I Graduated!

I have finally completed my degree! I bet my friends and family are glad I'll no longer be a student... I think I'm glad, too. Being a student is all I've ever known. Even throughout my summer jobs like selling shoes in retail and giving tours of Niagara Falls, I knew I'd be going back to campus in the fall—back to familiarity. So maybe it's a bit ironic that I'm nervous about beginning my next chapter, given I'm going back again to familiar territory (even if this time as an Assistant Professor, with less familiar responsibilities).

This tendency of mine—to seek out familiarity—has been the subject of constant musings over the past few years, as I watched my non-academic peers build equity in the form of homes and investment portfolios, and join the senior ranks in their respective careers while I stayed a student. Sometimes it's cruel how the mind plays out all the ways one may have missed out on a better life. Is this simply a coping mechanism—a graduate student's rite of passage?

I'm sure I'd do many things differently (like investing in daily stretches and a standing desk, for starters), but things tend to work out, whether in planned or unplanned ways. But here's no going back in time, and I wouldn't want to anyway; aside from maintaining healthy posture, I've emerged from my Ph.D. better at research, teaching, listening to others, and appreciating my privileges.

My education is one thing I know not to take for granted. Not only did I complete my degree at a university with great benefits, I did so without the extra weight that many of my classmates carried: uncertain security, war-torn families, dependents to care for, the passing of loved ones, and so on. I sure am one lucky man.

There are other takeaways from my time as a student, but I haven't had the time to process and formalize my thoughts on them because I've been busy preparing for my new job, wrapping up loose ends from my graduate career, and traveling for pleasure and for conferences—again, all privileges for which I am grateful.