Guest Post: 'A Chili Pepper on RateMyProfessors.com'
In which former Essays in Journalism student Emiko Okamura considers life as a 'humanities sellout'
One of the real charms of keeping in touch with former students is not only soliciting little essays from them now and then but the chance also to slightly alter and encourage a new trajectory in a writing life.
Take Emiko Okamura. Is Emiko the first and only graduate student I’ve ever had the pleasure of teaching in one of my undergraduate-level UCLA courses? I think, in fact, Emiko is.
What a delight and honor it really was, Winter 2023, to have someone a bit further along in their educational career, a true adult, a person who’s gone out into the world and returned wanting more. The work produced was deep, informed, rigorous.
That’s sort of the subject of this delightful new essay, which I’m sharing today. Even better perhaps? Emiko emailed me to say that the experience of writing a mini-essay has inspired a desire to do more of this kind of writing. I’m here for it. I bet you will be too.
Chili Peppers Aren’t For Everyone
By Emiko Okamura
It’s okay to be a humanities sell-out. Or at least that’s what I tell myself once a week, sitting in my empty cubicle, no photos or poster to indicate this was my seat other than the name card tacked to the cushioned fabric walls. “Application Support Specialist, Level 1, Altura MSO”. As a previous graduate in English Literature and Asian American Studies, I couldn’t imagine working in Healthcare Management. Yet the job title shown under the fluorescent overhead lights. Since this building had previously been a Sears, no one thought the need to add any windows. Posters of a window outlining a tropical escape clung to the empty walls instead.
It’s okay to be a humanities sell-out. And I’d like to think I believe it. It’s been almost nine months since graduating with my master’s degree in Asian American Studies. At the time I felt ready to leave higher education. The past two years marked by constant applications for grants, fellowships, funding. Time. My degree compiled into a handmade scrapbook of black cardstock pieced together by family history. Past letters my nana had written to family back in Japan, snippets of the final voicemails I have of my grandparents, carefully spliced for those who could no longer read it (or might never understand it). The work was fulfilling, but my stomach swallowed itself at the thought of how that manuscript would support me after graduating in June. “I just want to not feel like I’m scrambling all the time,” I confessed to my friend and cohort member Kate, “All these applications and submissions feels like I have to prove my work is interesting. That I have something interesting to say. And I just need time to support myself.” She smiled and nodded her head in understanding.
***
In the fall of 2019, as a soon-to-be graduate of Scripps College, almost all of my mentors warned me, “Do not get a PhD unless you’re 100 percent sure that is what you want to do with your life”. I’d dreamed of becoming an English professor, just like the ones in my department. Young, with a sense of humor that didn’t feel outdated, and a chili pepper rating on Ratemyprofessors.com. At almost-22, it was hard to feel 100% about anything. It was difficult imagining what I’d be wearing to graduation, let alone imagining the next 5-7 years of my life writing a dissertation about some newfound point of view within the canon of English literature.
I knew I needed a backup plan.
As a graduate in English Literature and Asian American Studies, I couldn’t imagine working in Healthcare Management.
Now when I say getting my master’s was a back-up plan, I mean that in the least pretentious way possible. Not like in the “Yeah Princeton was my backup for Harvard” kind of way, but as in it was my only option. By February 2020, I’d applied to almost 10 graduate programs and only got accepted to one. Asian American Studies at UCLA. Asian American poetry was a field that was new to me, and one I felt to which I could contribute. The outbreak of Covid-19 had led to a premature graduation and delayed start to my graduate studies. By fall 2021, my excitement of starting grad school felt as if I’d finally been able to let out the breath I’d been holding the past year.
***
My only claim to being a nepo baby is the fact that my dad helped me get my first entry-level job after graduating with my master’s. Well, I guess “first” isn’t completely accurate. I’ve had jobs in the food industry, with non-profits, and even corporate finance. But those were all temporary. Taken during the 9 months of the school year or the three months of summer break or the gap year before UCLA. And since these jobs reflected whatever time I was in at school, by the time I was applying for post-graduate jobs, I was often met with “While we appreciate your interest in the position, we’ve decided to go with another candidate with a bit more experience in the field”. I realized I had a breadth of job experience on my resume, but not the depth required to reflect “real world” experience.
Come spring 2023, the deluge of questions regarding what I’d be doing after graduation flooded almost every conversation I had with family members, mentors, and friends. I’d tell them I was considering applying to teaching jobs at community colleges in Asian American Studies, which wasn’t a complete lie. But according to ZipRecruiter, the average pay for an adjunct professor at a community college in California is $31,000. That’s over $7000 less than what is reported by the U.S. Census Bureau as the average income of someone in the state and barely more than what I was making as a teaching assistant. These statistics shattered an illusion forged from years of being told that higher education would provide a path towards financial stability and independence. Is that still true? I’m not sure if it is.
***
As a moment of vulnerability, I must admit this essay has taken a somewhat cynical turn and has proven difficult for me to write. When Professor Deuel reached out to me to create a piece surrounding post-grad life, my mind fluttered with ideas ranging from adjusting to the corporate world to living independently. The truth is, I do hope I’ve touched on those topics enough throughout this essay. But this is also for the graduates who dreamed of using their humanities degree as a pathway towards academia or nonprofits or creative endeavors. While I started off this piece joking about how I tell myself “It’s okay to be a humanities sellout”, I hardly find it a joke at all. But rather than stewing in the regret of my initial career goals, I’ve learned to relish in the pocket moments–taking on the responsibility to manage my company’s website content, learning Tagalog online with my sister in Chicago, and composing an essay for a previous writing professor. So yeah, it’s okay to do what you need to survive as a postgrad and it’s okay to be a humanities sellout