Alfred Wallace: Gaming on my Mind

If you’re reading this after, oh, about 8 AM Central US time, I’m on my way to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to check out UNC, which has made me a generous offer to attend their History PhD program.  I have a few offers on the table; I’m supposed to decide by this time next week.  People sometimes say—jokingly—that I’ll end up deciding based on the gaming scene.

“How else should I decide?” I reply.  I leave it up to them to decide just how much I’m joking.

Naturally, the only important criterion for deciding on a PhD program is: How likely is it that I’ll get a job at the end of the road if I go here?  But that just kicks off another long list of questions.  What kind of resources do they have?  Do they have a professor I’d like to be mentored by?  How able am I to learn a lot, be stimulated, and produce excellent research?  More cynically, do they have the kind of prestige that helps get one’s CV noticed? 

(NOTE TO ANY COMMITTEES READING THIS IN FIVE YEARS:  Obviously, I make all my decisions based on how well I am able to be trained in the arts of teaching undergraduates history survey classes and producing research that brings honor and glory to whichever (excellent!) institution I ever become involved with.)

Quality of life enters into this, but it’s complicated.  Is it better to be somewhere exciting, or somewhere boring?  In a sense, you might want somewhere that’s just barely tolerable, so you’re just bored enough to seek release through work, but not so depressed that you can’t work at all. 

I’ve put in the various schools that have accepted me into the BGG Gamer database, the Game Store Database, checked out the Meetups—all to find out whether there’s a vibrant(ish) gaming scene.  Or a good game store, where I can hang out, “Cheers"-like.  Or is it a blasted, frozen wilderness, full of Cranium acolytes and Monopoly variant collectors? 

(No, I actually didn’t apply to Ohio State—located in Columbus, home of the Gathering and much else.  I figured that if I went there, the temptation to sneak into the Gathering dressed as a waiter would be too much.)

I’m also counting used bookstores.  (Should that be used book stores?  Kinda like how, if it’s really late and I’m tired, I wonder if “board games” should be games about boards.)

All in the name of keeping my priorities in order.

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