humans who face the threat of this kind of violence every day.

However, that said, this will never happen. Ever. The bombing in Boston targeted Americans  (and non-Americans) gathered to participate in an event of (global) camaraderie in one of America’s oldest cities. We identify with the victims and their families in ways that we will never identify with those that live in daily fear. We hold many of the same values, share the same beliefs and language, and are governed by the same laws. It could have been any one of us; an indiscriminate attack on those people as a means to attack an idea is thus an attack on anyone else who identifies with that idea. I am absolutely not the most patriotic person I know – in fact, I find patriotism quite silly – but bombs don’t care what you or I believe. As they say, “It’s the thought that counts.”

Furthermore, when someone suggests that there is a global injustice when Americans don’t react to foreign bombings the same way, what you are really saying is: “My daily knowledge of global affairs is superior to your ability to grieve in the here and now.” Get over yourself. We can have empathy for the victims of violence - political, structural, or even natural - but we don’t have to be insensitive about it.