"It's a tailor-made hell, perfectly tuned to expose all of your particular insecurities."

THE GRAD LIFE "I'm going back to school," I announced to friends, family, co-workers. At the time it seemed like such a good idea. I grew up wanting to be a field biologist. But by the time I'd graduated from college, I could not stomach the thought of immediately starting over on a graduate degree. I quickly got a job as a technician in a biomedical research lab. It was to be temporary, just a year or two, to pay off some of those school loans, get back on my feet. I enjoyed the work. It was wonderful to be able to buy clothes someplace besides the Army-Navy outlet and to know, for once, where my rent was coming from. Ten years went by amazingly fast. Looking back, it seems I'd found the land of the lotus-eaters. Not that one should never eat lotuses, but as with any unbalanced diet, in excess they fail to nourish. I saw graduate school as a way to rectify the imbalance. I knew it wouldn't be all fun and games, but by earnest work and discipline I would gain deeper happiness and satisfaction. Kind of like John Muir, who lasted for months on hardtack having transcendent experiences in the Sierra Nevada. Well, my first year of graduate school was not at all John Muir on hardtack. It was not transcendent; it was a nightmare. First of all, I developed insomnia, which exacerbated the effects of my frustrated attempts to be a student. Then I realized I'd forgotten how to read a research paper or textbook, how to take lecture notes, how to ask questions. The longer I sat in classrooms, the surer I was that I knew nothing--never had, never would. I became convinced that my fellow grad students had some special quality that I totally lacked and that my admission into the program was some kind of mistake. I would be discovered and thrown out, but not before having been ridiculed, reviled, maybe even stoned. The term "self-doubt" is woefully inadequate to describe the effect of those first months. What insanity had made me think this would be a good idea? As time went on, though, I found unexpected sources of encouragement. I was learning what I'd come here for and was impressed with the caliber of the professors. But what finally made me return that next fall were my fellow students. Small things often make or break endeavors that hang by frayed threads. For me, that thing happened when a woman I knew, a third-year student, told me, "The first year of grad school is hell. It is for everyone. But even worse, it's a tailor-made hell, perfectly tuned to expose all of your particular insecurities and weak points, and bear down on them mercilessly." I was not alone. We were all struggling in our own versions of hell. It's said that some of a grad student's most important resources are other students; I heartily agree. We gripe, prop each other up, share strategies and talk each other out of quitting. Today, things have improved dramatically. The bad dream of the first year is over. Although it's still not an easy ride, I'm learning more and more, and getting excited about my upcoming thesis project, for which I'll be traipsing around Washington's Olympic Peninsula watching birds. This is why I'm in grad school. Still, sometimes I do miss my 9-to-5 life. I miss sleeping late on weekends and reading the entire Sunday paper. I miss having more money coming in than going out. I miss talking with friends until all hours about something besides the next exam. Does anybody know a florist around here with lotuses in stock? -- Maggie Brown, M.S.'98