MAPSS in general

So this blog entry by a former MAPSS student sums up my experience so far pretty well, with one exception:

she says you shouldn't expect to like everyone. Okay, that is probably true on the surface. No one likes everyone and gets along with all their classmates and they can all be BFFs forever at that ivy-covered hall in the sky. But I've been astounded by how much I like MAPSS and UChicago people.

Sure, there is one particular person who posts on the MAPSS Facebook page who I am happy not to have encountered, because I think I would not get along with [them] in the slightest. That's one person, out of 180. And because it's a big program and this individual is not in my preceptor group, it has not come up. (And, okay, there is one kid in my preceptor group who makes me feel dumb, but I think that's my own insecurity talking.)

Everyone else I've met has been amazing. I'm really surprised by the fact that I don't tend to stick exclusively to other history students. In fact, my best friends here turned out to be mostly anthropology students (with dabbles of sociology, history and psych.)

Everyone here is driven and intelligent - that's why they're here. Most of them don't rub it in your face, and are happy to explain things that go over your head for whatever reason, commiserate about shortcomings, and unashamedly ask for help in understanding agency and structure in Historical Narrative. My new MAPSS friends already feel like people who will be in my life for the rest of my life. People who will get invited to my wedding, even if we don't stay in close contact after this year. They're good people, they're interesting people, and they're my kind of people.

A lot of the focus of MAPSS is on peer learning and fostering community, which differentiates it from most of your graduate school horror stories and makes a compelling, inclusive environment. I'm not a competitive person by nature - I loathe conflict and actively avoid dramatics - so it's a really wonderful place for me to be. And I haven't met anyone, even the people I know casually from class who might not be positive what my name is, who isn't ready to form an impromptu study group and discuss Marxism and Structural Functionalism out on the lawn.

(Okay, we had snow flurries this week and when a friend and I were drinking juice outside on the quad today, he hastily suggested we move to the library. It's cold now. But you get the idea. We ran into each other outside the MAPSS lounge, and he was willing to take his free hour and a half to talk over a paper we have due Friday, listen to the problems I was having, and make suggestions about relevant readings.)

So no, you shouldn't expect to like everyone in MAPSS. But with the above information, you should bear in mind that I am notoriously independent and super awkward at making friends. Tonight, I'm meeting up with several people at Ida Noyes just because I can. You may not like everyone, but you would have to make a major effort not to like most people you meet, and find some you really get along with.

Less than a year of MAPSS

So I thought long and hard about creating a MAPSS blog (okay, if I'm honest, the thought crossed my mind for all of a minute and a half over the summer before I decided no one wants to read about my life.) But I see all these people googling MAPSS and grad school in general, and now I've discovered a couple of MAPSS-centric blogs, and so I thought, what the hell. I'll write what I can write, on the off-chance that it helps some people. And maybe I'll send the address to my mom. Hi, Mom! I'm blogging!

This is Week 7 of the first quarter, and I'm legitimately amazed it's gone by so quickly. I feel like I've barely started school, and I'm always a little slower on the learning curve with new material, so I'm also just getting a handle on some of it. (Perspectives.)

I'll probably make a couple of posts on things that have already happened in MAPSS, like Math Camp and the Perspectives midterm, because I think those are probably important things for prospective students to know about. But those posts will come as I procrastinate on my papers, et cetera.

I originally applied to UChicago's history program, and history remains my primary academic focus, so I feel contractually obligated to tell readers of this blog not to expect absolute truth. This is my remembered and perceived experience, and by the way, apparently no one else in Chicago studies the crap I study, so your mileage may vary.

I made a deliberate decision not to put my name on here, although once I start talking about individual classes, it will probably be fairly obvious who I am to anyone who knows me. But I fear an online presence, and I also think the veneer of anonymity is going to give me the ability to say things I would otherwise be too embarrassed to say (like, did you know I got rejected from every single grad program I applied to? Yup. I did.) or feel like I was being too self-promoting (but that's okay because MAPSS gave me full funding! Also true.)

So it is my hope that this blog will serve as a guide to anyone considering grad school, not just MAPSS, and to frustrated students everywhere, who can see a beacon of -

Nah. It's my hope I actually get around to updating this thing.