Attending graduate school felt like the natural choice for me during my final years as an undergraduate; I’d always loved reading and writing about literature and I could think of nothing I’d rather do than read, write, and teach forever.  So, I put one foot in front of the other.  I applied, was accepted, and embarked upon my graduate career in English.  But five years ago, in the Fall of 2004 when I began my tenure as a graduate student at Vanderbilt University, I found that graduate school was nothing like I’d expected.  I found myself in an atmosphere in which I constantly questioned myself:  my intelligence, my love for what I do, my capacity to do what I want to do.  Although grad school is, by definition, a training ground for future faculty, I felt like everyone expected me to know what I was doing from the get go.  I thought I should know what I was doing from the get go…but how is an early 20s, freshly-minted BA supposed to know how to conduct real research, how to write articles for scholarly publication, and how to simply know everything about her chosen field of study?  I was intimidated and scared, and I had some rough semesters.  I even attended a seminar on the “imposter syndrome” for graduate students!  More than once, I considered quitting and pursuing some other career because I worried that I just couldn’t cut it.  The worst part was feeling out of my depth; I’ve always been a competitive person, and my confidence in my abilities for this career was fostered during my undergrad years at Alabama:  I won various English Department awards, was president of this and that, had an inviolable 4.0 GPA.  But grad school was different.  The problem in grad school was that everyone had that experience at their former undergraduate institutions, and surrounded by the best of the best, I felt stupid. 

With each proverbial hurdle or hoop I had to jump (and there are many in a PhD program), I worried that I wouldn’t meet my deadlines, that I would let people down, or worse, that I would fail and reveal this terrible secret of my inadequacy.  But eventually, sometime in my fourth year, I realized something:  no matter how stressed out I was, no matter how much I feared failure, I always got the job done.  Then, I realized something else:  these days I usually did it pretty damn well!  Something had clicked in my head; I had learned from my time here and now I did know what I was doing.  Almost without noticing it, I had become someone who could be competitive for, and win, awards; I did get an article published; my advisors actually liked my work. I began to understand that I am capable and that my perspective is worthwhile….I do have something to say, something to contribute to this field.  

For two years or so now, I’ve taken every available opportunity to help those in the years behind me through advice or support.  I learned that the feelings I’d experienced are actually pretty common.  So, it’s important to me to assure others that even though this job is scary and intimidating, they can do it.  They too have something to say, and they too are capable, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.  As I face the deadline for my dissertation and my defense date in June, I’m frequently plagued by fear and stress once again.  But now, there’s a part of me that knows I can do it, that knows I’ll get the job done…because graduate school has taught me a really valuable lesson about myself:  I always do.  

Lauren Wood Hoffer is twenty-seven years old and lives in Nashville, TN where she is completing her doctorate in English at Vanderbilt University.  She specializes in Victorian literature and culture, the novel, and narrative theory.  Lauren lives with her high school/college sweetheart turned husband and their crazy, adorable Jack Russell Terrier, Bear.  She has been privileged to be Sarah's friend since 1997!