This is from my Anxious Bench archives. I currently am teaching in London and gathering more material for future posts! You can look forward to a guest blogger (I think you will love his forthcoming book) on July 26, and I will return to my posts about medieval Christianity vs. modern Christianity in August. In the meantime, this post resonated with many last summer, so I thought it could help some more graduate students this summer.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n My husband suggested once that I have lunch with\u00a0a friend. She was a graduate student, and struggling in the program. \u201cDid you tell her I almost quit?\u201d I asked. \u201cOh, yeah,\u201d my husband said. \u201cThat is why I thought you should talk with her.\u201d<\/p>\n Graduate school is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Although I am grateful for the excellent program I attended and my superb adviser (who is still\u00a0my friend and advocate), I have no desire to return to my graduate years.<\/p>\n I expected the painful work load, the never ending research projects and papers, the complete lack of sleep for days on end, and even the political drama among both faculty and students.<\/p>\n What I didn\u2019t expect was how much I would fail.<\/p>\n Just to name a few \u00a0of my early failures: I failed a language exam (quite spectacularly, actually). I received what-I-hoped-would-become-the-beginning-of-my-thesis back with the words, \u201cThis wasn\u2019t worth my time,\u201d scrawled across the front. I taught the 1381 English peasant revolt completely wrong during a teaching observation. I never managed to understand the questions in Latin one professor insisted on asking me every time we crossed paths (which was way too often for my stress level!). And, although I know my current students may not believe this, I almost never spoke up in seminar my first year. I was terrified of how much I didn\u2019t know. It really seemed that everyone else had not only read Foucault and memorized all of his writings, but even understood Foucault so well that they could integrate him into every conversation we had. Everyone, except for me.<\/p>\n I could go on, but I think you get the point. \u00a0I failed a lot.<\/p>\n In fact, I became convinced my first year that I couldn\u2019t do it. When I admitted to my husband that I couldn\u2019t finish the PhD, I really felt like a failure. But, during our conversation, another option began to emerge. \u00a0I should finish my MA (the first two years). If I still felt strongly about quitting, then I could exit the program. This cheered me up. I could do it for one more year. There was an end in sight which included an advanced degree. And so that became my plan. I realized that failing wasn\u2019t the end of the world\u2013life would go one, and I would be okay.<\/p>\n It was at this point that everything changed. By giving myself permission to fail, I learned how to succeed.<\/p>\n I no longer worried about Foucault in seminar. I knew other things, and really enjoyed most of the other readings, so I talked about those. I didn\u2019t talk as much as my cohorts, but I began to talk more and with greater comfort. No longer paralyzed by the fear of failure, I engaged with my peers both inside and outside of seminar. Soon I began to talk about Foucault myself (especially after I actually read him!).<\/p>\n I also became more adventurous in my writing. By trying to write the way I thought an academic text should be, I had become a truly awful writer (which maybe says something about the academic texts I was reading\u2026). But when I returned to the way I liked to write and to the topics I enjoyed (women and religion), I got better.<\/p>\n Indeed, my entire performance improved dramatically.\u00a0I remember so clearly reading my end-of-year evaluation. It stated, \u201cBeth blossomed this year.\u201d<\/p>\n For the first time I knew I could complete the PhD.<\/p>\n So for those of you in graduate school struggling with the stress of the program, with the fear of failure, and with uncertainty about the future, I have some advice.<\/p>\n You will fail in graduate school. I guarantee it. But this\u00a0doesn\u2019t have to be a bad thing.<\/p>\n Failure teaches us that we have to change. It helps us develop problem-solving skills and familiarizes us with confrontation. It also helps us admit that we need help.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know about you, but these seem like pretty valuable life lessons to me.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is from my Anxious Bench archives. I currently am teaching in London and gathering more material for future posts! You can look forward to a guest blogger (I think you will love his forthcoming book) on July 26, and I will return to my posts about medieval Christianity vs. modern Christianity in August. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2389,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1828],"tags":[1769,250],"class_list":["post-17789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beth-allison-barr","tag-graduate-school","tag-historical-profession-2"],"yoast_head":"\n\n