Someone else leaving academia
Oh, wow.
I just found this thread on Cholla, a graduate student in English who is planning to leave his program after the first year.
Now, he didn’t really go into graduate school for any of the right reasons.
I went to graduate school because upon graduating I had no idea what to do with myself. I was drawn partially by the idea of the academic life — the way I looked at it, being a professor was just the inverse of being a student. I liked the idea of all that free time. I had always thought that the institution of academic English was kind of BS, pointless, and divorced from reality, but I was willing to give it a shot.
Not knowing what else to do with yourself is, perhaps unwise, but more common than people would like to think. And there is draw to an academic life, though the free time is mostly imaginary, as far as I can see. (Not the freedom to schedule your own time, something I will miss.)
Going into English when you thought it was BS and pointless boggles the mind, though.
Still, good on him for getting out while the getting is good.
In defending himself from the accusation of having taken a spot away from a more worthy candidate, he says this:
I don’t have any qualms about taking the university’s money for the remainder of the semester while planning my getaway. Universities hire far more graduate students than will ever get tenure-track jobs, and they know this. Why? Because a teaching assistant can teach a class for far less money than a full professor would. The academic labor system is morally bankrupt, but that’s a topic that’s been dealt with more eloquently and fully than I have the space to do here. Suffice it to say, I’m glad I’m hitting them in the pocketbook.
And a respondent agrees:
After all, if some grad school offers you a free ride, why shouldn’t you take it? It’s their nickel, not yours, and if you decide to leave later, that’s your prerogative … you are not bound to the academy like an indentured laborer for the rest of your days. Given that there is no longer any loyalty on the part of the academy to faculty members (or “faculty-to-be” members), then why the heck should entering graduate students be bound by any kind of reciprocal loyalty?
The academy doesn’t owe anyone a job, so why should any entering grad student be expected to have any sense or feeling of obligation to the grad school?
And a final comment:
Of course, it is “they” who are the root of the problem. They shouldn’t be offering graduate-student fellowships. Instead, they should be hiring more faculty members, so that graduate students don’t have to teach so many classes, and so that there are more faculty jobs available when the graduate students get their degrees.
I’ve left off some of the other side, but there’s a great deal of that, too.
One person said “I think most people need to experience grad school to know whether it is for them.” This was certainly true for me. And, like Cholla, moving away and living somewhere entirely different made me learn what considerations I had about where I was willing to live.
What amazes me — I’m convinced this is a gender difference, in general — was this:
So it’s not like any harm has been done here. My confidence isn’t at all shattered — I know I’m a bright kid, otherwise I wouldn’t even be here. Academe and I are just a bad fit.
Wow. Why the hell can’t I feel like that?
April 19th, 2004 at 11:29 am
Mm.. Gender might be a part of it, but it sounds to me like Cholla was cocky from the get-go, and his contempt/indifference for the subject protected him. It’s a lot harder to leave if you love the topic, but hate the institution, as you well know.
I wonder, too, if there might be some generational issues — I think of so many people on tv these days (well, reality tv, so not necessarily a representative sample) who, when confronted with criticism — even deserved criticism — simply say, “Well, that’s how YOU feel” and go on as they were. It’s like the freaky side-effect of all those self-esteem projects in the grade schools a few years back.
(I don’t remember how old you are, and have no clue about Cholla, so take this speculation with as large a grain of salt as needed.)
April 19th, 2004 at 9:25 pm
I’m assuming I’m around Cholla’s age, but a bit older; he seems to have gone straight from his undergrad, which would make him 22. I did also, but I did two degrees (essentially), which makes me 25 until Friday.
Who knows. It’s not like my self-esteem’s been good in as long as I can remember, so you can only blame academia a certain amount.
Still, from people I know who’ve left — or who haven’t — there seems to be a real gender difference.
April 20th, 2004 at 4:36 pm
Well, it certainly could be the significant factor.
Except for bloggers and posters at IA, I don’t actually know anyone who dropped out of grad school. Well, not well — a few people left my first year, but they did so without any word to me (indeed, to most of my cohort) about why. So I couldn’t tell how much they struggled with their decision.
May 4th, 2004 at 6:58 pm
I don’t know if you recall but Naomi Chan had an interesting blog entry about the personality of graduate students (going in). It was about a year ago because it was shortly after I began blogging. I think there was discussion about that affecting (or really, just plainly exacerbating) the entire destruction of a person’s self-esteen. I remember thinking, and I think I blogged it, that many grad students were prob already predisposed to beat themselves up all the time anyhow. It is probably more personality than gender but who knows. I totally agree with you though - there is no way I could have that sort of healthy reaction, try as I might.