It's Your Week!

Did you know that April 2-6 is National Graduate & Professional Student Appreciation Week? I confess that I did not know until today. Let me start out by saying that I do, indeed appreciate you all, and not only because I have a job because of you MALS students, nor because I was only recently a grad student myself (although both of these circumstances do play a part).

And while this "week," ironically, is only five days long, I give you all seven full days worth of appreciation. I appreciate you because you are taking the time and resources to better yourself as a citizen of this world. In my somewhat biased opinion as a MALS alumn, I think it takes a special kind of person to pursue interdisciplinary graduate studies. Not only are you in the midst of one of the more rigorous programs on campus in terms of critical thinking, writing, and research requirements, but you are likely doing so while being misunderstood by family, friends, strangers, and colleagues. It's easy to announce that you're getting your master's in biochemistry, astrophysics, kinesiology, or something else with a flashy, if narrow, disciplinary objective. Your program of study, however, takes a little more explaining to the uninitiated. You approach your scholarship with a complex, real-world problem in mind first, recognize that a single discipline cannot adequately address this problem, and after all that go about learning not only the theories of interdisicplinary scholarship but also those associates with multiple disciplines. Impressive, I think, but try giving an elevator speech on that and you'll run out of floors far before you finish explaining the word "interdisciplinarity."

Who knows? It might take a fellow interdisciplinarian to appreciate one, especially while you're  knee-deep in seminar paper drafts, style manuals, and cultural theory books, your fingers are stained with highlighter, and you can't remember your own name for lack of sleep. But know this - what you're doing is worth it, and I appreciate you for having the guts to pursue MALS.