On being a new grad student in Iowa City

A typical New Englander, I came to Iowa City burdened with an array of expectations about my new home, most of them involving sub-zero temperatures and corn. Yet having lived in Charlottesville, Virginia and Dublin, Ireland, both within the past four years, I kept an open mind about the intellectual and social climates in this dubious jewel of the Midwest. Still, as I drove across the prairie expanses surrounding Iowa City, I thought I saw the unmistakable haze of boredom on the horizon. I quickly discovered I was wrong, however. The weather and the geography that characterize Iowa City are not the problem, rather it is the seemingly ceaseless number of things to do here that make being a graduate student challenging.

I spent a handful of weeks prior to the start of classes wandering around the broad avenues of the city. Walking over sidewalks covered in brass plagues upon which the words of the University's distinguished writers were emblazoned. Darting from poetry reading to fiction reading to academic talk, like some pollen-drunk bee. Shaking my head at the breadth of selection on the shelves of Prairie Lights Bookstore. Relishing the availability and quality of so much organic produce. Having never seen my apartment prior to my arrival in town, I was endlessly amused when I discovered that I lived next to a farmer's market.

And those were just my afternoons. The cafés and bars held yet another happy surprise for me. Sitting in a pub sipping Guinness and listening to a saxophonist wind his way through "Cottontail" or chatting with some new classmates after watching 'the Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and spinning the ice cubes in my Maker's Mark. Jazz trios, blues bands, poetry slams, and independent cinema. All these events nearby, accessible, void of the big-city rabidity and pomposity that often hangs around such happenings in places like Boston and New York. And this is Iowa City, an amalgam of the intellectual and the homey. A synthesis of academic and personal passions.

I have been fortunate to find a community for each of my various interests. Visible football crazies, coffee-quaffing and informal poetry gatherings, internationally-minded academics focused on travel and study abroad. Four weeks ago I was a skeptical and mildly cynical twenty-two year old slightly doubting in my own abilities to perform at the graduate level among so many intelligent minds, and also afraid that my variegated character would be left either baking in the cornfields or freezing in the December winds. Now I find myself comfortably situated among my peers, who range in age, background, and interests, and possessed of a welcome feeling of belonging. At the same time I pleasantly flit among academic departments as a result of my interdisciplinary leanings. After a month here I am no longer the doubting Yankee begrudgingly taking up residence in the flatlanded Midwest, I am a resident of Iowa City thankful for this town's leisurely pace and colorful diversity.

tom keegan 9.16.02