Since it was raining and I had my "nice pants" on -- meaning I wasn't wearing jeans -- I took the bus into work today. For some reason or another, as I walked the few remaining blocks to my large ugly building on the campus of Real Estate U, I got to thinking about a decade ago. I suppose it was the walk past the English department's building in combination with my work on my dissertation last night. At any rate, I thought, "Hmm...1996..." and then everything went swirly in front of my eyes...
1996. I was beginning the second semester of my PhD program. I figured I'd be out of there by 1999 at the latest. Little did I know that in quick succession I'd be married, taking a job for health coverage, and buying a house. Then a kid. So the graduation date gets pushed and pushed and finally the graduation doesn't seem terribly important. Then another kid.
Anyway, in 1996 I believed in academia. To an extent I still do. It is, as Stanely Aronowitz argues, the last good job in America. If you can get a job, that is. But I was still in classes and still feeding off the energy that comes from being around a small group of people who share your interests and have time to drink after class.
Of course, when you don't finish your PhD and others do, you're left with a much reduced group -- out of classes, you don't know the newer students; your compatriots mainly move off to other cities; and you're left with a giant project lurking about you that seems every moment to be unravelling like a big ball of yarn.
Anyway, I wrote a few pages last night before I lost my thread.
2 comments:
Oh my god. I feel your pain.
Have to disagree about academia being a good job. It may be good for you...
Ethically speaking, we are looking at all sorts of problems. I will mention a couple. The entire adjunct thing is like a caste system...not my metaphor.
But perhaps even more ethically disturbing is the sense that college is just a little advanced cultural conditioning. Case in point, in a capitalistic society, the initiation gets ironed-out in academia. Grades are a kind of "token economy". College leadership 'fiduciary' is mistaken for 'financial'. Plus the whole bookstore monopoly is one of the greatest examples of conflict of interest and collusion. I mean it is textbook!
tee shirts bumper stickers
reunion benefits
mix up words like 'lux'
'veritas' put the pricetag
up front
"You really need this." Of course because it is a kind of entry level corporate exam
I could say more...this is an issue as you can tell I am personally fired up about!
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