My neighbors and I were talking the other day about the information overload that comes as a part of grad education. Here’s a good metaphor we pieced together…
It’s like an intellectual free-climb. This wall you are climbing, this Olympus, is your field. Each concept or piece of writing or body of thought or mode of organizing the world that you come into contact with is a possible handhold. As you move through your education you try out all sorts of possibilities. There is no one way to climb this facade; the number of individual handholds is endless. Some concepts seem solid but you feel like many others could never support your weight. You try to develop a frame of reference, a map of where you’ve been, but your goal is never to reach any summit, only to establish a trajectory. To move in a direction. To strive for progress.
Your path is anything but linear, dependent upon reading lists, faculty research pursuits, assistantships, current socio-politico-economic events, and if there is time, even your own personal interests. As you climb, new footholds become available even as familiar outcroppings that you have relied on begin to crumble. Those you passed by, when taken from a new approach, may prove strong for you after all. Choose your battles, always keep an open mind. And remember, if all else fails, there is little shame in getting the hell off of the mountain and going to pizza hut.
