Hands-up if you envisage your married life, five years on, involving regular nights on a friend’s couch. Sound odd? Dysfunctional? In fact, for one Oxford couple it’s standard procedure in an attempt to juggle the cost of graduate degrees at two universities.
Welcome to the life of David Lappano and Leslie James. David is currently reading for an M.St in Theology at Regent’s Park College, and was recently accepted to read for a D.Phil in Theology. Leslie, his wife of five years, is mid-way through a D.Phil in History at the London School of Economics. They live in Oxford (to comply with the University’s residency requirements), in a student flat out by the train station, which is convenient for Leslie to commute to London three days each week. To stretch their student budget, rather than return to Oxford each night Leslie stays with friends, sleeping on couches or in guest rooms. ‘I have about five friends that I will call-up and say, ‘Can I stay with you tonight?’ I just pack my backpack and move around every night.’
It’s no secret that the life of a young academic is difficult. The competition for programmes is intense, surpassed only by the competition for teaching jobs after graduation. (How many programmes do you know with fewer students than faculty?) Long hours of isolated work are inevitable, because a D.Phil thesis must be unique; no one else can do what you are doing. Tired, desperate graduates compete down salaries at hiring institutions, which hold a near monopoly on job placements, and years of specialized research mean that interested and appropriate departments are, quite literally, few and far between.
What’s less appreciated is how all these challenges are multiplied by the desire to maintain a healthy, connected relationship with a partner. All of a sudden, traveling for that conference, to those archives, even staying late at the library carries an additional cost: not just your time, but also your partner’s time is affected. The fact that you invited this complication into your life (funny how it didn’t seem that way at the time) doesn´t make the situation any easier; or, for that matter, that friend’s couch any more comfortable.
Another version of this story is lived by Steve Reynolds, who earned a D.Phil in Philosophy from Oxford in 2009 and currently teaches at New College. For the last four years, Steve’s girlfriend, fiancee and now wife, Becca Reynolds, has lived in Ontario, Canada, finishing law school and now practicing corporate law. ‘Initially we were proud of our ability to concentrate on work and be apart – avoid an early compromise and later resentment. That initial enthusiasm has waned…’
‘The situation affects everything in your life. Sometimes I think that I hate philosophy, what’s the point of all this crap, but that’s really not true. We’re just frustrated by our situation.’
One stress in particular is financial. David and Leslie, for example, completed much of their graduate work in stages, with one partner working while the other studied, but the decision for David to re-enter graduate school at the same time as Leslie meant that significant debt was no longer avoidable. ‘We don’t really comprehend how expensive this is going to be. The numbers don’t really seem real.’
For the time being, however, that’s something they feel they can manage. ‘Money can be stressful, but where it becomes a breaking point is when blame comes into it. Because we’re both contributing to the debt right now, it’s stressful but [we] made the decision together, so there’s no possibility of resentment.’
More generally, the difficulties facing young academics and their partners are a sign of our times: two career families are becoming increasingly common, while the institutions where people make their careers tend to reflect expectations more appropriate to single career families. It’s much easier to work 50, 60 or 70 hours each week if your partner is free to deal with household responsibilities, arrange social engagements and generally be available whenever you happen to not be working.
Finding work in reasonable proximity to each other can also be a challenge, which is why Steve and Becca have decided to move wherever Steve can find work. (So far he has applied in Canada, the US, Britain and Australia.) It’s actually easier for Becca to re-qualify as an attorney in another common law country than for Steve to control where he might get hired. ‘There are just fewer universities for any one specialization than there are law firms in a big city.’
For David and Leslie, the job search is a few years away but the issue still creates anxiety about their ability to start a family. Leslie’s decision to study at the LSE delayed any such plans for three to four years, and when David was deciding whether to pursue further graduate study, the same questions arose. ‘The back and forth was not just about finances; it was about our future, our ability to have a family.’
Ultimately, everyone does their best to make it work in their own way. For Steve, this includes considering alternatives to an academic career, at least in the short term, so that he and Becca can finally live together on a permanent basis. ‘Becca jokes sometimes, “now that we’re married I want to live with you and get to know you!” I don’t think it’s so funny but she has a point.’
‘If pursuing this career means sacrificing other things, then, it’s just no longer worth it, or viable.’
For David and Leslie, the real challenge has been realizing that the most prudent decision is not always the best decision. ‘Sometimes you have to make a decision that’s right but not for practical reasons. This year with both of us in graduate school has been a lesson in the truth of that.’
Not something one is likely to find in a degree prospectus, but all too real for too many couples. Best of luck to everyone.
