Now, you favorite d-list monktress is well aware she does not fit the 'typical' graduate student mold. But I am finding more and more that I simply do not understand the level of near psychotic naiveness graduate students insist upon clinging onto with their little n00by fingers. The major point of contention that makes me want to bang my delicate ladybrain against the wall is: Science Should be a Perfect Utopia.
The caveat to this being that once they find out it is not, they want to pack up their ball and stalk home, muttering under their breath 'science is a scam' or summat. I will admit, I had been doing research for over six years before I strolled into graduate school, so maybe my delicate naiveness got stomped into the muckity muck so long ago that I don't even remember feeling that way. But I honestly don't think I did, I always saw science as a career that I would really enjoy doing but I had no illusions that the gates of academia were overseen by Unicorns and Fairydust.
Figure 1: Sadly, Academia is not housed in Lake Titty-Caca Valley. By the way are you watching RuPaul's Drag U? Because you should be!There will be no such thing as a career utopia as long as there are people involved, because people inevitably fuck things up. Because people can be stupid, petty, irrational, stubborn and vindictive. Academia is if anything more prone to fuckedupitude because socially awkward people with big egos are involved. But over and over again I see grad students, or prospective grad students, spouting stupidass platitudes as is they were a fundamental law of the universe. For example:
Stupid Shit Axiom #1: If you're not admitted to Yes We Rock And You Can Suck It Uber U, you'll never be a good professor
The fuuuuuuuuuck...
Stupid Shit Axion #2: Graduate school admissions are fool-proof and politics are never involved and they have nothing to do with the economy, research trend shifts, or the fact the person reading your app was dealing with burrito-induced heartburn right at page where you detailed how you saved little puppy-baby hybrids from encephalitis in ImpoverishedMinoritystan.
*headdesk headdesk headdesk*
Stupid Shit Axiom #3: My advisor always knows best and is totally always looking out for me
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Stupid Shit Axiom #4: Everything in Academia is Totally Objective, all the time, and if it's not the world is totally broken and we should firebomb every institution
*Falls over dead*
I don't fucking get it. To be quite honest, my gut response when I hear this shit is "Are you intentionally this stupid are did you try really hard at it?" I think Academia is one of the few high-stakes, high-stress jobs where it is perfectly acceptable for a new trainee to not know whatthefuck they just got themselves in to.
Would we have the same level of pity for people who go to law school thinking 99% of the profession involved saving of the meek and distribution of cupcakes? Would we totally commiserate with someone who went into investment banking and discovered some of those people were like, really mean? In all these jobs it is disturbingly likely you can go in with both eyeballs peeled, every finger crossed, and spitting over your left shoulder and STILL get your ass unfairly handed to you. And that totally sucks, and there are things that NEED to be done to prevent that happening.
But I just cannot bring myself to cry when someone's unrealistic idealism kneecaps them and they say academia is the problem. If you buy a pony and find out that it kicks you randomly in the nads for no reason, that's a problem. If you buy a pony and are really super irritated it wasn't a unicorn, too fucking bad.
6 comments:
Excellent post!
I always thought I'd make a good hermit because I really do not like people and their stupid social cliques, politics, and pettiness. However, it is a fact of life that politics, cliques and pecking orders will arise wherever humans are involved.
It never ceases to amaze me how stupid educated people can be. I guess that is what college does to you - it gives you unrealistic expectations about how the real world works. I went to grad school because I wanted a PhD and research was an agreeable way to earn a living. Having worked many shitty jobs I went in with very low standards and was pleasantly surprised at how civil everything was.
Anyways your post made me smile.
Brilliant.
I haven't met many of such people, luckily, but I know they are there.
And generally people are stupid. Regardless education or background.
If you're not admitted to Yes We Rock And You Can Suck It Uber U, you'll never be a good professor
I knew I did something wrong. I guess I'm fucked.
"I think Academia is one of the few high-stakes, high-stress jobs where it is perfectly acceptable for a new trainee to not know whatthefuck they just got themselves in to."
aka "don't tell them we are tricking most of them into it... and then after X years they won't leave since it is too late to change career" ?
I think your analogy with the unicorn is splendid. Although, since noone is telling to that there really is no unicorn [of course there are, I can see lots of them from my window and eeryone talks about them] - they just look like unicorns - it's more like a trick. You know "the greatst trick the devil ever played was to make people think he didn't exist" (paraphrasing Usual suspects)
Everyone in Academia is nice and your advancement depends on how good you are a tsicence. It has nothing to do with "who's got your back/cowriting grants/networking/whathave you"... oh noo....
(I'll stop while I'm still smiling since the post is great. #3 is a fave)
:D this should be pinned to every door in every university in the world!
@Dr. Girlfriend: The scandalous lack of common sense that plagues academia is kind of frightening. Because my momma was always like 'omg you're sofa king stoopid' and I'm a pillar of sensibility here.
@Nina: I have seen so many, I kind of admire how they've managed to hold on to their dream, unchallenged, so far into adulthood. I thought dream stomping was like Life's main MO.
@PLF: Clearly ur terrabad at your job. *cackle*
@chall: But seriously, who really gives you the black & white picture of ANY stressful, relatively low monetary reward job? I remember my short-lived foray into trying to obtain an industry job and being told about the awesome rainbows and pots of gold I would be finding. Then I would go to interviews and find out all the Super Kewl shit I liked and wanted to do were technician jobs and I was supposed to sit in an office being a data dweeb. But none of the recruiters actually said that during the initial stages.
@VWXYNot?: It should, cause then I would feel teh famous and speshul.
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