Diane Beedle, 30, is in her fifth year of graduate work at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a doctoral student in the department of education. Born in Mitchell, S.D., a town in the southeastern corner of the state, she received her undergraduate degree in philosophy from Boston College in 1992. She lives in an apartment in Riverside. Beedle talked recently to Tribune Cultural Critic Julia Keller about life as a graduate student.
Q.: Are the four food groups for graduate students still Ramen noodles, Kraft macaroni and cheese, coffee and beer?
A.: (laughing) My blood is at least 50 percent caffeine. Microwave popcorn is a staple. That, and eating at friends’ houses. Actually, I eat a lot of pasta, rice and beans.
Q.: Do you pull a lot of all-nighters?
A.: Yeah. I’m not as willing to do it, though. I appreciate my sleep and need it more than I did as an undergraduate. I once went 72 hours without sleeping–I was finishing papers and then I hopped on a flight to London for spring break. The other night, I was up until 3 a.m. finishing a paper.
Q.: How do you keep yourself awake so late?
A.: Once I start working, I get jazzed up. I love what I do. I love getting stuck on problems and getting through them. Once I got stuck on one idea for 11 hours.
Q.: Do you have a favorite place where you do your reading and writing for grad school?
A.: I have a chair in my apartment that came from my grandma’s house that I do most of my reading in. And I go to the public library a lot. There’s one chair there that I sort of insist on getting.
Q.: Speaking of old chairs and macaroni and cheese, most grad students aren’t exactly rich. How do you deal with that?
A.: I’ve never, ever, had money. So I don’t know what it’s like. I do odd jobs on the side. You have to get creative with your financing. Credit cards are fun. There’s always a lot of stress there. I don’t know what I’ll do when I actually start making money.
Q.: What kind of odd jobs?
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A.: I do baby-sitting, I help a woman who’s rehabbing her house–I get the plumber and electrician to come in, I get the floors refinished and I reupholster the furniture. People tell people about me. I end up getting jobs because I’m good at bugging people. I keep on people to get stuff done.
Q.: What do people say when they find out you’re in grad school?
A.: There are some people who see it as socially acceptable unemployment. I don’t get a lot of the “Oh, you’re on vacation” stuff. Some people have romanticized grad school. They say, “Oh, you must be really smart!” Most people don’t understand what I do.
Q.: OK, so what do you do? What’s a typical day for you?
A. (laughs) It’s hard to describe because there is no set schedule. I’ve worked on three different research projects. Depending on the project, your schedule changes. Sometimes it’s 40 hours a week at a school doing observation and interviews. Other weeks, there’s no research at all. Some weeks, you fall behind in your reading and writing for coursework. The key thing is, you’re always feeling guilty when you’re not doing something related to research or reading.
Q.: You’re 30. Does that feel too old for school?
A.: Education is weird because so many people have come back to grad school. There are tons of people in my classes who are my age and tons who are a lot older than me. I sometimes will be conscious of it. The times when I’m most conscious of it are when I have a professor my age.
Q.: Why did you pick UIC for your graduate work? And why education?
A.: I had decided I was going to grad school in education, but I didn’t want to become a teacher. Theory was more what I was interested in, rather than something so applied. But I’d never had a job that didn’t have some service element. A pure literature program didn’t fit right with me. One of my professors told me I could do philosophy of education and pretty much design my own PhD. I started looking into it and it looked great.
Q. How about that dissertation?
A.: It’s going to be looking at ideology and policy in public education.
Q.: What’s your career goal? Do you want to be an academic?
A.: (laughs) To think that I have a goal is kind of funny. I see myself most likely as an academic. It just depends on–yeah, probably academic. But I can see doing policy work outside academics, too. (laughs) I’ve never been good with that goal thing.
Q.: What does your family think about your being in grad school?
A.: They’re 100 percent supportive. Three out of four of my siblings have graduate degrees. School is what everyone in my family does and has done. I couldn’t ask for a better scenario. For me, this was like going into the family plumbing business.
Q.: Are all of your friends grad students?
A.: It’s getting to be that way. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one who’s not.
Q.: How about romance? Are your dates with grad students?
A.: My boyfriend right now is in grad school at NYU [New York University]. He’s studying British literature. I would not date another grad student in my program, though. You don’t want to work with and date the same person. That would be frightening.
Q.: Do you ever think of quitting?
A.: (laughs) About three times a semester. It’s continual “Why am I doing this?” But I love this work. I really do. When I really, really get upset and think about dropping out, I can’t think of what else I’d do. I’ve had so many jobs that bored me stiff after a month.
Q.: So you talk yourself out of quitting?
A.: Yeah. And I talk to my friends about it. I say, “This is going to shock you, but I have something to confess. I’m thinking of dropping out of grad school.” And one friend of mine always says, “Diane, you say that all the time.” People really expect me to finish.
Q.: Graduate school seems to speak to your soul.
A.: That’s romanticizing it. Saying it that way kind of cheapens it somehow. I’ve always felt you had to do something that was not just useful, but blatantly useful.
Q.: It sounds as if you love the grad-school life.
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A.: (laughs) It’s a love-hate relationship.