Bob in the Falklands during a 2014 trip to Antarctica
Anne & Bob Essner
What was the most important thing you learned while getting your master’s degree at the University of Chicago?
L-R: Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Dr. Irwin Redlener, Bob Essner and Sen. Edward Kennedy at a Children’s Health Fund event in New York
A teacher is great when they… Teach, first of all, but ultimately when they inspire.
I learned how to work like a dog. It was the hardest and most rigorous environment I’ve ever been around. It was tough as hell.
A school is great when it …
Every word you said, every word you wrote, every thought you
Develops its students.
had was rigorously attacked and scrutinized. It was great preparation. It was not always so pleasant when I was a young graduate
What was your first job after you got your master’s degree?
student, because you were getting beaten up intellectually all the
I was seeking to get a job teaching ancient history, because that’s
time. I think at that time, the University of Chicago considered
about all you can do when you get a degree in ancient history. I was
itself the best university in the world, and kind of an “intellectual
finishing my Ph.D. and taking exams. This was the time of the Viet-
boot camp.” No matter how good you were coming in and how
nam War. I started looking around for employment and there were
good your grades or credentials were, they were going to take you
literally no jobs. There was not a single job in my field in the United
down to nothing and build you back up in the way they wanted to
States in the year I was supposed to finish my Ph.D. I had a child, my
see you. Most of the students coming in were pretty exceptional
daughter Elizabeth. Looking at the face of my young daughter was
in their undergraduate work. It was a tough experience. The first
very much a wake-up call. I thought oh my God, what am I doing?
grade I got was a “D”. I hadn’t ever seen a “D”. And then I real-
I am not working and I’m not going to be able to do for her what I
ized that everybody was getting a “D”. It was an experience that
need to do for her. I abandoned the academic career plan. That was
helped me later in life. I learned that I could work really hard for
very difficult because I worked so hard and it’s what I wanted to do
months on end. It was such an intimidating environment that after
for a long time. I literally started looking for a job and nobody want-
that, I found very little else intimidating, and I think that’s what
ed to hire an ancient historian. It’s not exactly prime job credentials.
I got out of it the most. My courses were mainly seminars of six
Luckily I ended up answering an ad in The Wall Street Journal with a
or seven students and you had to present something to the class
headline something like “Want to work in a stimulating and intellec-
once a week. It was a free for all. You got ripped apart and you
tual environment?” I answered the ad because the ad copy sounded
had to defend yourself. It prepared me for the tough environments
like the kind of place I would want to be. I got a call from the com-
in life. I came out of there more confident in my ability to handle
pany about a week later and figured that I got the call because no
myself in hostile environments.
one else had applied. I had been getting a lot of turn downs from August 2015
|
SCENE
61