Academic respect seems to have taken a very different meaning in the transition to grad school. When you do well in undergraduate you are coddled. You get a good grade and feel good about it, ask for letters of reference, and have profs express how delighted they are to help you succeed in the academic path before you.
Grad school is different. I was invited to participate in a campus debate on Gender Identity Disorder’s inclusion in the DSM. I agreed expecting to be on a panel of undergrads. Not the case. I am on a panel with Dr. Myra Hird (a distinguished sociology professor), Dr. Margo Rivera (clinical practitioner), and Kristin Ireland (Ph.D. candidate who’s done a number of campus presentations). I don’t feel ready to have my name beside theirs. I am prepping for this, as I have to come to prep for conferences and even class, ready to be grilled.
Academic respect is now signified through an interrogation of every assumption or failed consideration. While this means that every time you speak it may feel as though you have opened yourself up for attack, I have never before been pushed so hard to think before I speak. There is a sense of empowerment that comes with this form of academic conversation. It is expected that I can hold my own and that when someone challenges me I will have the intellectual momentum to keep up. That’s pretty cool.
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