I got my first grad school mail yesterday, from NYU's Draper Interdisciplinary Master's Program in Humanities and Social Thought. I don't know if it is scary or totally apropo for it to have arrived on the day I finished all my work for the semester and officially became a college senior, but I'm tickled nonetheless. Getting mail like this takes me back to my junior year of high school, when mountains of college recruiting material poured in. Only now, I have to ask for it. Thus, no mountains, but at least I'm saving paper.
This whole grad school thing has swelled in complexity over the last few months, but now I have made it shrink. Explanation: About a year ago, I was firmly convinced that I would enter a psych grad program, become a psychologist or researcher, and be happy. End of story. While I was abroad last semester, as some readers may remember, I suddenly decided that I was interested in law school. Well, not terribly suddenly- the option has been hanging out in the back of my mind since I was in third grade and wanted to become a "lawer," wear burgundy suits from the JC Penney ladies businesswear section, and live with my grey cat in an apartment decorated all in grey. There's no accounting for the taste of an eight-year-old.
At any rate, as of early this semester I was trying to figure out which of two very different disciplines, law or psychology, I wanted to pursue. Things took a dramatic turn when I had a chat with R___, my pretentious neighbor. He may be an insufferable snob at times, but he also happens to be one of the only other students at Macalester who has a discernable interest in queer studies, so on some level I identify with the guy. I asked him about his post-graduation plans, and he told me he'd been accepted to the American Studies grad program at NYU, which has a strong queer studies element.
In talking to him, I realized, "hey, that sounds like something I'd be really interested in." My semester in Amsterdam has really only served to whet my appetite for gender and queer theory and politics. Thus entered another option into my ever-expanding array. Popular wisdom holds that picking your undergraduate major forces you to focus at least on a particular field. Popular wisdom is sometimes more "popular" than "wisdom," because at this point I was trying to decide between three different disciplines. THREE!
Thankfully, I've run across some information that has helped me to narrow things down. First, psychology and law programs don't like to accept particularly young people. Being a particularly young person (I'll graduate when I'm 20), I'd best hold off on these two options. Not to mention the fact that I have some serious philosophical differences with both fields (which are best left to another entry). NYU is looking more and more appealing, for many reasons: a) it offers at least two different programs I'm really interested in, b) I've heard they're fairly generous with fellowships, and c) it's in New York. Enough said.
So, while no conclusions have been reached yet, I'm going to put some serious effort into the NYU thing. It's all happening so fast now- the application is due December 1st, which means I have to get all my information, take the GRE, go visit, etc., all within the next six months. Holy crap. Adulthood approaches.