For a post-academic, I'm pretty well set up. I've amassed years of professional and diverse work experience while completing my MA and PhD, and am in the very final stages of prepping my dissertation for submission. I should be more pleased with myself. I've managed to keep one foot in the academic universe, and one foot in the professional workplace. This juggling act wasn't easy-- it exhausted me frequently. But the happy consequence is that I have a respectable resume and am nearly on my way to having a PhD from a prestigious research-based institution, as well. I ought to be happier. So why do I feel like I spent the last half decade making a series of dumb professional decisions, instead?
I made the decision long ago to leave academia. I wasn't even sure that I wanted to pursue a PhD at all, but I was (regretfully) swayed by what I thought was the impartial advice of a valued mentor. In retrospect, I see that zhe had hir own reasons for encouraging me to pursue the advanced degree. In defense of my younger self, I asked the right probing questions, I expressed concern over the state of the academic job market, I adopted a practical view. But the glib reassurances of my mentor soothed me (and I didn't want to feel like I was letting hir down) and against my own preferences I applied to two top programs in my field. I secretly assumed I wouldn't get admitted to either program and would be absolved of guilt. Instead, I was admitted to both.
I knew by the end of the first semester of my program that this career path was not for me. And yet I stayed. I'm not entirely sure why I did so. Perhaps it was my lack of other obvious paths, perhaps it was my determination to prove that I was intelligent and could manage to succeed in this challenging program, perhaps it was simply my love for the city in which I was studying. Whatever the reason, I stayed. I worked hard. I excelled. And I hated it.
I love research. And I love teaching, too (though this isn't popular to say in my elitist, snobby, research-focused program). The combination of those two facts means that it pulls at my heartstrings when I realize that I will be saying farewell to academia forever once my dissertation is completed. The sad truth is that a love for teaching and a love for research isn't enough to make me love academia. It should be. I thought it would be.
The sad truth that I've discovered during my time in grad school is that the main thing you need to be able to tolerate in academia is meaninglessness. The theories we study and argue about and shove down the throats of unwilling undergrads? Largely meaningless.* The hardest part of writing a dissertation was the futility of all my effort. I was putting in hours of research, structuring, writing-- for what? A lengthy tome which was of no use to the world which no one would read, nor should they. Heck, I barely wanted to read it.
I had all these research skills, all these persuasive writing skills, all these analytical skills, all these project management skills, and yet I was frittering them away on an utterly meaningless piece of work. What on earth had led me to this? As a child and young adult, I'd imagined that my work would do something of consequence in the world. Nothing too large-- I didn't have the ego to sustain those kinds of dreams-- but something respectable, that made the world slightly better for a least a few people. Work that helped somebody, somewhere, in some small way. Instead, I was locked inside a turret of my own construction, putting in long hours of toil on a project that was a waste of paper and computer space.
When did it become a good idea to take smart, idealistic young minds and put them to work on challenging intellectual projects with absolutely no practical benefit whatsoever? Who thought that would be a good decision?
I can't say any of this in my academic setting, of course. Heaven forbid that I break the illusion that we're all doing Very Important Intellectual Work That The Proletariat Simply Does Not Understand. Instead, I must grit my teeth and compliment the lovely embroidery on the absent clothes of the emperor.
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* This situation is particular to my own field of research. I wouldn't want those academics who are working on more meaningful projects to feel included in my somewhat dramatic generalization.
