When I was a little kid, I really wanted to get the highest level of education possible. Why not? My mom is a librarian and always instilled in me that I should love learning, and I do. But how I love learning and what kind of learning I enjoy has changed drastically. You will never catch me at a higher education institution ever again besides a community college to take pottery classes on the weekends.
Part of the problem, I think, is that I quickly became so specialised in archaeology/anthropology, and also knew that I didn't care to do anything else at that point, that I couldn't get out when I realized how miserable I was. I had gotten my undergraduate degree in a dying discipline, despite what everyone would say about "oh, there's so much you can do with an anthropology degree". Yes, please, tell me more about how I can work HR later. Thank you.
In any case, I was very stuck, and the undergrad degree itself was largely useless because I could not get tech jobs. I have and will continue to talk at length about how being a larger-bodied biologically female individual is an invitation for discrimination in this industry. So I couldn't get a job with what I already had.
These realizations came to me after I had initially dropped the program in 2022/23 after coming back from Italy. I look back on it now fondly and realize that it was a good opportunity, but between K, the Italian male gaze, and the lack of stimulation, it was just hard. I still do not understand how everyone loves him so much. I have come to be in a good place with him, but dear god, if I never saw him again, it would be fine by me.
In any case, I felt like I had abandoned my principles and my friends when I quit. And naturally I went from one ordeal to the next and ended up living in a moldy basement apartment with a narcissitic bitch for a year. Some part of me thinks I went back to grad school out of spite against her, since she couldn't even finish undergrad but thought she was smarter and more interesting than me. I also got on Lexapro, which I think is the only reason I made it through at all.
Got back in. The first class I took was a repeat of Zooarchaeology, just so I could get some review. October 7th and the Palestinian Genocide started happening and at that point I was basically brainwashing myself to become a Zionist so that my Jewish friends would like me more and accept me as a convert. Out of all of this, this is probably the thing that makes me feel the most insane. I was not a good friend to H in that respect, who got hit by a car that semester and ended up going home to Morocco. I was fucking insane. If I think my graduate career was a piece of shit, I should think more about hers.
I didn't know the thesis was going to be a disaster when J said, in Italy, "and you can do the faunal analysis for the site for your thesis". Oh, how joyous. At this point I think she knew she was taking advantage. So I labored on J and C's project for about four years. Of course, by the time I get to ND and W tells me, "you really shouldn't have picked up your advisor's project" I was so balls deep in it that it would have been a waste of time to pick something else.
Anyway, it's fucking over now. I successfully defended. And J and C can bicker about it at home while I go make money.
Fuck institutions, fuck me, fuck my insecurity, I can only hope and pray I won't be so weak and non-discerning in the future. Amen.