Here’s the Problem.
Usually, I try to write with advice and tips that come from my experiences. But lately, we are entering into a different territory.
After my newsletter on student loans came out two weeks ago, I have been thinking a lot. While TECHNICALLY that information is still “relevant,” it’s a fair question to ask, “but for how long?”
And I have to be honest, I don’t know. Much of the goal of this newsletter is to help you achieve financial stability and be aware of the barriers that come with pursuing graduate school.
But right now, so much is in the air! Meaning, a lot is happening and changing day by day and it is hard to keep up. (Even for me.)
When I wrote that newsletter a few weeks ago the Department of Education was well and thriving and now… well we know it doesn’t exist.
I have been talking about job hunting and preparing for the job market and while I was doing that the University of California school system implemented a hiring freeze!!!
This newsletter is all about grad school access, and students across the nation are being deported for standing against the Genocide of Palestinians!
It would be disingenuous to act like everything is okay! Or that I even heavily endorse the university system. (Cuz honestly, I am now, and always really have been, ambivalent about it.)
That is because there are so many ways in the world to learn and become advocates and activists, and socially active people.
A degree is only but ONE method to do so!
I say that to say systemic oppression is going to persist and a lot of times it may catch us off guard. But so will our resistance.
And again, this is not to say, I think resistance necessarily means that we “push” through and get our degrees in this climate. I also don’t think it means we “give in” and give up on our academic dreams if we have them!
In fact, I am writing today to start a conversation with us all here to ask…
1. How are you doing?
2. What ways are you working towards your own safety and survival?
3. How are you building community?
You can respond to yourself, email me back or even leave a comment or a chat on Substack.
I don’t really have a point in this newsletter. I think I just wanted to create a space to remind us that colonial, imperial, and capitalistic violence has always existed and can be challenged. But to challenge something I (we) have to be able to name it and be strategic.
I can’t create a space about academia without calling out the fact that violence, fascism, racism, heterosexism, ableism, and all the other “isms” are real and feeling really intense in new ways for many of us right now.
As an individual person, I do not have the answers, but as a person in community with you all, I would love to begin a dialogue.
With Love and In Solidarity,
Brisa Marie <3