Why?

All I gotta say on this one is puh-lease remove the ‘real world’ tag! I have gone from one ‘non-real’ job (serving, bartending, etc.) to a seemingly less ‘real’ job (grad school): they both (almost) pay the bills just the same. Anyway, grad school: totally different than expected. More lonely than I ever thought it would be, more difficult than I ever imagined, but more rewarding in those little self-indulgent ways (like blog rolls and congratalatory comments from students) What did I want to do/chances of doing it?: this experience isn’t what I came here for, but it is surprisingly more fucking cool and enhancing.
Okay, I’ve gotta read like a million other blogs before I jump on the Proust and D&G (yeah, wasn’t expecting to read them–and love it–pre-grad shcool)

One of the major reasons i entered graduate school was because i didn’t know what i wanted to do. After finishing my undergraduate degree and moving into a "real" job I found myself bored. The job wasn’t challenging, it didn’t make me think, it didn’t engage me. I didn’t know enough about myself as a person to make my life outside of work make up for my boredom in work. In other words, I think that there are many people in this world that work just so that they can do whatever it is that they really enjoy – fishing, camping, backpacking, whatever. Their job isn’t their life, their job just supports their life. However, i did know that i found learning and thinking very exciting. I think i saw grad school as a bigger and better undergrad, I would get to think and learn and discuss and be an activist like i was as an undergrad, only in bigger and better ways. It did and didn’t live up to my expectations. I am still very excited about the things that i get to think about and the ways in which that challenges me. I am, as Julie stated above, disappointed in the lack/fraility of the community. I’d also echo Kim’s statement that it is far more lonely than i ever thought it would be. And, i was disappointed that i couldn’t figure out how to fit the activist part into my life in a significant way. I fit it in, but my academic work suffered. That being said, i have also made some incredible friends in grad school who in and of themselves make the whole experience worth while. I was also able to begin to figure out who i am and what is really important to me, and academics doesn’t seem like it is it.

So, into part two – how did i get to my "real world" job. And, here i need to pause. Kim asks that you take the "real world" tag off of this category. But, I think it is appropriate to keep and worth talking about. People use the term "real world" all the time to describe non-academic jobs. However, today in my non-academic job, someone used the term to distinguish between the theoretical and a situtation involving actual people. The "real world" is where the people are – i think i like it as a distinction. It means, among other things, that many careers contain non-real worlds. It also means that the academe must have a "real" world element.

Anyway, i’m not sure how to describe how i got to my job. "Just fell into it" doesn’t seem right, it seems to passive. There are definite things that i did to get here – maybe they were not all conscious/deliberate at the time, but they got me to where i am. And, job-wise i am very happy with where i am. This is the right job for me right now. There is more of a focus on social justice issues (or, i guess, almost all social justice), but it also requires thinking. It is what i needed. Will i stay here forever, who knows. Did college prepare me for what i do? In a way, yes. I became an activist in college and continued in grad school – they both gave me the space to explore that part of me. Do i use particular knowledge – probably not directly.

I am going to end with something somebody said to me a couple weeks ago. I was talking to a biology professor about the overproduction of Ph.D.s in the humanities. He suggested that one needs to distinguish between that being bad because people aren’t being informed about the lack of jobs and, therefore, have been misled and people who just won’t use their degree in a traditional way. He said that the first was bad. The second was not. To quote him, "Don’t you think the world is a better place because those people are in it?" Cheesy, i know, but i really like it.

I’d like to differentiate here between the phrase "real world" and "real job" because i think that they mean two different things (you can take the girl out of the academe, but you can’t take the academe out of the girl). I would never agree to anything that deemed a job not "real." I’m working as a union organizer; I firmly belive that all jobs are real. Perhaps for your brother "real" vs. not real has to do with economics (both how much you make in it and how much it is valued by society).

Rather, i was focusing on the concept of "real world" vs. the academe. I often described my way to grad school to people by saying that after undergrad i tried out the "real world" and didn’t like it and so came to grad school. It is an interesting phrase that i think a lot of people in academics accept and use without really defining what it means. And, i think that the phrase acknowledges the privilege and the self-indulgence that being an academic affords one (and i say this in a positive sense – it was something that my catholic guilt couldn’t handle, but that doesn’t mean it is bad!). Academics produce knowledge, which especially for the humanities, can be intangible. But, I also think it is necessary. When we were in Ithaca for "theory camp," we lived "at the bottom of the hill" or in town. Cornell is at the top of the hill. There were many references made that summer to the "ivory tower" or the fact that the top of the hill was like an island where we were allowed to spend 6 weeks just thinking away from the "real world" at the bottom of the hill. And Erik and I had very "real world" concerns that summer, we were completely broke when we showed up in Ithaca. However, the activity, the space, was what wasn’t part of the "real world." Anyway, i would argue that there is something different about the space that i am now occupying something that does feel more "real" just in the way that serving drinks to drunk people night after night can’t help but feel very real, i suspect.

I came to grad school hoping to be able to share in a community of people who like to think about stuff, and in particular the stuff I like to think about. In many respects, that hope has been fulfilled.

Strangely, I never realized how political not only grad school is, but academia in general. Not in terms of interpersonal politics, but in that academics in the humanities often engage in political thought and expect their work to change or influence things on that level. That had never occured to me, and, ironically, one of the criticisms I hear and share is that it’s not political enough, which is to say, it’s not directly important in the larger world. I don’t know if that’s true, or if it matters, but there it is.

One thing that gets left out of this discussion is teaching. How does teaching fit into the importance of what academics do? Is it not, in many ways, the most important thing we do? Or is it a distraction?

As to the "real" world, I put it in quotes for a reason. I don’t really buy the real/not-real dichotomy that often get put forward in discussions about academics ("it’s all over, now it’s just academic" says the sports announcer). People do what they do – how is one more real than the other? Whether oyu work in the steel mill, make widgets for corporations to use and sell, sell things yourself, teach, or do nothing, can you really say that one thing is more real?

I ramble.