Things Departments Should Tell You Before You Research Abroad

I have been living and researching in Munich for over a year now. During this time I have realized that I was in no way prepared to deal with all this entails. Talking to other grad students who are on fellowship and researching at foreign institutions, I have discovered that my experiences are not unique. So here is a list of things I wish I had been told before I was sent off into the wide world to try to write a dissertation.

1. You are going to feel like a moron most of the time.  This is going to come as a shock. You have probably become accustomed to feeling pretty intelligent. After all, you are working on your PhD and you have just won a fairly prestigious grant.  It is going to be difficult to have your ego bruised nearly everyday as you try to understand a different culture and language. Just dealing with the hiccups of daily life (e.g. disputing phone bills, making photocopies, arguing with the person who just cut in front of you in the line, trying to return something to the store) is going to be tough at first. You will have check out clerks and children look at you like you are a drooling idiot.  Old women will wonder what you are doing in the country if you can’t speak the language well. Although you will learn and adapt over time, about once a week something new will be thrown at you and you will be back to feeling like an idiot. Solution: There is nothing much you can do, besides steeling yourself in anticipation of this.

2. Even if you studied the language of the country you are now in, it is going to be insufficient to speak about your project in an academic way.  Solution: Prepare in advance several sentences that describe what you are doing. (I should still do this).  [Also, practice smiling and nodding in the mirror. It will get you through receptions or field trips.)

3. Most people are friendly at the libraries or universities where you will be working. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Of course there is always going to be some ass hat who is going to make things difficult. He or she will invariably be in charge of the resource you need most. Solution: find out when it is his or her day off.

4. Everything is going to take longer than you planned. Period.  Just don’t be surprised when this happens.

5. An important archive, object, or building you need to see will be inaccessible until the day after you leave. Solution: There isn’t any. Fate is a bitch!

6. You are going to need some sort of document, permission, library card, or pass from Office A. To get this you need to go to Office B for Form 1, which is on the east side of the city. Office B will send you to Office C (in the same building but only open on Mondays from 9-12) to get Form 2 to request Form 1. When filling out the form you find that you are going to need passport photos and a letter from Office A.  After getting this, you will take all of the documents, forms, and photos to Office D (north side of the city), they will stamp the form so you can take it back to Office A to get the thing you originally needed. Solution: Be prepared to do a lot of walking and queuing and buy some comfortable shoes.

7. If you are being paid in Euros, the dollar will get stronger.  If you are being paid in dollars, one Euro will be worth about 2 bucks. Solution: Emergency Pizza will save you money and keep you from starving.

8. Grants will rarely be enough to support you, but they will insist that you do no other form of work or take no further grants. Solution: Emergency Pizza.

9. You will realize that your department has not prepared you to use archives. Solution: get names of students who have worked there in the past and they can tell you what pitfalls to avoid. Or don’t pick a project that requires lots of archival research (Now you are thinking!)

10. You will also discover that you have no idea how to write a dissertation. Your advisor is going to offer vague suggestions while making concrete deadlines. Solution: Just accept that you will figure it out as you go. I have also learned to stop expecting that it will be brilliant and groundbreaking. This is a learning experience and something that you have to get done. (My advisor only pointed that out this summer). It will help you not be afraid to start if you think of it thusly.

Also, fake and real illnesses are always handy when it comes to avoiding short-term deadlines. You can tell your dissertation is going badly, when you hope for a horrible flu that will mean you can just stay in bed and sleep. Mmmm, sllllleeeeeeepppppp.

If all else fails, procrastinate by writing blog entries.

“I’ll Grant you This”: What I have Learned about Applying for Fellowships

It’s that time of year again. The time when all good little graduate students are frantically trying to write and submit grant applications. If there were a Charmed-style demon that fed off anxiety, he simply could go to any graduate reading room during these months for his fear smorgasbord. (I am pretty sure there was one. He was played by the same actor who was the creepy bad guy in Brisco County Jr.)  This year I have been ordered to finish my dissertation and NOT to apply for any grants, fellowships, or stipends. Does this mean that Barbas (Demon of Fear according to the Charmed Wiki) would starve around me? Of course not! I am afraid of everything. Right now I am anxious about not being worried about grant applications. Since I can’t work on grant proposals by order of my Doktorvater, I thought I would reflect on what I have learned from writing (sometimes successfully) fellowship/grant proposals.

1. The most significant thing I have learned from this experience is just how much my dissertation lacks any sort of relevance or importance. This realization comes early on in the grant writing process, as you sit there staring at the flashing cursor on the blank Word document trying to come up with a way to sell your project.
2. Whether you win or not is a total crap shoot. I have a friend who was passed over completely for a relatively easy grant to win but was awarded one of the most prestigious fellowships in the field. Why didn’t the first funder see the merits of her awesome project? For the answer I turn to the host of “In Search of…”, Mr. Leonard Nimoy. Take it away, Spock.  “Like the mysteries of Bigfoot or Stonehenge, the secret of how to win grants is something we may never know.” [Cue music and credits]
3. If you the applicant are responsible for making the 13 photocopies that they require, there is no chance that you are going to win this. Why? This suggests that there are so many applicants for this one grant that the funder would go bankrupt just by photocopying all the applications for its reviewing committee.
4. Don’t be cute or use flowery language. I have learned this more from reading tons of grant proposals than from writing them. At first I was really impressed. After all, it seems so cheesy to start a proposal with, “My dissertation is about…” However, after you have read about 20 of these you just want the person to tell you what the hell he/she is working on and why he/she needs the goddamn money.
5. The pdf/word doc application forms are never easy to fill out on your own computer. These are designed by cave dwellers whose only joy in life is torturing applicants who are in a rush to fill these out.
6. No matter how many times you proofread your CV, you will discover mistakes and typos in it the next time you dig it out.  On the positive side, you can use these mistakes to rationalize why you did not win the last fellowship. “Oh, I didn’t get it because there is a typo in one of the titles of my publications! It was not because my project sucks.”
7. The committees don’t read narrative CVs or autobiographies. Why do they make you do this? Are they simply sadists? No! If you can make it through the horrible experience of trying to write about yourself without sounding like a prick, then you must have a will of iron.  (By the way, unless you have a “Commie” hunting grandfather and are now working on Soviet art history, this autobiography is going to be pretty boring or irrelevant.)
8. If you are applying for anything in Germany, go and have your passport photos made now. They are always required. I have been told this is to insure the applicant’s identity. Considering the past, I still find it surprising that Germany would want to have anything to do with something that could be interpreted as profiling.
9. For your own piece of mind, you might not want to choose your recommenders on how well they know you or how well-known they are, but on how well they handle deadlines. It doesn’t matter how awesome their recommendations are if they never submit them.  That being said, I must be a masochist. I never choose with this criterion in mind.
10. Finally: Yes, you are trying to sell yourself for money. And yes, this is a horrible experience. But when you consider other forms of prostitution, namely real prostitution, you realize that you are a ridiculously over-privileged whiner who needs to shut up.  I have been lucky enough to have funding for every year of graduate school.  Not that I haven’t worked hard for this. I have. But I need to remind myself how fortunate I am that I get paid to do what I love.  [Unfortunately, this realization doesn’t last long. Now if only they would pay me a living wage and not this chump change.]

I thought I would end with this quotation from a very wise man:

“Personally, I liked working for the university! They gave us money and facilities. We didn’t have to produce anything. You’ve never been out of college. You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve worked in the private sector… they expect results!”