Now that the semester has picked up, I’m feeling a little lost in the sea of uncertainty that i seem to be swimming in during my last few months as an undergrad. Even though I’m on the precipice of graduating, I feel like nothing is really going to change. I’ll probably be going to grad school here next Fall, and I’ll be working at the same lab I’ve worked at for the past 2 years. Don’t get me wrong, the experience has been great, but I feel like the indefinite transition between undergrad life and graduate studies fails to demarcate the change that I wanted to see in my life at this point.
I’ve been attending Texas A&M for almost 6 years now, and here I am committing to at least another two years. I’ve changed a lot during my time here, but I’m still not the person I want to be. Perhaps it’s easier to see turning points when looking back on your life, but I sometimes don’t feel like entering graduate school will be the turning point that I’ve been looking for.
Part of the problem is that my last few semesters as an undergraduate have been much more like the life of a grad student than that of an undergrad. I took fewer classes, devoted most of my time to research projects, and just generally lived like a grad student. The biggest difference at this point is really the difference in motivations. As an undergrad, the research that I did and the contributions I made were secondary to the educational process of an undergraduate career. Perhaps the amount of time I’ve spent here has lent a certain amount of cynicism to my analysis of the undergrad experience here. One thing that has always surprised me is how reticent I am to do good work for easy classes. I think when education is geared toward the lowest common denominator, you get equally uninspiring results. Recognition is not given for outstanding work, only for work that meets the criteria. When you get into a pattern of doing work like this, “just to do it”, you lose any stake that you might have had in creating the work. Work loses any essence of personal expression, it is simply a canned response to a stock question for a rubber stamp on an ivory parchment.
I am tired of undergrad education because I’m tired of mindlessly proving that I know what I know. What counts in the real world is the ability to synthesize knowledge into productive action. Studying for a test is not productive. Applying a skill in a real world situation is. Part of me feels like I’ve been wasting my time and money on these things. Really though, I’ve been paying for the opportunity to prove that I know what I know. I wish I would have understood this better when I entered undergrad. You are not paying to be educated, you educate yourself. You are paying so that you can be systematically evaluated by your professors and judged competent for a degree. If I had come to college with this point of view, I would have graduated 2 years ago.
So where does that leave me now? Despite my best efforts not to, I’m graduating in may with a B.S. in Computer Engineering. I have gotten a ton of experience, and I’ve learned quite a few things, but I still wonder if I will struggle with the system in graduate school the same way I have in undergrad. Approaching it with the mindset I wished I had when I entered college might be a good start: I am attending graduate school to be systematically evaluated on my ability to synthesize cutting edge research concepts into coherent systems. I think this might be a little closer to the kind of turning point I’ve been searching for anyway. I had no idea what I wanted out of undergrad. I know exactly what I want out of grad school.
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