Shadee Elmasry – I Got My PhD at 26 and Heres How I Did It
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses their academic challenge, personal struggles with liberalism, and professional struggles with the field. They faced various academic challenges, including missing classes and being too liberal. They eventually found a major in philosophy and religion but struggled with their bait and switch. They later pursue a MA in two years and then finished their PhD in a few years after their master's. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their work and education, and they have to continue studying online.
AI: Summary ©
I have like three sentences in that, on
the origin of Hadhramaut's name in my PhD
thesis.
It is, but I mean, I was like
22 when I wrote it.
My challenge, academic challenge was how fast can
I finish, right?
That was my academic challenge.
I didn't really like, wasn't like excited about
academics.
I was more excited about the challenge of
like, how can I finish?
So I finished high school in three years,
college in three years, master's in a year
and a half, PhD in three years, correction
six months.
So I got the PhD before my 27th
birthday.
That was my goal, right?
My goal, I wasn't really academically inclined.
I was like, this is like all theory.
This stuff is all theory, unless I'm going
to be a biologist or a doctor or
something like that.
It was, my goal was to see how
much can I hack the system, you know,
not like illegally or not like with cheating
or anything.
But so high school, my, how do I
challenge myself?
I'm like, I'm not really challenged.
My challenge was I went to the guidance
counselor.
She was such a nice woman.
And I said, I want to finish in
three years, right?
And she said, well, why, why don't you
want to go to the prom, senior all,
I'm not into that stuff, right?
And she said, well, what are you going
to do?
I said, I'm going to, uh, I'm going
to Mecca university, Umul Qura university.
And at the time we had a friend
who was there and she said, what?
I said, yeah, I'm going to Mecca university.
She said, ah, that's amazing.
You know, she's being polite.
She probably thinks it's crazy, but she was
a very nice woman.
My town is all Italians, right?
It's just nice Italian woman.
Yeah.
So she ends up, um, helping me out
and she said, well, what are you willing
to do?
I said, well, number one, I'm skipping lunch
from here on in.
So sophomore year, junior year, skipping lunch.
I'll take courses.
Summer between sophomore and junior, I take more
courses.
Okay.
And in exchange, put gym at the end.
So I'd go to Juma at the end,
every Friday, give me, give me gym at
the end of the day.
She said, it's a deal.
We'll do it.
And she did it.
So I took two or two or three
courses in the summertime.
Didn't take lunch that finished my, I completed
the necessary courses needed and was able to
go finish high school in three years.
Then at Rutgers, it did the same thing.
Choose a major real quick and never change.
Of course I chose a nonsensical major, philosophy
and religion.
Good stuff.
You can listen to podcasts and learn the
same stuff.
I'm surprised my parents were so liberal with
me.
Shay, I, gee, my dad said, all right,
what's the deal?
I said, the deal is I'll be a
professor at a college.
I got a PhD.
He said, all right, fine.
It's prestigious.
I'm sure you see, they didn't know any
professors.
We did not know a single professor.
We were able to talk to anybody.
What's the life like?
And to be honest, I was like, I
did a little bit of bait and switch.
I said, I'll just tell him that.
And when time comes to have to be
a professor, I'll wiggle around it.
So I ended up, the deal was fine,
major, whatever, but you got to take a
PhD.
I said, all right, fine.
Now my bait and switch didn't work.
I coasted through college.
My friends got chemistry books, this big organic
chem engineering, and then they're like actually learning
something.
And they're like, what are you reading?
Oh, Karl Marx.
I was like, oh, that Mexican guy?
I said, that's Che Guevara and he's not
Mexican, right?
I was like, you guys are ignorant, man.
You guys are the, and it was like,
they're like, yeah, we're ignorant, but we're going
to get jobless right out of college, right?
In any event, went on, did summer courses
every summer.
I did summer courses every summer and worked,
sometimes worked.
And I worked menial jobs.
You know that?
I wanted to feel what the blue collar
life is like.
Alhamdulillah, my parents, we didn't need the money.
So I worked, I worked frying chicken, pumping
gas.
I worked all the menial jobs.
I want to know what that street life
is like, right?
My friends would crack up, right?
When they know that I'm doing this stuff.
So then GW University, MA there, beautiful city.
Knocked that out also.
Classes, fall, spring, summer, right?
Classes.
Last, next semester, all I had to do
was take three classes and write my MA
thesis, which I did on Sayyid Muhammad Al
-Alawi Al-Maliki.
And I was able to spend the summer
with him there in Mecca.
So I ended up finishing that.
Then I had to wait a year.
No, no, I didn't wait a year actually.
Right away, just wait a couple months.
February, land in England.
And start my PhD there.
Three years there, come back.
So that half year, then three years after
that.
So three and a half years there, finished.
Came back, but they mailed me back that
I need to add a chapter.
So it's corrections.
They always give you corrections.
So that was the summer.
Came back, spent the summer, didn't get here
from them.
Then finally, end of the summer, I heard
from them.
They said, you need to add a chapter
to your thesis.
And then I went to Princeton Library, cranked
out another chapter.
Sent it to them, got it back, February
2007.
So before my 27th birthday, had the PhD
in my hand.
Here's the thing, because I didn't love it,
I wasn't into it.
I never went to the conferences.
I never went to any of these things.
I didn't like it.
I went to classes, I went to durus.
I studied with Mufti Barakatullah, Muwatta Imam Malik.
Studied with Sheikh Babakar Bashoaib, Riyad al-Saliheen.
Studied with Sheikh Salik bin Sidna, Maliki Fiqh
on the phone.
Studied with Sheikh Abdul Rahman, also Risalat ibn
Abi Zaid, parts of it.
And the rest with Sheikh Salik bin Sidna.
Studied, oh it was, I attended dhikr as
much as I could with Sheikh Babakar Bashoaib.
Sorry, Babakar al-Sudani, Dala'ul Khairat.
So, when it came time to hit the
job market, I didn't hit the ground running.
Because I didn't know anybody.
And I hate this.
So there's my bait and switch failed.
Because now I had to actually work as
a professor.
So then eventually just got some jobs, patched
up a bunch of job, teaching jobs in
Connecticut.
Had some connections.
And even that did well at that, well
enough to get the job at Yale.
And eventually figured out that this is like
a glass ceiling.
They're never going to bring, let a Muslim
who is openly Muslim rise up.
So, I'm like, I'm done with this.
I did it, I can say I fulfilled
my word.
I'll be a professor.
I was a professor, right?
And I taught, not like a whole lot.
Not like a full professor.
Just like contracts.
Just by contract, right?
There's no, the thing is so subjective.
Academia is so subjective, right?
If they don't like your face, if they
don't like your views, if they don't like
your anything.
Let's just go with the other guy.
There's not like IT or engineering or something
that's more objective.
Then Alhamdulillah moved on and went straight into
da'wah.
And then never looked back, Alhamdulillah.
But that is essentially, and now you continue
studying.
COVID is a great ne'ma.
Because all the ulema now, they're very savvy
with getting online.
And that's how I study multiple times a
week with the shuyukah.
And keep in touch with them.