Clarissa's Blog

I have the best memories of McGill University because, as students, we were really challenged, assigned mountains of readings. A professor would approach me randomly, give me a page-long, single-spaced list of readings, and tell me that he expected me to have them completed and have an article ready for publication on one of the texts by the end of the semester. This was not for any specific course. It was on top of the course load. Since then, the concept of having to read or to write “too much” does not exist for me.

I remember once during my master’s program, a professor came up to me and asked, with a very annoyed look, “So you aren’t doing anything? You’re not occupied with anything useful?”

I said, “Professor, I’m taking courses, teaching courses, writing my dissertation, and preparing an article and a conference talk.”

He said, “Exactly as I’m saying, you aren’t doing much. Here is a project you will start working on today.” The project turned out to be on the nation-state.

I will be eternally grateful.