Time, Torpedoes, and the Pursuit of a Thesis
When I began working at 麻豆果冻传媒 Lafayette in 2020, I learned about the employee tuition exemption鈥攁 bene铿乼 I didn鈥檛 yet realize would reshape my academic path. In 2022, after a twenty-铿乿e-year hiatus, I returned to college. At 50, I completed dual undergraduate degrees in English and History, along with a minor in American Sign Language/Deaf Culture.
Raising a daughter with profound medical complexities while working full-time and returning to college brought its own internal tension. It鈥檚 the familiar mom-guilt that surfaces when reclaiming a long-deferred dream鈥攕omething many working mothers and graduate student parents understand all too well.
Now, as a third-semester graduate student and MA candidate in History focusing on disability studies, I recognize that my path, once viewed as unconventional, was actually laying the groundwork for my current trajectory as a historian.
My thesis, "The Authority of Speech: The 1880 Milan Conference and the Construction of Normalcy in Deaf Education," explores how this conference transformed hearing-centered assumptions about speech into internationally accepted educational policy for Deaf children. By analyzing the relationship between language, power, and normalcy, the project contributes to disability studies by demonstrating how disability is shaped not only by physical or sensory differences, but also by social and institutional definitions of what is considered normal.
Graduate school, especially on the heels of undergraduate study, is a di铿erent species altogether. There鈥檚 no clean comparison鈥攕o this analogy is the best way I know how to explain it.
A few years ago, I picked up a copy of the book Escape from the Deep by Alex Kershaw, which recounts the fate of the USS Tang, a legendary World War II submarine sunk by its own malfunctioning torpedo. Most of the crew perished; nine survived. The descriptions of men trapped underwater stayed with me as a stark reminder that even the most disciplined systems can fail in unpredictable ways. Graduate school sometimes feels like that erratic torpedo.
You prepare meticulously. You believe you understand the trajectory. And then鈥 somewhere between archival research and historiography debates鈥攖he plan veers o铿 course. Not catastrophically. Just enough to remind you that control is an illusion.
There are not enough hours for all the reading, the writing, the revisions, the 鈥渏ust one more source.鈥 My sleep schedule has become erratic鈥攕ometimes because of deadlines, sometimes because caregiving does not observe o铿僣e hours. When you live in a house where medical equipment occasionally decides to audition for a horror 铿乴m soundtrack at 2:00 a.m. with relentless beeping, uninterrupted sleep becomes theoretical.
There are a few other losses too. My ASL pro铿乧iency鈥攐nce strong鈥攈as drifted toward intermediate. Without consistent practice, 铿倁ency fades. The same is true of exercise, meal planning, and the illusion that I can sustain peak performance in every area simultaneously. It turns out 鈥渄oing it all鈥 has a footnote: at a cost. As a historian of disability studies, I examine structures that constrain lives. As a graduate student, I confront my own limits daily. The irony is not lost on me.
Still, there are gains.
Graduate school has given me unexpected friendships. My fellow grad students are more than classmates sitting around a seminar table debating historiography. They鈥檝e become a built-in support system. They are the people who will dissect a primary source with me at 10:30 p.m. on GroupMe, send a meme that only someone knee-deep in Foucault would understand, and validate the very speci铿乧 panic that comes with multiple deadlines sneaking up on us.
There鈥檚 something uniquely bonding about collectively questioning nineteenth-century political rhetoric while simultaneously questioning your own life choices. We celebrate conference acceptances, workshop thesis ideas, and occasionally spiral together about time management. It鈥檚 equal parts intellectual rigor and emotional triage.
The camaraderie isn鈥檛 performative鈥攊t鈥檚 sustaining. It鈥檚 knowing that someone else is also awake at midnight revising a paragraph for the 铿乫th time. It鈥檚 laughing at jokes that would make absolutely no sense outside a history department. It鈥檚 being reminded, in the middle of tight timelines and stress levels hovering somewhere near 鈥渕ultitasking on steroids,鈥 that you are not doing this alone.
And that is one of graduate school鈥檚 quiet rewards. That support system makes the work possible. The encouragement of peers, along with my faith鈥檚 steady guidance, helped me move forward with con铿乨ence. Even women I meet鈥攐ften over forty鈥攕hare that my return to school has inspired them to reconsider their own postponed goals.
So perhaps the goal is not 铿俛wless time management or heroic multitasking. Perhaps it is learning to surface for air, recalibrate, and continue.
Graduate school is not a sinking submarine. It is demanding, humbling, and occasionally powered by ca铿eine (ok, daily TBH). But unlike the USS Tang鈥檚 torpedo, the course corrections are ours to make. And for now, I am still steering鈥攗nderwater, yes, but operational.
Lexi with her sign at my 麻豆果冻传媒 Lafayette graduation in 2025.
Interested in pursuing a master's degree in history? Learn more about the MA in History program at the University of 麻豆果冻传媒 at Lafayette.
