Why It’s High Time We Got Rid of Doctoral Qualifying Exams When you’re on #AcademicTwitter, you see a lot of the same stories. It’s a tight-knit community and despite all of our differences, we have a lot in common. The other day, I saw a mutual of mine — I’ll…

How “Just Asking Questions” People Have Upended Normal Discourse (Part I of my new #MediumMonday Series where I publish a new piece every Monday) Everyone knows the type. No matter what conversation you’re having (definitely more common with political or current events topics, though) they can’t help themselves. You can…

The Realities of the Post-PhD Job Hunt Funk I had been waiting for almost a month. Originally, it was supposed to be two weeks, maybe three tops. Every time I got an email, I about had a heart attack in the time it took me to unlock my phone and…

Ups and Downs Upon a Modern Re-viewing We’re solidly past the 1-year point of COVID. The phases of quarantine are now ultimately too familiar. We’ve gone through the binge-eating and binge-drinking. (Re)watching everything on your various streaming queues. Starting and quitting various personal projects. The unenthusiastic attempts at getting in…

American anti-intellectualism and how family and friends seesaw between praise and derision. Several things about the PhD experience are fairly normal, if not universal. You’re probably poor all or most of the time. Your physical and mental health more than likely deteriorates. There’s self-doubt, social isolation, gut-wrenching fear about what…

Struggles with my queer identity — I came out a week or so after Saint Patrick’s Day, 2017. The timing of my favorite holiday and this defining personal moment is purely coincidental. But that’s when it happened and it’s how I remember it when I commemorate it, so there it is. The first time I was…

How the actions of the Tennessee GOP reveals the shift in how we view college athletes and how they view themselves In another entry in the ongoing “Republicans didn’t really do that, did they?” series, yesterday all 27 members of the Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus signed a statement declaring that…

The Case for Writing (Even if You Stink at It) Among the many cash-cow trends in the country, the “self-help” genre seems to be especially popular. Everyone out there who has ever done something is willing to bestow onto you — for a nominal fee, of course — their wisdom…

Cataloging a Personal Library during Quarantine* It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, 2020. The bars and pubs are closed, the parade cancelled a few days prior. It’s the first time in 12 years of adulthood I have not celebrated the day. Like so many Irish Americans, it’s a major holiday, something to…