By Madeline Lau
Loyola Marymount is a far cry from any school you could find in Oregon. Here the students drive better cars than the professors (we’re talking brand new Benzes, dude), the weather is nearly perfect year-round and the potential for a classmate to undergo a rather “adult” cosmetic surgery is as probable as seeing North Face sweaters on U of O’s campus. I’ve known children of Saudi princes, siblings of famous actors and people whose family’s net worth is more than the real estate value of Arkansas. It’s pretty mind-blowing, really, and after three years I’ve had my fill. Even though my sister keeps telling me to stay in LA for “networking connections,” I can’t wait to come back home to Oregon.
So I am applying to graduate school at a place I probably should have started at a few years ago – Oregon State. It’s my hope that I can get on my way to a post-grad degree by the time I was scheduled to graduate from LMU, all the while saving my family about … umm …. $50,000. Finishing early seems pretty reasonable to me!
I can’t wait to go to school in Oregon again (that is, if the school will have me).
I have a vision of living in a small but cozy Corvallis apartment or house with several enormous dogs and a rustic “do it myself” attitude that city life seems to have sucked out of me a little. I will make crafts on the weekend and study the ways of indigenous people across the world while fine-tuning my various research projects. Research! In Oregon! On a blustery day! Oh, it sounds so good on paper; it must be even better in real life!
To add to my dog + research + Corvallis dream, it will be soooooo nice to be back near my wonderful family, friends and community again. No longer will I feel like an estranged island in a metropolis of estranged islands; I’ll be able to feel like a member of my neighborhood again, if not the village weirdo.
But it won’t be easy. I visited the school to meet with some faculty and was totally blown away by the amount of conciseness expected from me. I had ideas for research, ideas I was very proud of, but they were far too vague! “Cultural Nuances of Islamic North African Countries” had to be hacked down to something like “inter-gender social taboos among Egyptians in the 20-35-year age range.” Blahg, research.
I spoke with several professors, some crustier than others, to introduce myself and my illegitimate ideas and began feeling a little incompetent. Grad school isn’t really mecca for high-spirited rambunctious people who like Frisbee and jumping up and down. I knew then that I had to adopt my professional air (does it exist?!) and become a real, legit, accomplished student.
Round two of the grad school research process involved much polling of teachers and grad students at my own school to see which of my ideas would float and which wouldn’t. After extensive dialogue and pulling of teeth I finally came to a topic that is both vague and specific, broad and limited; if that sounds like a huge contradiction it’s not my vocabulary – grad school theses are like that!
I suppose the best thing for grad school right now would be to hide myself in a secluded warehouse with some Kant and knitting needles, trying to make myself a true scholar. But for now, all I have is my willingness to learn and enthusiasm for studying other cultures; if that’s not enough for the elusive beast that is grad school I don’t know what is! Maybe a crazy high GRE score? Round three!
