Shirley mentioned that when she went to college, she was able to go very young and work her way through with inexpensive fees. I was very impressed by how it made her more confident about going to grad school, because she didn’t have to worry so much about success: if she didn’t make it in academia, she knew how to find other work. This is something that I worry about quite a bit. At the moment I want to go to grad school, but looking around at what my peers are doing and what other grad students seem to have accomplished I’m very worried that I won’t make it in that world. The prospect of spending so much time only to fall short is very scary to me. Maybe I should try to follow Shirley’s path to some extent and start working a part-time job that’s completely unrelated to my academic interests, just so that I get that experience and lose some of my fear of failure.