I get it, but I’m too poor and chronically ill to agree with you.

As I enter my fourth year in my PhD program, I am eager to do the work and graduate. I have pushed myself for the last few years to make sure my classes and assistantship duties support my goal of graduating in four years. Every class I took was delicately selected by how much I thought it would help me create a dissertation research proposal that would get quickly approved so I could start collecting and analyzing data. 

By now, I have had to accept that graduating this spring would be near impossible because of the graduate school deadlines, personal problems that take up my free time, and the need for me to still work on my job documents for when I go on the job market. I understand that there is no shame in graduating in 5 or more years. Most people do that in PhD programs. However, while I don’t experience shame for taking the extra year, I am experiencing more and more frustration with hearing about the extra year. At this point in time, I have heard from too many people trying to convince me about the benefits of taking a fifth year. My graduate advisor, my committee chair, my therapist, my partner, my friends, my co-workers—they all have tried to convince me that it’s no big deal. And it isn’t… at least, not to them. 

My problem with taking this extra year isn’t shame. Projects take longer than expected all the time. I learned to be at peace with not exceeding expectations all the time. I learned to take my time and make work that makes me proud instead. The reason for my rush is more personal: I feel trapped because of who I am. 

I love teaching. I don’t love having 8 years of teaching experience and a master’s degree only to be paid so little that I rely on food stamps and Medicaid expansion to help take care of my basic needs. I don’t love how I recently did an internship that made me lose my food stamps and Medicaid expansion, so now I postpone my medical treatment and ration my chronic illness medications because I can’t afford a $300 doctor visit. I don’t love having to rely on my generous partner for food when my bank account is empty. My problem with taking the extra year is how it draws attention to the cycle of poverty I am stuck in as a graduate student and teaching assistant. 

I know some of the people who have told me there’s no shame in taking the extra year did indeed go to grad school and probably experienced some level of poverty as a graduate assistant. I just feel like my experience is different. I’m a first-generation college student with two younger siblings and parents who divorced when I was 5 years old. My family has not had enough money to help me pay for college. I also fall victim to often random bouts of chronic illness. Put that together with the friends who leave when they graduate each year and there’s no surprise that depression follows.

The cycle starts with poverty, then comes the pain, then comes more poverty, then comes the emotional torment. The cycle continues. The root problem comes from how much money it takes for me to take care of my expensive medical emergencies. So when someone tells me to take the extra year, what I think about is how much longer I will be in pain and be poor. I hear ableism. 

I know the people who’ve told me to take an extra year mean well. They want me to be successful in the long run. I just feel as if they don’t fully understand how my experiences compound. They don’t get that when they say it’s great that I’m taking an extra year, I want to scream. 

I’ll graduate soon. I’m trying not to be impatient. I just want to stop talking about it. People don’t seem to understand what motivates me, what troubles me. I’ve seen other grad students with chronic illnesses and disabilities drop out of their programs. Now, it doesn’t surprise me as much that disabled scholars are too few of the professor population pool I aim to be a part of. Chronic illnesses physically disable, socially disable and in grad school, they financially disable. It doesn’t make me ashamed. It makes me angry. Until people understand that the dissertation process isn’t the main thing holding me back from graduating early, I wish they’d stop bringing it up. Save the affirmations for someone else. I’d rather have affordable healthcare.