Unsorted thoughts re: Academia

[oloriel]

When I went into the whole final exam thing - that is, when I registered for the whole mess - I was having a fairly good relationship with academia. As in, when people asked (as some people were prone to do) whether I was considering to add a PhD. after my M.A., I said "Sure, if the opportunity offers itself, I think that would be cool."

At the moment - having writen my thesis, and having taken the first written exam, and ten hours before the second written exam - I am having a lot of second thoughts.

Well, firstly I am doubting that the opportunity is going to offer itself. I am not even certain that I'll manage the bloody M.A., not because I am stupid but because I function the wrong way. Even if I manage to pass, it definitely won't be with the grand results I've been secretly expecting (and this is not just my usual pessimism; with the grade I got for my thesis, I'd have to write positively brilliant exams and excel at the oral exam, something I have always been naturally bad at, in order to still get a 1.something grade*. Not likely.). Nobody is going to come to me going "You know, we have this postgraduate office to fill, would you like it?" Nobody is going to ask me to write my Ph.D. thesis under their tutelage.

And I am pretty certain that I am not going to struggle for some postgraduate university job or a Ph.D. supervisor myself, at the moment. I am, at the moment, so sick of academia. In the past weeks, I have been reading a shitload of texts that were obviously just published because someone somewhere had to write it in order to keep their job. I have read a shitload of texts that were practically just a review of previous research, the sort that students have to do (without getting paid for it) for classroom presentations. Or where four pages of a six-page thesis discuss the history and use of a certain term, the validity of said history, and the use the present author is going to make of the term in the face of said history and for what reasons. Then follow one and a half pages with some illustrative examples, and a conclusion along the lines of "fascinating topic, further research necessary". I know that these people aren't doing this to make me roll my eyes. They're doing it because it's academic convention, and because they're working in a publish-or-perish system where instead of the common-sense "If you don't have anything to say, just keep your mouth shut" the rule is "If you don't have anything new to say, sum up something old". And make it sound important. And make it sound like you believe it.
And at the moment, that is not what I want to do with my life.

A few years ago, I was reading a book by Pam Houston. It was full of autobiographic episodes, and one of them concerned how one day she was standing in the office at her university, waiting for a signature on the final credit certificate she needed in order to qualify for her final exams, and she overheard two of her professors utterly absorbed in a discussion about the difference between (I think) "immanent" and "innate". And one of them, she knew, had serious personal trouble in his private life, and here he stood discussing "immanent" and "innate" as if anything depended on it.
And she quietly turned, and left the office and her certificate behind. And she never returned.
At the time of reading, I thought something along the lines of, "Wow, way to throw the efforts of the past years away." I mean, she had ploughed through 95% of her university career. Even if she now realised that it was all pretty pointless, couldn't she have done the final 5%? Tsk, really.

But right now? Right now I really, really sympathise. Right now, I look at people discussing the difference between "postcolonialism" and "post-colonialism" for four pages as if anyone cared. And I think, I can live without that. I do not need to be able to rehash a lot of problem-mongering only a fraction of which actually matters to anyone outside of academia, and most of which doesn't even matter to academics. I can read and enjoy books without knowing what literary theorists think about them. I can write stories that some people like, and I can paint pictures that some people think good, and I can travel and think and grow plants and restore an old farmhouse and design things and sew historical clothing and -- I can do all this without all that.
And I am so, so tempted to just throw it and skip the rest of the exams and extract myself from the Matrix exmatriculate and do - well, something that makes at least a small bit of sense. Something that doesn't force me to pretend that the difference between postcolonialism and post-colonialism matters. Something that doesn't force me to pretend that knowing the half-cooked opinions of Sigmund Freud enhances my understanding of Shakespeare's work just because someone who never left her ivory tower thinks so and I have to please her in order to pass.

I won't throw it. I am going to leave university, but I'll do it with an M.A. degree in my pocket. I'll do the final 5% because even if at the moment it all feels not only pointless but actively repulsive, I suppose even a bad M.A. may be of use. I'll do it because I am not a quitter, and I can still try and do something that makes at least a small bit of sense come January. I have wasted so many years, I can waste two more months.

And perhaps in a year I'll feel differently, and I'll feel the urge to discuss immanence and innateness and postcolonialism and post-colonialism, or the Freudian Uncanny² in Shakespeare's comedies, or whether Beowulf was composed orally or in writing. And then I can return into academia because I'll be a postgraduate and all set to go.

But at the moment, I don't think I'll want to. And at the moment, I am almost envying Pam Houston for the courage to just throw it overboard, to turn her back on all the bullshitting and all the do-gooder self-flagellation and all the "We cannot solve the problem, but we are really aware of it!", and to do something else entirely.
I am definitely envying her for landing on her feet and being a published author these days. ^^

Eh well. Time for bed.


- - -
*Note on academic grades in Germany: 1.0 is the best passing grade, 4.0 is the worst. You do not have to understand our system.

²And you don't want to get me started on the Uncanny. The entire notion is based on an etymological assumption that is not actually tenable. And literary critics my exam professor still believes it.
Sometimes - and I know that this is embarrassing and arrogant - I think that it's not that I'm too stupid for all this. Sometimes I think I'm too smart.

Comments

[laurenia.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree. There is hardly any point, and in my profession, we use this barely existing point to treat mentally ill human beings. One should not think about that for too long, really. I feel like I am play-acting most of my time, to follow the conventions, stick to the "evidence based" stuff... and I'm glad for every honest talk I have with someone on my profession, but that never happens with the people in charge, it's just us minions sometimes reminding ourselves that all we do is fiction.

My dearest companion at university quit because he could not handle it. Sometimes I think he's the wiser person for this.
But on the other hand, I was always too angry to quit. Those years of nonsensical education owed me something, and I got it back - and I'm glad for it. I'm sure you'll be glad, too - I'll be thinking of you tomorrow!

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

I only recently talked to my colleagues about this: I think only a tiny fraction of people is actually built for an academical career. This has nothing to do with superiority or intelligence or whatnot, it's about personality and the right environment, just like only a tiny fraction of people is actually built for being a cave explorer. I know exactly one person who did NOT come out of the exams saying "aaargh kill it with fire" but with "this question was so inane, with the right angle I could have pulled out way more out of that!" And this person is the only one who aced his exams and indeed pursues an academical career now (I happen to be married to him). Which will be a long and stony way I wouldn't walk if somebody paid me for it. It's good that you listen to your gut feeling. I hope everything turns out the way you want and like it for you. Future is a scary thing.

[spiced-wine.livejournal.com]

I can read and enjoy books without knowing what literary theorists think about them. I can write stories that some people like, and I can paint pictures that some people think good, and I can travel and think and grow plants and restore an old farmhouse and design things and sew historical clothing and -- I can do all this without all that.

This is probably the reason I would never have stuck uni.

esteliel just got her MA, and the thesis she posted, I really enjoyed. (It was Tolkien-related :D) And I utterly respect the work she put in and the stress and worry that kept her awake.

If it were me, however, (after the breakdown) my attitude would be 'And I give a s**t that the half-cooked opinions of Sigmund Freud enhances my understanding of Shakespeare's work?'

I just enjoy certain stories. I don't care why. I love writing. I have no academic qualifications, but I do spend a lot of time answering emails from people desperate and suicidal because of years of IBS. I am doing something which I think is helpful, and not for pay, but because I've been there. My brain is not wired right for academia, I think. It's got too much 'I don't bloody well care why I just like it, okay?' going on.

[yoodi.livejournal.com]

Exactly that. I have never been able to express it so accurately, but you have just nailed it. I have another year to go, so I'll try my best to squeeze through without my brain exploding from ARGHARGHARGHARGH.

[fusselbiene.livejournal.com]

It's not the final 5%, it's the final 0.5%, me thinks - even though it looked like the final 50% while I was stuck in the middle of it. It shrunk a lot after the exams were done, it continues to shrink even further in retrospective. The ZP in Japanology and the oral exam in first semester were way harder and scarier, somehow.

I thought about an academical career as well - until I saw the other side of University. The one that isn't about teaching students or trying to publish something, somehow. It's the bureaucratic nightmare behind the whole thing that makes me happy and content with NOT joining the ranks of the profs but living of the little I can make by torturing innocent foreign folks with the German grammar.^^

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I'm not exactly angry, that's not it - just frustrated. ;) But yes,m I'm sure I'll be glad as well - it better be good for something! (If only because the intern- and fellowships for the jobs I'm interested in all require a university graduation...)

I think it helped. Prof was nice and asked precisely the question I'd prepared for.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

"this question was so inane, with the right angle I could have pulled out way more out of that!"

Well, that actually is the sort of thing I think. It's just the part where I'd first have to elaborately base the right angle on a heap of theoretical bullshit that puts me off. ;) I think that the rules of the academic game are all fine and well in some fields and some contexts - but not all the time. I refuse to believe that I need to know 20th century psychoanalytic theory in order to make sense of dream imagery in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, 1340(?)-1400, for instance. And I think that I can talk about the way in which Shakespeare depicts women, whether I have read the works of some modern feminist or no. ;) Oh, and I honestly think I could do a better job as a professor than the person who requires that sort of inane theoretical knowledge, too. Which doesn't exactly help me to learn all these things I don't believe in...

The thing is: I enjoy a lot of the things that are required in academia - research, for instance, and essay-writing, and (by now) even lecturing. Which is why I might return in to the game once I've recovered from the wounds of these exams. Or maybe I'll find a comfortable niche somewhere that requires no membership in some theoretical bullshit group or other ;)

Future is a terrible thing! But there's no alternative. *g*

(Icon has nothing to do with the content, I just thought it would like to go and play with yours. ;))

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

If it were me, however, (after the breakdown) my attitude would be 'And I give a s**t that "the half-cooked opinions of Sigmund Freud enhances my understanding of Shakespeare's work"?'

That is precisely my attitude. Or rather, I simply don't buy it. See, I'd absolutely understand if my professor thought I should know everything about Elizabethan culture and politics and 'science' and all that in order to understand Shakespeare better. Because, well, that was the background he was writing before, and of course it influenced him. But Freud? Psychologists don't believe in Freud anymore. There's no reason why literary critics still should.

My brain is not wired right for academia, I think. It's got too much 'I don't bloody well care why I just like it, okay?' going on.
See, I don't have so much of that. I mean, sure, I don't need an academic theory to explain why I enjoy some things, and don't enjoy others. But I do love finding out more about the background of things I enjoy. I honestly think that my love for Tolkien's writing has been increased through university (even though I didn't have a single class about Tolkien, who in most of German academia, and definitely in Cologne, is still considered somewhat embarrassing). Because of all the Old English and Middle English works I've read, I now love all the bits about Tolkien's writing that most other people hate, for instance, because I see where it all comes from and suddenly all the clunky writing and descriptive prose and archetypical characters turn out to be brilliant (albeit a few hundred years too late). And I love that sort of experience, the realisation where something comes from and how suddenly it makes sense. So I honestly think that I would enjoy working in academia--

-- under different circumstances. ^^
Actually I think my huge problem at the moment are the professors I have to work with, or rather one particular professor. The rest is just normal stress. ;)

Sorry to have rambled so much. I'm realising a lot about myself at the moment and somehow it all wants out, whether people want to hear it or no. *sheepish look*

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, by now I don't think I realised just what was bugging me so much on Friday. I mean, yes, it was all the bullshit you have to go through until the exams (and then, with the exams), but of course that isn't everything academia is about.
... outside of Cologne. Outside of Germany. Maybe. Outside of reality?

Perhaps it'll all get better once we're postgraduates? ;)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

The ZP in Japanology was the easiest ZP for me. But yeah (and I was talking about this with eliathanis a while back), the ZP as a whole was worse than the finals. Even with the mad requirements in English, preparation is still easier than it was for the ZP. That was just insane. The only good thing was that you didn't have to take it all at once...

I think my student job has sort of jaded me. I've come to believe you will find the same bureaucratic mind-killer nightmare in any job that involves a lot of office work, so that's not the side of university that I'm afraid of. It's really rather the "publish or perish even if you have nothing new to say" that's putting me off.

Of course, by now I think I could handle that, too, if I had to. By now I think the rant up there is mostly due to one particular aspect that I hate about academia, which, as it is oh so fully represented by the next prof to examine me, got somewhat overblown in my mind. There probably are some exotic niches that I could feel comfortable in despite the bureaucracy behind it. Though your teaching job is still more fun, no doubt. :D

[spiced-wine.livejournal.com]

Sorry to have rambled so much. I'm realising a lot about myself at the moment and somehow it all wants out, whether people want to hear it or no. *sheepish look*

Don't worry. The stress you are under must be enormous at the moment. Let it out.

because I see where it all comes from and suddenly all the clunky writing and descriptive prose and archetypical characters turn out to be brilliant

I can see how that would enhance your enjoyment. :)

[fusselbiene.livejournal.com]

"I've come to believe you will find the same bureaucratic mind-killer nightmare in any job that involves a lot of office work, so that's not the side of university that I'm afraid of."

I agree with you concerning regular jobs, but I experienced university to be a different can of worms. Bureaucracy itself doesn't scare me, either. But the people in charge at university are professors who do not have the slightest clue of how things need to be done in order to work. And a lot of them are too educated to ask their office workers for advice. I've never witnessed the like before.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the additional joys of Ivory Tower-thinking. That probably would make it worse. >_>

[eruannath.livejournal.com]

Academiargh. That is all.

I respect you for not throwing it all away at the 95% of your MA and I also think I understand your PhD/continuing in academia problem. It's a problem for me too because, at least in Biology, PhDs are like the way to go if you want to advance in your career. But the academia environment is certainly not for everyone. Just... jdhfgjd.

*support hugs*

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

In the humanities, there are also many careers that expect (implicitly or explicitly) a PhD. Fortunately there are also a few others where (at least initially) it doesn't matter, so you can always take a breather from academia and return once you've recovered. That's the one good thing about my wonderfully unspecific education - all sorts of directions. (Though in my current pessimistic state DOWN certainly seems the most feasible >_>)