Doubting Lisa

I've spent more than a year researching graduate school programs, bouncing from idea to idea. Public Policy. Urban Planning. Library Sciences. Political Science. Writing. Journalism. Liberal Arts. Public Policy again. They all interested me, but none of them felt quite right. Then I stumbled across Anthropology, and I thought, "This is it! This is exactly the program that I want."

I've spent nearly six months researching graduate programs in Anthropology. I've visited Web sites, looked at rankings, Googled professors. I systematically narrowed the field to three schools: University of Texas, University of Wisconsin, and University of Kentucky.

I've spent the past four months applying to those three schools. I studied for the GREs. I hunted down professors and supervisors to beg for recommendations. I requested transcripts, filled in forms, and payed fees.

Now it's down the the final stretch. I've submitted one complete application. All I have left to do for the other two is to finish my personal statements.

And I'm starting to have major doubts.

I've had niggling little "but what abouts" all along. But what about writing? But what about my secret desire to be a librarian? But what about all the other things I'm interested in or have thought about doing? I put those aside, usually with a "I can always come back to that" or "I can try that later if I don't like this." Which are both sort of true.

Then, yesterday, the doubts came flooding in. I had a meeting with one of the professors in the anthropology department at UT. As I was preparing to talk with him, I realized that I know nothing about anthropology. Seriously. And as I was talking to him, I realized how unprepared I was to make this decision. I couldn't even have a thoughtful discussion with him. I didn't know what to ask or say. I have no idea what project I want to do.

Now I'm usually good at faking my way through discussions. I can talk about a book I've never read, a movie I've never seen, or a sport I don't even like. Go on. Ask me about Harry Potter or the Rose Bowl. So my sudden inability to come up with even a few intelligent questions worries me. Am I really doing the right thing? Yes, I'm interested in the issues of social anthropology, but do I really want to put myself in major debt to study it? Do I want to make a career of this? Am I making an informed decision or am I jumping into something out of desperation?

I don't want to flake out because of fear. But I also don't want to make the wrong decision just because I don't want to look like a flake. (I've already been there and done that with going to Malawi. Not that Malawi was a mistake, but going with the program that I did was a HUGE mistake.) And I can't stay in my current situation much longer.

Is this just pre-application jitters? Or is my gut telling me something?