Consulting is huge at Michigan
— the job prospect is so popular
and widespread that it’s even
designated its own season. From
August to November, a large
section of the student body is
busy sending out their resumes,
getting in touch with alumni and
practicing for interviews.
When recruiters from major
firms hold events on campus
— most commonly in the Ross
School of Business or Blau Hall
(the University of Michigan’s
premier
business
hubs)
—
students flock to auditoriums
just to shake their hands. The
goal is to network your way into
an interview and prepare for
possible “case” questions they
could throw at you — tests on
scenarios you might have to face
at their firm. Students say, all-in-
all, it’s like adding another class
load’s worth of work to your
semester. But by Halloween,
you
start
hearing
about
people signing with Deloitte
or McKinsey & Company; by
Thanksgiving break, the dust
has all but settled. Everyone
can hang up their suits until the
summer when they either start
the internship or start the whole
process over again.
Despite all the stress and the
work, the formula of consulting
is apparently a part of its appeal:
There’s a clearly outlined path to
success if you’re willing to play
by the rules. And if you’re lucky,
at the end of the summer, there’s
the all-important return offer.
I’m a senior in the Ford School
of Public Policy, and while it’s not
the primary avenue public policy
students take after graduation,
consulting is always on the table.
Around this time of year, my
career counselor starts sending
out emails about information
sessions, consulting workshops
and case demonstrations.
While I have never been
actively interested in consulting,
there was a time where I was
at least mildly intrigued by the
prospect. Working on projects
for short periods of time with
people approximately your own
age — it sort of sounded like
school. Ultimately, I decided I
didn’t want to do something so
closely tied to business (partially
because I do math at an eighth-
grade level and partially because
I want to do something more
creative) and didn’t take it any
further.
I was eight when I first discovered
fire in my brain.
In the gentle lull of summer,
I awoke to a vice-like pain in my
head, which slowly bloomed into
a throbbing metronome directly
behind my eyes. I yelled for my mom,
who promptly provided Advil and
water, neither of which did anything
to curb the pain. I curled my body in
a ball, wedged my head between two
pillows and sobbed. The better part
of eight hours passed, after which my
weary second-grade self succumbed
to exhaustion and fell asleep.
My parents have never been the
type to make a trip to the doctor
without serious cause; anything short
of leprosy or spontaneous combustion
was merely a chance to “tough it out.”
Hence, when my mother booked
me a doctor’s appointment the next
morning, it was a surprise to all of us.
It was my first indication that we were
in uncharted territory; something
severe and mysterious crept about
the fringes of the horizon. We entered
the quaint Vermont clinic as zombies
might, weary from last night’s
episode. Nonetheless, we knew what
I experienced was serious, and we
were determined to figure out both
what was wrong and how to fix it.
It would take several doctor’s
appointments, an MRI and an EEG
(the process of attaching electrodes
to the scalp to detect electrical
activity in the brain) to gain any
clarity on the issue at hand. In the
spirit of medical ambiguity, there
was good news and there was
bad news. It would appear that
I suffered from migraines. This
was the good news, I suppose. It
would also appear that there was
no discernible cure in sight. There
were medications, treatments and
prevention methods,but I would
likely experience these headaches
for the rest of my life.
The fire in my brain burned gently
and steadily. Most days it was tame,
docile even. Then, without warning:
an inferno. There was no rhyme or
reason to it, it consumed when it saw
fit and dissipated as unexpectedly
as it blazed. I quickly learned that
the science behind migraines is
conjecture at best. They may be the
result of a faulty vascular system.
Or perhaps a chemical imbalance.
No, maybe it’s all due to some
underlying central nervous disorder.
The hypotheses are numerous and
varied, all culminating in a truth as
frustrating as it is elusive.
No one knows for sure.
As I grew older, the headaches
worsened, often brought on by the
hormonal shifts that accompanied
adolescence. They evolved from mere
headaches to full-on neurological
disasters. I developed migraines
with aura; in addition to the splitting
head pains, I experienced visual and
tactile disorientation. It was staring
into the very center of a lightbulb for
10 seconds straight. A host of glaring,
glowing specks reappeared with
every blink, clouding my field of
vision. Yet unlike the fleeting blows
of a lightbulb, these malignant blips
refused to abate. They expanded,
consuming my line of sight, sending
my sense of depth perception topsy
turvy. They persisted for hours,
needling their way into my eyes,
skull and brain.
With the visual aura came its
equally destructive sister, the tactile
aura. She brushed your fingertips
with a gentle tingling sensation,
which gradually rippled throughout
one half of your entire body. Half
of your face, chest, hands and feet,
completely devoid of sensation. You
try to drink a glass of water, read,
enter a lit room, all to no avail. You
try to push through it, stick it out,
only to find yourself vomiting in the
middle school nurse’s office, one
hand grasping the wrapper of a pill
that didn’t work, the other limp with
numbness. One side of your head
blazes, the other feels nothing at all.
Despite the mystery surrounding
chronic migraines, every doctor you
visit will encourage you to identify
your triggers. They are multitudinous
and ubiquitous. Anything from
preservatives
to
changes
in
barometric pressure can set one-off.
I was put on a number of elimination
diets, changed my sleep schedule
entirely and cut out caffeine. I did all
in my power, and the migraines rolled
in all the same.
Unlike many, I’ve had the good
fortune of sporadic and infrequent
migraines for the most part. In my
adult life, I only deal with a serious
migraine every two or three months.
As a kid, I was less lucky. In addition
to my migraines, I’ve dealt with
anxiety for my entire life, which I’ve
since identified as one of my primary
neurological triggers. I now have
the autonomy to get the treatment I
need to mitigate the adverse effects
of mental and physical illness. I have
the tools I need to adapt to life with
migraines. But they came at a cost.
In my senior year of high school, my
anxiety was at an all-time high. By
the final semester, I found myself
waking up to a migraine nearly every
day. I couldn’t read, study or even
walk around without help. I was
constantly nauseous, and the pain
was excruciating. My grade point
average plummeted, and my absences
put me at risk of not graduating.
I didn’t expect it when the
trailer for the third season of
“Sex Education” showed up in
my Youtube recommended feed.
I didn’t expect the plunging
feeling of longing and sadness that
followed either.
The show had been a godsend
during my freshman year of
college, getting me through my
first and only winter on the East
Coast before I transferred to
the University of Michigan. The
connection also carried into my
sophomore year at the University,
as it was also a touchstone of
friendship between myself and the
group of friends I became close
with when I arrived in Ann Arbor.
And though a year had passed since
the release of the show’s second
season, when the long-anticipated
third season was announced, I
had immediately texted my friend
group. I couldn’t wait to spend days
and nights watching the season
together.
But
between
the
initial
announcement and the trailer, my
friend group fell apart. By now, the
season has premiered and I still
haven’t even watched the trailer.
***
While I don’t watch a ton of
movies, I consume television and
other forms of media far more than
I’d like to admit. If you looked at
any of my “continue watching”
pages on any streaming platform,
you’d see everything from “Kim’s
Convenience” to “Outlander” to
“Castlevania.” There are shows
like “Schitt’s Creek” and “Peaky
Blinders” that I’ve rewatched
countless times in their entirety.
There are even shows in Norwegian
and Spanish sitting on my “to
watch” list.
My tastes, when it comes to
shows, vary drastically, which is
why I use them as a way to connect
with people. It’s very easy to talk
to someone you hardly know when
you both can quote every single
line
from
a
Jack Whitehall comedy special
or make an obscure reference to
“Travels with my Father.”
“What other comedians do you
like?”
“Have
you
watched
‘Elder
Millennial’?”
“Have you gotten to the second
season of *insert any sitcom here*
yet?”
Conversations
spark
and
friendships ignite. To some people,
this may seem incredibly natural
— of course, that’s how you start
a conversation — but when you’ve
struggled with social anxiety and
panic at the idea of speaking with
other students in a class, good
small talk topics feel like currency.
And sometimes that’s someone
referencing a show you just finished
watching and being able to play off
of their words.
***
In the fall of 2019, the Doc
Marten-clad girl who helped me
move into my residence hall after
my parents left (with hardly more
than a wave goodbye) texted me.
It had been several weeks since
move-in, and she and I, along with
two other girls from our dorm, had
become fast friends, sharing the
intimate details of our personal
lives as if we’d all been close for
years.
One night she told me that
she was having a panic attack
— something both of us were
intimately acquainted with. Both
of our coping strategies typically
consisted of distracting ourselves
until they ended. So, I went to
her room, and we put on the most
distracting thing we could think
of: an episode of “The Marvelous
Mrs. Maisel,” a show we had
collectively seen too many times
to count. The plan was a success,
and after this night, the remedy
became a tradition. Any time either
of us had a bad day, we’d go to one
of our rooms, eat cookies and put on
something familiar to watch.
But then the pandemic made it
impossible to do such a thing. We
were sent home and had to readjust
to life without each other.
At the start, my group of friends
tried our best to keep in contact.
We had an ever-running group chat
filled
with
dog
photos
and
laments over our baking fails
or rants about how our professors
decided to assign us more work
than usual because everything
had gone virtual. A few nights we
even tried a group FaceTime and
I introduced them to my sisters.
Those conversations tapered off,
though, until the threads grew
silent.
We all returned to campus
the next fall, but something had
changed. The girl who I’d seen
through panic attacks and who’d
seen me through depressive spirals
hardly ever spoke to me anymore,
and when she did it was short and
clipped conversations.
Maybe we just grew apart.
Maybe this was inevitable. Maybe it
was how deeply rooted my religious
trauma is and how she was a born-
again believer. Maybe it was the fact
that her family was wealthier than
I could ever dream of being, and
I finally couldn’t keep comparing
myself to her. Whatever the case,
there grew a rigid and lengthy
distance between us. And though
we tried to watch the last season of
“Schitt’s Creek” together, we never
made it past the third episode.
After several months of not
speaking but not exactly disliking
each other, I could keep going back
to the shows we watched together.
I tried to laugh at the jokes in “The
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” the same
way I once did. Now, thinking about
the show at all makes me deflate
a bit inside. I haven’t watched a
comedy special in months, not
when they were the first thing
she and I bonded over. Now that
that bond is gone, looking back at
the connections and memories we
shared over these shows only hurts.
I have not been able to bring
myself back to “Schitt’s Creek,” and
the very thought of watching an
episode of it ever again makes me
feel a little sick.
***
No one told me I could go to
graduate school, not until I started
doing research my junior year of
college and my mentor told me that
if I was even considering it, I should
start
thinking
about writing
a thesis. I very quickly realized that
my linguistics major wasn’t going
to get me as far as I wanted in life
unless I pursued a higher degree.
I knew I needed to find something
I could write 30-ish pages on and
actually be excited about.
Luckily, I quickly uncovered
my topic of interest in the Mid-
Atlantic/Trans-Atlantic
accent,
more
particularly,
modern
representations of it. Think of all
the characters in the first episode
of “WandaVision,” or Effie Trinket
in “The Hunger Games.” Or, think
about what became my main focus:
Moira Rose in “Schitt’s Creek.” I
had pages of analysis planned out in
my head for Moira Rose, examining
the way Catherine O’Hara seemed
to mimic the high-class, most
desirable,
golden
standard
of
speech from a bygone era while
bringing an element of comedy
to it. I had thought through the
socio-linguistic implications of her
dialectic patterns and what it said
about speech standards in television
today. I considered its comparison to
the images of Old Hollywood.
I had it all planned out. But then
the summer came and went, and a
friendship
fell
apart,
and
the
thought
of
objectively examining a piece of
media that I had such an emotional
connection to became something I
simply couldn’t bring myself to do.
At a school like the University
of Michigan, it’s not uncommon
for students to put their academics
ahead of their mental health —
I’ve certainly done it. But this just
wasn’t something I could justify.
I wasn’t going to risk throwing
myself into a depressive spiral over
a paper. It just wasn’t worth it.
***
For now, “Schitt’s Creek” sits in
my “watch again” tab in my Netflix
account, along with so many other
shows I once loved but now can
never go back to. I’m too sentimental
to delete them from my watch
history — possibly for the same
reasons I collect text messages.
When
the
“new
episodes”
notification came up for “Sex
Education,” I wasn’t able to ignore
the way it made my chest clench. It
didn’t stop the impulse I felt to pick
up my phone and text the friend I
had once planned to watch it with.
And I don’t think I’ll ever watch
these episodes.
In the same way,I don’t think
I’ll ever be able to watch the final
seasons of “Peaky Blinders” when
they
are released because of
the
inside jokes I shared with my group
of friends about that show. Even
the idea of watching the last few
episodes of “Lucifer” makes me feel
uneasy because that was the first
show my friends and I watched
together after quarantine.
***
In the weeks since my circle of
friends splintered, I’ve found myself
gravitating more and more towards
media that no one else I know
watches. Movies I hold close to
myself and tell nearly no one about
out of fear they’ll uncover some part
of me and judge me by the stories I
love. I’ve discovered new TV shows
that I watch by myself on weekends,
silently enjoying the fan culture
ever-present and easily accessible
on social media. No one knows the
kinds of music I listen to, or the
books I read anymore — those I keep
strictly to myself out of fear that
connecting them to relationships
could ruin them for me.
There is a value in sharing
these kinds of media or forms
of art with other people: It can
establish an easy connection, a
bridge in an otherwise awkward
conversation. But maybe there’s
also value in keeping it to ourselves;
loving something because it is
authentically ours, undiluted by the
fragility of relationships around us.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, September 29, 2021 — 9
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
MACKENZIE HUBBARD
Statement Columnist
Design by Madison Grosvenor
Design by Katherine Lee
Migraines and other
pyrotechnics
DARBY WILLIAMS
Statement Columnist
Why (not) consulting?
LANE KIZZIAH
Statement Correspondent
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
S T A T E M E N T
Design by Megan Young