The Alps
One of the frequent events on the way of one’s life is disillusionment form our old believes. We construct mental models of how certain things are, and what to expect of them, while the truth may unfold in a very different way. I’ve had my own share of these kinds of mirages rather frequently in my own experience of life. One of them is associated with the profession that I have chosen and its reality.
A long time ago, around the time that I was an undergraduate student, I started to think that academic job is a very suitable one for me, and I knew that I wanted to pursue a higher degree. when time passed by, I started believing in the idea more and more. As an introverted person, I knew that I am not good in presenting myself well in the context of an engineering or consulting firm, since my introversion and sparse talking would eventually stop my growth in these places. I started to believe that academia is a place for true research and exploration and the pushing frontier of the sciences. The idealized form of this thought was formed in my mind sometime when I was in Iran. After coming to the U.S more than ten years ago for graduate studies, I still kept the thought alive. I would see some signs contrary to my mental model, but I hold on to the old thoughts. Four years ago after graduation, I started my job as an academic.
My time is divided between long hours of sitting in administrative meetings, a never ending effort of writing various academic proposals, traveling which is always in a rush for presenting something and heading back right after that, and teaching and grading. What was truly lacking was the research and scholarly work, which was my only reason for heading to academia. In its current form in academia, you don’t have the time to do the research yourself, we are providers of fund for students to do the research. my disillusionment and discontentment started shortly after.
My father in-law has been an academic person in Chemistry for almost 40 years in Iran. The other day, he shared a beautiful example of his own understanding of the dilemma, which I ought to share.
He said, imagine all your life you wanted so desperately and passionately to travel to Alps and see the magnificent mountains, so you got a job as a cook’s helper or dishwasher in a wagon of a train that travels though the Alps for several days. You are trapped in a service car, with a small hole on one side, with a view of the mountains. Every now and then, you find sometime between toiling at work and washing dishes, to go to the hole on the wall and watch the mountains. After a couple of minutes, the next order arrives in the kitchen and off you go to work! He said, this has been my life. Toiling in the kitchen, for the hope of a glimpse of the wonder and magnificence of what science and knowledge had to offer. Every now and then, I could watch the scene from that hole of crack in the wall, but I never had the opportunity to be the passenger. I never had the opportunity to even get out the train in the next stop and ponder. I was always so busy working. Don’t live like me, he said. Be a passenger instead.
I realized that I’ve also been working in that kitchen for the past four years for a hope of occasional glimpse of the Alps. I need to rethink my future direction of my life. I think we shouldn’t forget for what purpose we are spending our vital energy source in our life.
11 comments:
Scenario {1} you want to do something but don't have the skills or ability for it.I mean you have to end up like the dishwasher in train just to survive and thus leaving no time to enjoy.
Scenario {2} On the other hand say there is a job you enjoy , can do well without using up all your time and energy.But then it comes with a different sacrifice which is equally huge. Like-It doesn't pay as well,Doesn't give you opportunity to get out of your country in case you don't like to live there, takes you away from someone you love and away from all those who you shared a journey full of unbiased memories and suddenly you alone have to take a path away from them ? And this is especially true if u don't come from a rich family and also want to end your financial dependence and become independent decision maker and for this you have to do something you are not passionate because it pays well and also comes without the disadvantages of scenario 2.
Deep blue sea,
You're right, when logically thinking about it. The financial issue has always been a deciding factor for me since I had no way but to be independent.
Wow, you don't believe it how much your reasons to come this far is the same as mine. From high school I told to myself, I want to be a researcher, as I grow up I stick to that. Here I am writing my PhD thesis and so confused what to do next!!! My husband told me the same things that as a university teacher most of the time you have to find a way to bring money for your students.
Your posts are very helpful for me..It's like someone passing through the way that I might end up in near future...Thanks for sharing
A very real and honest post, thanks :).
What if being on the train as a dishwasher is the only way you could ever get to see the Alps? What if it opens up many doors so that later you could become independent and afford your own vacation to Alps? What if on that train you get to discover and explore so many other places you had no idea they existed before? If being a dishwasher on the train (using the analogy) is a means to an end, to me it is worth it.
Do you see the current state of affairs as corruption of the American university system? Or maybe I should say its corporatization?
To address a problem, both personally and societally, one needs to do a diagnosis first. You have described the symptoms or features well, and I fully agree with them. What is your deeper understanding of the problem?
Next, how do you see yourself as addressing this problem? The corporate world is probably not for you. Maybe a non-profit in an area you are passionate about? Perhaps your own non-profit? Or you could wait for tenure, and use your ample free time after that to venture into other domains. But will you be satisfied, even after tenure? Do you wish to tackle this problem at the personal level, or broader, so that others can benefit from your potential solutions as well?
Everything you said of your daily/weekly academic life is true. The situation is even worse for research faculty such as myself, who have to write those grant proposals day after day, year after year for full 12 or 9 months of support. I don't do research any more; I gamble on new ideas and spend an inordinate amount of time and effort forming teams, putting ideas to the paper, addressing every single requirement - and more - and then watch the finished product spin on a funding agency's roulette wheel. I am tired, very tired, and probably even more disillusioned than you.
There is a book by Jennifer Washburn you may be interested in. Lookup "University, Inc: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education". Overall, take a look at her other writings too.
http://www.newamerica.net/people/jennifer_washburn
What is to be done?
This is exactly where I (and Mr. Alchemist too) have ended up currently. I am thinking more about industry. A very active and successful researcher in my workplace, who has ties up in both academia and industry told me once: "When you are in industry, you have money, you just have to do whatever you've been told to. In academia, you'll have more degrees of freedom, but you have to spend lots of time and energy to provide the funds." I guess not easy on either worlds, huh?
At the same time, I can see that the hierarchy at work is getting more and more strict. I mean, if you really like "hands on experience" (or as we call it, "working at the bench") yourself, as a PhD, the chance of getting a position in industry is lower. The companies like to hire MSc people to do the "bench" jobs: less salary, less argument, more obedience. So for people at the PhD level, it's more and more difficult.
Still a big question for me as well...Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hiva jan,
yes, that's true. You practically become a research manager, not a researcher :(
Behi jan,
Thanks!
Dear Hopeful,
Yes, you are right. At the beginning, we think that we cave no option but to be the cook on the train, and that might be the truth. But after a while, even when the conditions change gradually, we are so used to be the cook or dishwasher that we forget what we came there for.
Dear P,
I can't agree with you more. I'm also a research faculty, I teach only one course per semester and the rest of the time we are marketing and selling fashionable ideas that are hot to all the governmental agencies or various firms. There is so much pressure on us to make money for the university. I am so disillusioned from academia.
Thanks for sharing the article. I need to write a follow up post.
Nava jan,
I miss you, and hope you come back to writing soon! I know exactly what you mean.
The worst part about academic life is that you have this illusion of scholarship on 18th century, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and pure quest for understanding the world around us better. That has not been true for such a long time, academia turned into a business long ago, but we are still trying to convince ourselves that we are a part of the discovery team.
Good point! Yes, it is important to keep in mind the reasons we got on the train in the first place :-) Thanks.
Look forward to followup posts on this topic as I think it affects a lot of academics, if only they were honest with themselves and sat down and thought for a minute about their predicament.
Of interest:
http://geomblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/soviet-style-mathematics.html
"A promising graduate student in Moscow or St. Petersburg, unable to find a suitable academic adviser at home, is most likely to follow the trail to the U.S.
But the math culture they find in America, while less back-stabbing than that of the Soviet math establishment, is far from the meritocratic ideal that Russia's unofficial math world had taught them to expect. American math culture has intellectual rigor but also suffers from allegations of favoritism, small-time competitiveness, occasional plagiarism scandals, as well as the usual tenure battles, funding pressures and administrative chores that characterize American academic life. This culture offers the kinds of opportunities for professional communication that a Soviet mathematician could hardly have dreamed of, but it doesn't foster the sort of luxurious, timeless creative work that was typical of the Soviet math counterculture.
For example, the American model may not be able to produce a breakthrough like the proof of the Poincaré Conjecture, carried out by the St. Petersburg mathematician Grigory Perelman."
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