"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Tolkien's opening line has always resonated with me because it captures something essential about human nature: when the world outside gets overwhelming, we retreat to our hobbit-holes. We close the round door, light the fire, and tend to what we know. I suspect many of...

By Jasmine Camero As a first-generation student, uncertainty has been a constant companion throughout graduate school. I learned early how to read failure as a sign that I didn’t belong, a habit that the academic job market has a way of reactivating. As I reach the end of my doctoral journey, I am finishing up...