Before the global economic meltdown, the prospect of leaving academia with Ph.D. in hand was generally perceived as a pretty crazy idea. Now that the shit has hit the fan in the university sector, it’s being perceived more widely as a smart career decision, or even a sensible detour while you wait for the academic jobs to open up again.
But way back in the day–I’m talking 2006, here–my decision to leave was cooked up in a very different economic context. The idea of having a Ph.D. but not being a university teacher probably looked to a lot of people like something bordering on insanity. And sometimes I did feel a little nutty to be considering the idea at all.
I was reminded of some of those crazy feelings this weekend when my crack I.T. team and I sat down to watch Gran Torino.
You know Gran Torino–the Clint Eastwood movie. The one where he growls and becomes a transformed person. The one that is ostensibly about anti-racism but is really about an old white guy. The one that people said was “masterful,” and “a cinematic tour de force” and rubbish like that. The one that left me scratching my head and turning to my crack I.T. team to say, “Huh?”
Now, Gran Torino, like grad school, has a lot of things going for it. It has a shiny, exciting car, an empathetic underdog character who you love cheering on, and most of all, it has Clint Eastwood. I understand that in many corners of the cinema-going world, Clint Eastwood can do no wrong. And really, he does turn in a great performance in this movie. Every time he turns around hefting a pistol or rifle in his hand, you get a little thrill, a little “Oh, shit! Clint Eastwood‘s got a gun!” kind of a thrill.
Similarly, grad school has little thrilling moments. There are those times in the classroom when you feel like you’re really connecting with your students. There are those moments in a seminar when your prof is setting your mind on fire. There are those amazing hours you spend getting lost in the stacks, devouring books and journals.
But then you start to realize that the whole isn’t the sum of its parts. You get to the point where you can’t deny that your relationship to this thing is breaking down. You start thinking, as I did over the weekend, “Um…WTF is going on here? Where is this plot going? Did Gran Torino get destroyed in the editing room?”
The difficult part about this, though, is feeling like you’re the only one who ever thinks this way. “I thought Gran Torino/grad school was going to be fantastic,” you think. “Everyone said it was a good idea.” “Am I the only one seriously not enjoying this?” “Am I crazy to just want to just press ’stop’ and try something different?”
Folks, I’m telling you, I watched Gran Torino to the end and I kind of wish I hadn’t. The first 1/4 of the movie was satisfyingly quirky in its own, poorly-edited way. The rest was craptastic. Whether you make the choice to leave grad school mid-stream, after the Ph.D., or once you’ve already got tenure, you’re making the choice to open yourself to possibility. You are sparing yourself–even if you don’t get to see the ending of that particular story.
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“Am I the only one seriously not enjoying this?”
While I was in academia, for a long time I had exactly that thought. Professors praised the ‘thrilling’ research, on conferences you saw only smiling people being enthusiastic about their ‘great results’, and my parents took it for granted that I will stand in a university classroom some day, teaching students. But all the time I had a nagging feeling of ’something is wrong here. Deeply wrong.’
I remember one evening at a conference in Spain. I and several other PhD students from different countries were in a nice taverna, enjoying a beer. (Important: No professors were nearby). Suddenly, it erupted out of everybody. “What are we doing here??? What’s the point of this research, of this university, of this academic life??? Why, oh why, are we doing this???”. Sheer, pure frustration.
There I learned: No, you are not alone. There are a lot of other people here who do also seriously *not* enjoy this.
In another blog, I read about the experience of somebody who also left academia. The crucial point was when her professor told her “Academic work should feel like music”. Playing an instrument herself, she immediately thought “This isn’t like anything how I understand music. If this is music, it is a very badly composed cacophony. I’m outta here.”
An addition:
Here is where I found the example with the ‘cacophony’. It is in an article in the ‘Chronicle of Higher Education’, which was written more than 10 years ago:
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/1999/04/1999040901c.htm
The article might be interesting to read; interestingly, things were not too different a decade before.
Haven’t seen the movie, but understand the feeling! I get those moments of thrill mostly from conferences. I go home energized, thinking I can do this etc. Then I get home and all that enthusiasm just…disappears…as I get back into the grind of things.
Even in this economic context some profs still find it weird I would consider not finishing. The one I find most frustrating is, “oh, you’ll find a job” when I mention the lousy job market. How on earth do you know that, I feel like asking. Getting a job seems to be mostly luck (i.e. the right job for you comes up at the time when you are on the market). Most of my friends can’t even find contract jobs at the moment. Plus these are profs who really don’t know my situation, and haven’t even really read any of my stuff in the last five years! So sue me if I don’t have as much confidence in the job market as them!
Steffen: Thanks for the great link and for the snapshot into your own experience about things just not feeling right.
Heather: It’s frustrating that students’ economic fears are still not being taken seriously–I’m sure there are a lot of people who are nodding along, experiencing what you are.
Sabine–I saw Gran Torino and felt EXACTLY like you did in watching it. It is the most self-serving, cloying and mawkish, pseudo-anti-racism picture I’ve seen in a long while. Those Cambodian actors are mere props around which Clint tried his best to produce an “award-winning” performance–if that’s not racist, I don’t know what is. And boring, to boot. : D
J, you took the words right out of my mouth. We’re in total agreement!