I finished my first year of graduate school! This semester was particularly busy (3 seminars + TAing!) so I didn’t have time to devote to writing for this site. Hopefully next semester will be more relaxed. I’ll be taking a Caravaggio seminar with my advisor… and, well, do I even need to tell you how excited I am? My life is complete.

A younger me near the Castel & Ponte Sant'Angelo.

I have a couple projects I’m working on this summer. I’ll be writing my Master’s Thesis about urban experience of public executions in Rome during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A few of the professors here have been so kind in providing comments and reviewing it, and I’m having the best time writing it. Even though I have a good portion of it completed because I wrote it for a grad seminar, there are some things I need to add or revise. The best part is that when I went to Italy for the first time, I got a picture with the Castel Sant’Angelo and Ponte Sant’Angelo in the background… and I don’t think young me had any idea where I would be years later, writing about that particular part of Rome.

Another summer project is to get through lots of reading that I didn’t have time for during the semester. In my first semester, some of the grad students held a “Methods seminar” where they had weekly art history methodology & art theory readings and then discussed them. I wasn’t able to attend because of scheduling, so one of my goals is to read anything from their reading list that I haven’t come across. I’m also going through The Cultures of Collecting edited by John Elsner and Roger Cardinal (1994), Gerard van der Leeuw’s Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art (1963), and I went through the University of Chicago Press’ eBook list and sent book samples of anything that looks interesting to my Kindle to see what I may want to buy. My final item on my list of reading is to go through all of my Caravaggio books & articles because I can’t wait until the Fall to start course readings.

The cover of my grad school guide.

I just completed one of my summer projects, which was to design and write a guide for applying to graduate school in art history. If you’re interested, you can find it here. I’m so thrilled with the result. Many of my readers (and Tumblr followers) are undergraduates, so I wanted to provide them with a quick, simple guide to help them decide whether or not they want to pursue graduate studies in art history, and if they do, what that entails. I tried to be as thorough as I could without going overboard – there’s a list of recommended resources and further reading. I’m looking forward to tracking interest in it and I hope it’s helpful!

I hope to actively write for this site again over the summer & I’ll try to have something drafted soon!

Tags: Art History, Education, Grad school, Personal, UDel

It feels like yesterday that I told the Internet about my acceptance to grad school. In my time off after undergrad, I thought I was prepared and knew exactly how to handle my first semester, but it turns out, some things just won’t sink in until you’ve experienced them.

Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way this semester, and what I resolve to remember to do for the rest of my time here.

Start early, finish early.

I once wrote a post called “3 Ways I can be a Better Grad Student”. When I wrote this, it was fairly early on in the semester and I thought I would start implementing those ideas right away. I didn’t. At all. This testifies to one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in grad school so far, which is to start early. You don’t want to be the sucker (me) who is scrambling with not only writing but also preparing presentations three weeks before final papers are due. I had my bibliographies finished in September, but waited until November to start writing. Folks, this is a very bad idea. I started early, but I didn’t stick with it. Start early, finish early. Your mental health will thank you for it.

Have people you can confide in.

I had a pretty rough three weeks due to working on my papers at the last minute. My stress level was high and I was sleep deprived. Then, one of my papers got ripped apart, and I literally had an emotional breakdown in the bathroom. I was comforted by a couple sweet friends and (when I got home), my husband. I never thought I’d be the type to lose it over a professor’s feedback, but I did. Talking it through with my family and friends helped me realize that I had irrational expectations for myself and for the way I thought my professor would respond. In addition to having an emotional support network, having friends and family around that you can trust can be helpful if you need a fresh perspective on a paper you’re writing.

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

Perfectionism isn’t healthy, but it is prevalent in academia. My work will rarely be perfect, even though I want it to be. I don’t strive for perfection; I strive for excellence. If I’ve done something to the very best of my ability, that’s as perfect as I can get.

Don’t compare yourself to others (unless you’re going to do something about it).
My first instinct when I got here was to compare my academic level to that of my fellow students. This can be a good thing, for the sake of personal and professional improvement, but I wasn’t comparing myself to better myself. I was comparing myself just to pick myself apart and not doing anything to better myself based on what I saw in my fellow students. I’ve realized that my colleagues are all at different academic levels, because we all have different knowledge bases and skillsets. And that’s okay. I started to take note of what I liked about my fellow students’ work (we all present our papers in seminar) and now I’ve started trying to improve my own work.

Take time to relax.

I think it goes without saying that doing something relaxing helps our brains to reset and come back to projects with a fresh outlook. Get offline, unplug, spend some time disconnected from your computer, emails, obligations. Enjoy the vividness that comes from living in the moment.

Nurture your relationships.
Nurture your relationships with your fellow students, your professors, and your personal relationships. Make time to go out with friends or go to a professor’s office hours and try to get to know them. For me, this isn’t about networking, it’s about being able to feel like part of a whole.

Be thankful.
It’s easy for me to get stressed out, have an existential crisis, or feel insignificant within the larger scope of my department. I try to remind myself that I’m here for a reason, and that just me being here, in this teeny town, is something to be thankful for. I didn’t have to get accepted to graduate school, but I was, and I desperately wanted to be. I’m thankful for that and for how incredibly fortunate I am to be here.

Remember why you’re here.

This comic might seem morbid, but it has a grain of truth. I’m here to make a difference — in my department, first, and then, when I graduate to the “real” academic world, within the larger context of academia. The contributions I make to my department might not come for a while — a conference presentation here, a published article there — but they’ll add to the department’s own contributions to academia through admitting X graduate student. I need to be proactive about making that difference here, as no one will hand these opportunities to me.

For more on grad school life, visit my Tumblr, where I blog and offer advice to those who ask about going to graduate school in art history. I also wrote this short PDF guide for prospective art history graduate students. For those of you who might be taking your first ever art history course, I wrote this guide.

I’d also like to say that I finished my first semester of grad school with a grand total of 19,588 words, 78 pages, and 202 footnotes! The papers I mentioned in an earlier post were some of the funnest projects I’ve worked on so far, and I can hardly wait for Spring 2013 to start — but I’ll enjoy a nice break in the meantime.

Have a wonderful holiday season!

Tags: Art History, Grad school, Graduate School, life lessons, Personal, School, tips, UCLA, UDel

Dear Readers,

As many of you know, I’ll be studying at the University of Delaware for graduate studies beginning this Fall. I’m currently  preparing to move across the country, so Caravaggista.com will be on a month-long hiatus beginning today (7/16/12) until about mid-August.  Until then, you can follow the Caravaggista Tumblr for daily art fixes (a queue is set up) and updates about my move (driving across 12 states will merit many photos!), and of course, feel free to email me or send me a Tumblr “Ask”.

Old College @ UDel

“See” you in August!

Tags: HIatus, Mod Post, Personal

As I’m sure you are all aware, Steve Jobs died yesterday. The world lost a truly brilliant man. He deserves attention here, because his creativity and innovations were integral to my personal and academic life.

A smiling Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone.

Growing up, I would gather around the family computer with my parents and watch every WWDC. At one point in my life, when I wanted to major in computer science, it was my greatest dream to attend WWDC. I loved Steve’s ingenuity and simple approach when he would explain his products. I cheered with the audience and marveled at Apple’s marriage of minimalist design with groundbreaking technology. His trademark turtleneck and jeans made me feel like he was just an old friend, explaining new developments to me using gorgeous displays, humor, and suspenseful pauses. I was always on the edge of my seat when he readied himself to click to the next slide, unveiling something new. My parents and I would guess what the next big Apple product was. We undershot every time. Who can guess what will spring from the mind of a genius?

I was in high school when I got my first iBook. I think I cried when I turned it on and saw the glossy, gorgeous screen light up for the first time. I owned an iBook. And yet, that was part of the beauty of Steve Jobs’ products. Anyone could use them. They were centered around community – sharing ideas, photos, and video with the people most important to you (or your business). That iBook served me faithfully during the remainder of my high school years through the first two years of college.

In 2008, I upgraded to my current laptop, a black MacBook. It’s been through a lot. I took it to Italy on a three week trip. It almost got soaked by a flash rainstorm in Florence. I used it to type up notes, record lectures, and write all my papers. It was on this laptop that I wrote my thesis and started this website. It has everything important to my personal and academic life: all my school notes and papers, every single photo I’ve taken or received since 2008, 15 GB of music, every email since 2008, and hundreds of iPhone apps.

Along with my iPhone, my MacBook inspired me to think creatively. These products’ displays are so simple and beautiful yet at the same time, they represent a huge leap forward in technology. How could I do that in my writing? In art historical analyses? One of the big problems with art historians who employ modern forms of analysis is that their theses and conclusions tend to be convoluted and stray from “art”, “history” or both! I didn’t want that to be the case with my writing. Steve Jobs’ innovations and design reminded me to stay simple and distraction-free.

A little over a year ago, I started working at an architecture firm. This isn’t my ideal job and for a long time, I resented not being directly involved in academia. Then I read something Steve Jobs had said in a 2005 Stanford University commencement speech:

I spent some time thinking about what that meant for me. I realized that I didn’t need to be enrolled in a university to keep up with current scholarship and explore art history further. I didn’t need “permission” from an institution to continue with what I loved.  I was determined to do what I love no matter what. And so, in May 2011, I started this website. It’s been an incredible journey so far. Sometimes I get discouraged, but I keep thinking back to Steve Jobs’ advice: Don’t settle. Steve didn’t settle, and with time he rightfully became the most revered innovator in the world.

Steve Jobs, thank you. Thank you for your entertaining and magical keynotes. Thank you for not compromising your ideas and for giving the world products that inspire and make users exhale with an awe-filled “Ooooh” and joyous applause. Thank you for giving value to community and simplicity. Thank you for getting me through high school, college, and the real world. I couldn’t have done it without the iPod, iBook, and iPhone. You were a fearless leader and inventor who changed the face of business, technology, and community forever. You will be remembered far longer than the company you created.

Hello/Goodbye by Ben Hughes.

Tags: Apple, College, iBook, iPhone, iPod, Personal, Steve Jobs