Leaving Academia

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here is an essay about a professor leaving academia. 

I went to U of I.  There were parts of it that I enjoyed, and the culture wasn't that bad.  But I can see parallels.  For me it was more a matter of looking at the way education was going, and deciding not to get involved in public education as a teacher.  It was obviously going down the tubes, and that was decades ago; it's infinitely worse now.  So too, many colleges.  :/  I couldn't stop it.  I could sure get the hell out of the way.

Comments

[zesty_pinto]

I agree with this in several ways. During my time working at the Museum of Natural History, I dealt with a lot of people who were miserable and basically stuck around either because they had nothing better to do or were justifying the highly competitive but underpaid environment with job titles that had no value in the grand scheme of the institute. Likewise, Michelle's fight for validity as a postdoc has been continuous and frustrating being the only staffer in a fairly empty office around other academics that were glaringly competitive against each other thanks to a continuously shrinking budget. The administration did not seem to understand this either, as they seemed obsessed with building things that look good but lack usefulness: in fact, one of their latest labs isn't even built up to the specs that the instructors need it for in order to do their research.

I'm not surprised that she left. Michelle is actually more comfortable working here with me, even though she makes less and is seriously underpaid given the value of her education because the culture here is a lot less crazy. It never surprises me that The Upturned Microscope is so ridiculously negative and then I even just read a Nature article actually praising PhDs getting second jobs to substantiate their slave wage income. The institutions are in serious need of revision, imo.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>During my time working at the Museum of Natural History, I dealt with a lot of people who were miserable <<

Sad, but hardly a surprise.

>>Michelle is actually more comfortable working here with me<<

Yay!

>>I even just read a Nature article actually praising PhDs getting second jobs to substantiate their slave wage income.<<

If a PhD cannot earn a comfortable living, that kills the idea of going to college as a way to improve income.

Re: Thoughts

[zesty_pinto]

The current academic environment is just that, a terrible one. It's more insulting when you think of how what few winners there are include some of the worst people in existence. The Upturned Microscope already emphasizes that some professors are pretty bad already from suffering from laziness thanks to the endless resource pool of PhDs and postdocs looking for a way to keep working.

I still feel bad for Michelle. She's earning less than me. *ME*! I may have more experience in this field, but she has a god damn PhD working on materials and yet due to some downturn she can't even get a promotion to a similar position.

Thanks for reminding me, I gotta keep looking for her sake.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>The current academic environment is just that, a terrible one.<<

Painfully true.

>> It's more insulting when you think of how what few winners there are include some of the worst people in existence.<<

No surprise. Intense competition means the survivors tend to be A) people with strong advantages at the start (a penis, fair skin, etc.) and B) the ones willing to do whatever it takes to win, no matter how heinous. You get what you reward. What they reward is often abuse. Well, of course people take that home, it's the same reason cops and soldiers have sky-high rates of domestic violence.

>>Thanks for reminding me, I gotta keep looking for her sake.<<

Good luck with that.