Academia

It's been about 10 years since I received my graduate degree and about 10 years since I ran far away from all the related academic bullshit. I found university a terrible, stifling environment and an enormous waste of time. I left and saw the world while acquaintances and former friends stayed to fight over part-time positions and recite the names of philosophers. I know I made the right choice but I feel bad for those that didn't. I try to imagine maybe personalities exist that 'enjoy' the vibe, but I can't see how that could ever be true.

25 Comments

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School is what you make it

May 13, 2021 at 6:22pm

I did 5 years, have no debt. Sacrificed, starved, took advantage of everything free. There were even semesters I used the wifi and school computers and did not have either. Used grants, not loans. Learned I liked libraries and volunteering. Saw the industry I started in not looking like it had a bright future, and switched, the industry did collapse(think fish farms, aquarium, etc). However, 80% of people seemed like you. Racked up debt for something they were only semi interested in, without researching what a career in it looks like. Any experience in life is what you make it.

I hear you

May 13, 2021 at 6:48pm

I think academia sliced open my core wounds of not being enough and it brought out the worst in me. I always felt like I couldn’t keep up with the pacing or volume of work when at grad school.

However, some people I know feel very at home working within universities, so to each their own.

15 8Rating: +7

Academia is not....

May 13, 2021 at 6:59pm

....a place for mediocrity. It’s a place designed for discipline and excellence. That’s the way it should be. If you found it a stifling waste of time, you did the right thing by leaving.

7 36Rating: -29

Choose life.

May 13, 2021 at 7:13pm

It's been said before, and it will be said again and again. Academia, I've never seen so many fight so hard for so little. Never mind ivory towers, what about academic walls? The tantrums when someone "unqualified" crosses over to another person's specialisation are just so pathetic. Tantrums are relative of course, it's bruiting, passive aggressiveness and ad hominin attacks. There's a sadness to it all. Failure has more dignity.

30 4Rating: +26

@Academia is not....

May 13, 2021 at 7:43pm

Found the academic! If it looks like nepotism and bureaucracy and it smells like nepotism and bureaucracy...

23 5Rating: +18

@Academia

May 13, 2021 at 8:09pm

Spoken like a classic “intellectual” snob. Your assumption that anyone who doesn’t fit into that environment is mediocre illustrates a very stifled world view. Get down off of the pedestal you’ve placed yourself upon, and try exploring other experiences. You might learn a few things that academia can never teach you.

27 5Rating: +22

@School is

May 13, 2021 at 9:02pm

Look at me, I'm so great, everyone else is a sad fuck, blah blah blah

20 7Rating: +13

@Academia is not

May 13, 2021 at 9:04pm

is one of the sad conformists you're talking about OP

22 4Rating: +18

It can go both ways

May 13, 2021 at 10:39pm

It can be acadamaneacle supremest b.s. debating how many syllogisms fit on the head of a pin, or it can be real science or art in the service of evolving out dysfunctional zeitgeist out of the rat race into the human race

14 4Rating: +10

Hilarious

May 13, 2021 at 11:15pm

I retired from my job in business, but was bored so I'm volunteering for a program at a university. The meetings are hilarious. I sit back and laugh inwardly as these supposedly brilliant people try to one-up and passive-aggressively insult one another. They then recruit volunteers to do the actual work, framing it as an amazing opportunity. They're not fooling anyone, but lack the self-awareness to see it.

26 4Rating: +22

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