Seeking a Vocation: A Journey Beyond the Ivory Tower
Katerine Rodriguez
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As a Colombian immigrant, attending graduate school had always been a dream. When I was considering graduate school, my parents were undergoing a divorce, and leaving behind my mother who was financially and emotionally devastated was not an option. I had a part-time job at a community college, so I decided to enroll part-time at Florida Atlantic University and help support my family. I applied to the Sociology Masters program because it was a more “respected” discipline than Women’s Studies; however, within the first semester, I felt the subtle, androcentric attitude of professors who made disparaging remarks about Women’s Studies. With courage, I finally pursued my passion by decamping to the Women’s Studies program.
In retrospect, when I entered graduate school I was clueless. As the first in my family to go to graduate school, I was not prepared for the mores of graduate school. Not only was my cultural background different, but I was going part-time and working outside the department. Although having a job gave me job experience within the context of community colleges, it isolated me from my program. I tried to be involved in the department, but events always seemed to conflict with my work schedule. On top of that, I was painfully shy at the beginning of my program especially around professors. Luckily, some of my Women’s Studies professors who had been my undergraduate professors did reach out to me.
Graduate school is definitely not the place where you can isolate yourself. My self-reliance was a vital quality that had brought me far, but in order to succeed, I needed to forge alliances. My classmates had figured this out sooner and were not afraid to align themselves with professors and each other, realizing that the relationships they were nourishing would further their academic pursuits. Most importantly, professors are the gatekeepers to future recommendation letters that can advance a student’s academic career. As I began to get more involved with my department, I learned to negotiate the politics of graduate school. I gained my voice and transferable skills inside and outside the classroom. My confidence and assertiveness blossomed as I sought guidance from my professors and classmates. Above all, I realized the importance of networking.
When graduation approached, I was proud of my transformation but conflicted about applying for doctorate programs. While my peers were preparing to climb the ivory tower, I had to figure out what I wanted even if it meant abandoning the prestigious dream of becoming a professor. So I decided to place aside my graduate school applications and focus on the job hunt process. The summer before graduating, I polished my resume by utilizing the university’s career center and asking for feedback from everyone I knew. My research skills came in handy when I spent hours at bookstores reading the latest job seeker manuals. To my disappointment, I found that the majority of career manuals were predominantly targeted at men until I came across What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles. Bolles doesn’t cater to the ideals of the male dominated workplace/ misogynistic corporate culture by using stereotypical advice. Bolles’s commitment to using gender free language throughout his book addresses the world of work in a way that both genders can appreciate.
My last semester, I sent out resumes and focused on professional networking. I targeted my desired geography of companies by religiously searching the job vacancies of organizations where I wanted to work and joined professional organizations. Soon after graduating, I had an interview at another community college and had to undergo a series of rigorous interviews with a search committee where I had to give a presentation. I was amazed at how comfortable and calm I was. Everyone assumes that academic life is not the real world, but here I was employing all the major skills, such as presentation, written/oral and research skills, I gained in my Masters program. I truly believe that graduate school is as real world as it gets, and various skills are highly transferable to the non-academic industries.
The other place that I interviewed was the Renfrew Center of Florida, a trailblazing treatment facility for women with eating disorders, for a position as Education Coordinator, to help adolescent patients transition back into school. Renfrew appealed to me the most because I would get the opportunity to work with young women. The company has many feminist-oriented core values. Its mission is to empower women through change and the backbone of treatment center is its interdisciplinary team that is composed of various professionals who work together across disciplines. The company also has a foundation to ensure that women from all walks of life receive treatment. The center felt I was an ideal candidate because of my specialized interdisciplinary knowledge of gender plus practical experience in areas of public health and Women’s Studies which I gained from an internship at a Community Wellness Center where I worked with teenage urban mothers. I opted to do an internship instead of a thesis and in the end the internship opened the door in a field that I never would have imagined myself in. When I finally accepted the job, I employed the one skill that most women are never taught or discouraged to use: the art of salary negotiation. Women need the courage to voice their worth as employees; I felt empowered that I learned how to negotiate my value because I knew my future performance on the job would prove it.
At Renfrew, I was given a unique opportunity as a feminist educator in a medical context. Many pessimists warned that even a Masters, much less one in Women’s Studies, would not ensure a job in today’s market. But my specialized knowledge of gender combined with the transferable tools I gained from my program allowed me the opportunity to find meaningful work. Actually, in Paulo Freire’s words, Women’s Studies inspired me to seek my vocation, and put my concept of feminist knowledge into action.