Graduate School?

Well, I managed to drag myself into work today, even though I’m still sort of feeling like crap. I figure I slept in yesterday, I should at least present a facsimile of being productive today.

Here’s a crazy idea: I wonder if I should go back to school and get a graduate degree in American history. This is one of those ideas that I’ve considered from time to time ever since the middle of college. American history, as I’ve talked about in the last couple of days, is a subject that connects with something deep inside of me. When I’m deeply involved in a good book, particularly a good narrative work of history, I feel fulfilled.

I sometimes feel like I was born in the wrong century. Sometimes I think, oh, to live in eighteenth-century Philadelphia, or nineteenth-century Boston! These vital, vibrant, intellectual communities…a slower pace of life… of course, the whole gay thing might present a problem. I guess in some ways I should feel lucky to be living at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although who knows — the twenty-second might be better. (On the other hand, you never see anyone gay on “Star Trek.”)

I love the intellectual and cultural community of a university. It’s where I was born to be; it’s where I’ve always felt most at home. I don’t know why this is, but it’s true. And it’s certainly not unprecedented to have two graduate degrees. One of my law professors had a J.D. (a law degree) as well as a Ph.D. in history, for instance.

There are some cons to going back to school, though. I remember that when I started law school, after having worked for a year, it was hard to get re-accustomed to the idea of never having any down time. When you work, you have your work schedule and that’s that — after work, you can put it aside. When you’re a student, you can never really put your work aside; it’s always there, waiting to be done. On the other hand, this was really only a problem during my first year of law school, when I hated all my classes. Maybe it would be okay if I were studying things I enjoyed.

Another con is money. I wouldn’t be working full time, so I’d have to live the financial life of a student again. On the other hand, I’d be able to defer my law school loan payments… but I’d finish grad school with even more debt than I started with. Unless I could get scholarships and grants all the way. I wonder if that’s possible.

Another con is, what would I do afterwards? I guess I could see grad school as an end in itself, but then what? I suppose I could teach. I wonder if I’d want to teach.

Finally, sort of a more abstract issue: in some ways I see going to grad school, and entering a life of academia, as a retreat from society, as an escape, as not being involved with the day-to-day world — the ivory tower syndrome. This seems especially true with the humanities. Even during law school, I felt like I was missing out on some things; everyone else in their 20’s was out working, earning a living, doing something “useful” (well, presumably useful), and I was still in school; they were all producing, and I was just consuming.

There’s always a shortcut, of course. I already have a law degree, and so perhaps I could get a teaching job as a law professor. Perhaps I could even focus on the areas I enjoyed most in law school — constitutional and legal history. That wouldn’t be quite what I want, and I’d still have to be in the milieu of “the law” and law students, with their corporate bent and their barracuda mentality. But maybe I should try that out first.

I wouldn’t want to use grad school as a way to escape. Then again — is it perhaps okay to escape? And would I really be escaping from something, or would I be going into an area that I enjoy? If life is all about finding happiness, then life is really one big escape, after all.

Any thoughts, anyone?