Holy Update Batman!

It's been awhile but it's been a bit crazy here. I've got a boatload of posts to put up. Let me start with the biggie:

Fluffy is vanquished!

Though I was prepared with an arsenal of Holy Hand Grenades of Antioch and an army of killer bunnies willing to protect the magic carrot, Fluffy died with a whimper, not a bang.

Let me back up briefly. Two days before my defense, I was doing a dry run of the presentation with my chair. Hir only suggestions for improvement were to add a few summary slides so that ze wouldn't have to pay attention the whole time. Just as ze was getting ready to leave, ze says that there are some people in the department who think I'm stubborn and willful and might try to put me in my place. Though I am both willful and stubborn, the only person who would attempt such a petty move would be my advisor. Yeah, I got threatened by my advisor two days before my defense because ze's passive-aggressive and petty.

I posted this threat on facebook and asked for suggestions for a response. Some serious, some funny. My personal favorite was from a family friend who suggested creepy late night phone calls full of vague threats. That seemed on par with the transgression and liked the image. No, I didn't do it but it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The appointed time arrived. I was armored in a business suit and pumps. FYI: patent leather shoes with a broken big toe nail is really unpleasant. Anyway, I looked awesome, there was coffee, and several of my killer bunny army brought food. We discovered years ago that it is much harder for people to be arses if their mouths are full.

The presentation went well. Everyone laughed at the appropriate points. Important people nodded agreeably throughout. People had only those bizarre questions they come up with when they can't think of anything relevant. Folks got hung up on something that was utterly inconsequential but it made for easy questions. Most importantly, my advisor didn't get a chance to be an arse.

And then, that was it. It was done. Some revisions are needed. Papers were signed. The food was cleaned up and taken care of. Friends went out to lunch with me. And...well...that was it. Not with a bang at all. I went home and took a nap. This is apparently a typical ending.

I haven't really recovered from the stress. Some of that is due to going pretty much straight from the defense to a conference where I also gave a paper. And then there was a job interview there. But it hasn't kicked in yet that this whole escapade is over. Really. Seriously. I don't feel a thing. It's a little weird.

But that's why posts haven't been forthcoming. Hopefully soon I'll catch up on this backlog of posts. Here's some teasers for some upcoming ideas:

- Treading Dangerous (Psychological) Waters
- WTF! Where'd that interview come from?!
- Deciding When to Hold 'Em and When to Fold 'Em

This is gonna be interesting

A fellow student from my program is working with my advisor to get out the write-up from a project they worked on 6 years ago. I did some data analysis on part of it at that time for a class project. This student has warned me that my advisor may steal my work (the class term paper) and put his own name on it as first author.

I am a pretty decent writer. I am considered a subversive deviant. I am more technological literate than my advisor. Yes, I'm in the process of wiping out any trace of my work from every lab computer, back-up file, and external hard drive in all our labs. Yes, I would magnetize the CD with my paper on it if I could find it. Yes, I will raise hell if my work walks off without me.

This could get interesting. Stay tuned.

Anger, Angst, Apathy, Arrogance, and Other Happy Thoughts

Went to happy hour last week with fellow grad students. This is something of a weekly ritual for us. Everyone (nearly everyone anyway) strokes my advisor's ego and we can all complain together. Something like this seems to be universal in nearly all departments or should be. There's nothing like bonding over misery. Anyway, that's not the subject of my post.

At one point during this happy hour I was deep conversation with two other students graduating, or planning to, this year. They were both staying in academia and on the job market. One works in anatomy and thinks she has a shot at something this year. The other is fairly certain he doesn't stand a chance but he keeps sending out applications anyway. They've both set their sights low and are hoping for something that may come close to paying their bills. And they think I'm the crazy one for leaving this insanity.

Incidentally, both of these people deride the various fields I'm considering for my career change. I'm fairly certain anything other than the faculty-approved post-academic options would cause such a reaction. This angered me, at first. I went home from happy hour wondering if I was making the right decision. So, now I was angry and angst-ridden. What a way to spend a Friday. Thankfully, I also have a large supply of local wine to pass the time.

My advisor, if you're curious, has gone from quasi-supportive to apathetic to actively preventing other grad students from speaking to me. It's the sort of petty power manipulations I've come to fondly associate with my snake-pit of a department.

So why the anger and angst? I do try to be supportive of my fellow grad students' inexplicable hopes for academic jobs and only offer advice on some things they should negotiate for when they finally (maybe) get job offers. I strongly urge them not to become adjuncts. What angered me was the apathy and arrogance I get towards my own decision. I'm starting to get the response many post-acs get: apathy towards anything other than academic jobs and arrogance as they assume I simply couldn't cut it in academia. Considering that I am unwilling to stall my life for another 2-5 years working for sub-poverty wages for the outside chance at a TT job...maybe I couldn't cut it in academia. I've made peace with that. This led to my happy thoughts.

The next day I realized that my angst had passed with my anger. I wasn't annoyed about leaving academia and what people thought of that. I was annoyed that they didn't support me, as I expected friends to do. That's some sort of progress, I think. I care less of others' attitudes about my choice and more with their actions as "friends." Hopefully the next step is full on f!&% it mode. I'll say it again: this is MY life and MY choice. If I want to make a living wage, have hobbies, free time, friends, and a life with the one I love, that's my decision. You can keep toiling in the bowels of the Ivory Tower, if you like. I support your choice. Heck, I'll even buy you a beer and offer you a couch if you need to crash in whatever city I end up in.

Speaking of progress, I've started emailing folks for informational interviews. That definitely qualifies as progress. The best part? Folks are responding. They answer my questions and don't even waste time asking why I'm leaving academia. It's just a lot of "here's what I do" and "here's what we look for in new employees" and "sure I'll pass on your request to other people." Go non-academic network!

I'll keep y'all up to date with the transition - probably sans alliteration and alphabetizing but one never knows.

Lessons of Grad School #1

Judging by the general progression of other post-ac blogs, it's about time to start my first serial post. So, I'm going to begin a series of lessons and advice that I've learned the hard way in grad school. Things I wished I'd known before I started. Maybe it'll help someone else not make the same mistakes - they can make all new ones instead!

Lesson #1 - Do Your Research

You say you want to go to grad school because you like to do research? Well prove it! There are three crucial subjects to research before even applying to any graduate program: the field, the department, and grad life in THAT department. I'll admit to knowing none of these things before I started and that may be the biggest mistake I made in grad school. So let's look at these big 3 in a little more depth.

The Field

I'm not talking subject matter or content here. You should already have some of that or you shouldn't be looking at that field in the first place. The research I'm talking about is job-related. What jobs are out there for people in this field with the degree you want? What do those jobs pay? What is the progression to those jobs?

These questions may seem base if you're buying into the whole "noble life of the mind." Two points to keep in mind: 1) the ability to feed oneself post-degree is vitally important and 2) the "life of the mind" is an out-moded concept with no bearing in current academic reality, if it ever existed al all. So, let's talk about what would be awaiting you at the end of grad school.

• You can be a college professor. If this is your dream, I suggest you do two things. First, shadow a professor for a day or two or ask them to candidly tell you about what their life is really like and what they needed to do to get there. And two, look up the stats on how many people in that field go into grad school, how many actually graduate, how many jobs are offered each year, and the liklihood of getting one of those jobs. I'll give you a headstart, 50% or less get jobs as tenured faculty - in the social sciences and humanities it's less.


• You can get a job outside academia. If this is your goal, check and see if you need a master's, doctorate, or professional degree to do that job. If you don't, do NOT take on the debt of grad school. Very few people get funded the whole way these days. If a grad degree is that important to you, do a non-traditional one and pay for it as you go. It then becomes an expensive hobby but you'll have a life on the outside, an identity not tied to your studies, and likely be generally happier and healthier for it.

A special note on salaries: You should never take out more loans than what your salary would be your first year on the job. So, if you discover the job you want pays $45k/year starting, that is your LOAN CAP. Once you hit that number, NO MORE LOANS!

Having some idea where you're going ahead of time can save you a LOT of grief down the road. If the answers you get to these questions do not inspire you to go to grad school, don't despair. If you just want to read more deeply on a subject you love, all you need is a library card. They're cheap (or free!) and you have the freedom to read up on whatever you want. No one can say that about grad school!

The Department

Once you've decided to continue on your grad school quest, you need to pick a department for your studies. There are lots of departments out there with grad programs in whatever field you want to study. So, how do you decide? Here are some questions to ask of every department:

• Do they have people specializing in what you want to study? If you want to study ways to increase crop yields and a department only specializes in zoology and microbiology, you may want to look elsewhere. Find people whose research interests you and check out their departments.


• Does the department have funding for their students and for how long? Grad student debt ranges from astronomical to absurd to soul-crushing. If a department cannot fund all of its incoming grad students RUN! That's no place you want to rack up debt. Ideally, you want a department that will fund you to finish but, at the very least, you need one that will fund you to ABD (All But Dissertation). What type of funding is also good to know but we'll get to that.


• How does the department rank? Academia is NOT a meritocracy. Where you graduate from matters. If you want to be a college professor, you really need to aim for a top 5 department. To the rest of the world, Ivy league looks better than state schools which look better than regionals (give or take whether an alumni of your school is on the hiring committee). Yes, there's a hierarchy. No, it's not fair. But who told you life was fair? Whoever it was, I assure you, they lied. Find them and smack them upside the head with a fish. You'll feel better.

Applying to grad school takes time and money. Narrowing down your list of departments to those that will benefit you the most helps. Such research can also help you get a better grasp of the politics of your chosen field - very important information to have. And if you don't get into one of your top picks, try to avoid settling. Spending 10 years and tens of thousands of dollars to get a degree that no one respects won't help you much in the end. Of course, if your goal is just to get some letters after your name, then by all means choose the cheapest, most convenient, accredited option you can stand and try to have a life and a bit of fun while you're there.

Life in the Department

Now that you've narrowed down the department options, go visit those places. Don't just talk to professors when you're there. Talk to the grad students, old and new ones, away from the profs. Go to lunch or happy hour with them. Get the dirt. You're better off learning it now rather than when you've tied yourself to that department for any length of time. Some important information to try to learn:

• What's it like to work with the professors in the department? At some point you'll have to work with other profs in the department and it helps to know what they're like. This also tends to lead to people dishing about the politics in that department. Do some profs just not get along? Are some not allowed to be in the same room together? These may be signs of a snake pit. You really want to try to avoid those. In a similar vein, do the grad students get along? Do there seem to be factions? Are you shepherded away from some grad students? These are also signs of snake pit behavior. Watch out for fangs.


• What is the funding like in the department? Is it more TAs or RAs? Do they take a lot of time? Some TAs and RAs don't take time and you get paid for doing very little. Others will have so much work that you'll be filing grievances with your grad union right and left, if you have a grad union there. You should ask about that too. Does the department guarantee funding for any specific length of time? Do they deliver on that guarantee? My department claims they fund everyone for 4 years but I've only received funding for last summer - 8 years into my program. The rest of my funding I've had to find on my own.


• What is it like to work with your potential advisor? I cannot stress this one enough. You're initially signing on to work with this person for nearly a decade. You better learn something about that life before you apply. Is s/he reasonable both in their requests of your labor and their advice? Does s/he provide a lot of opportunities for research? With funding? Is s/he a decent human being? Ethical? You may not want to ask some of these questions outright, unless you either are that comfortable with the grad students or you get the feeling they're warranted.
  
  There are two types of danger signs when talking with grad students that should set your hair on end and your fight running in the opposite direction: 1) If grad students either damn their professor(s) with faint praise or they are clearly hiding something or hedging what they're saying (very deliberate word choice is a clue). 2) They tell you outright s/he is evil, despotic, or otherwise unreasonable. If grad students have reached the point of #2, they are so fed up with their advisor's dictates that they are willing to risk you babbling something incriminatory should you happen to see that advisor again. This is a bad sign. You cannot change an advisor. They are no fixer-uppers. These behaviors are a sign of abusive relationships. Take head.

So, here's the beginning of things I really wished I had known about grad school ahead of time. I'm not saying people shouldn't go to grad school - only that you should know what you're getting into if you choose to do so. Despite my love of living a wild and unpredictable life, it does on occasion pay to look before you leap.

Power, Status, & Academia

I found this article from the Huffinton Post during my daily procrastination. I think this may be highly applicable to academia. It's a quick read and worth a thought.

I know several in my department who have succumbed to this problem. Though they've been promoted from assistant to associate professor, this doesn't mean their status within the department or the field has increased. Human beings are pretty good and gauging where their power or status ranks compared to others. Profs who've had this happen, in my experience, do tend to take it out on their grad students.

Being a good scientist, any study finding always brings up more questions in my mind: If power without status leads to abuse, what does status without power get you? What happens when your status and power change depending on settings? What happens when those you've abused learn where you've buried the bodies, metaphorically speaking (or literally I suppose)?

You, Robot

Let me begin this post with a recitation of the 3 Laws of Robotics, courtesy of Isaac Asimov:

1) A grad student may not injure a faculty member or, through inaction, allow a faculty member to come to harm.
2) A grad student must obey orders given to it by faculty members except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A grad student must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Ok, so maybe I paraphrased a bit. However, these are shockingly similar to the unspoken "laws" of grad school. I know this idea is not new. It is similar to notions of academia as a cult or a Borg subclass. I'm not writing about this institutionalized brainwashing. Although, to be fair, I think both of these analogies are flawed in that they imply a centralized authority, which does not exist in academia. There is no cult leader, no Borg queen running the show and forcing everyone to be drones to their cause. That's where I like this sci-fi analogy. Though ultimately a centralized bad robot shows up, most of the build-up is unintentional. Things just got out of hand. Seems like that's a more accurate representation of what actually happened. On a bizarre tangent, does anyone know of an evolutionary psychological analysis of how academia ended up in its current broken state?

I'm writing about how these laws have come into play in one grad student's life. I'll call him Matt. He currently needs to protect his own existence but it conflicts with the First and Second Law. Here's the most recent episode in Matt's turbulent Ph.D. career. He was working on a research project with another grad student and two faculty members from different departments. The research was finished and written up. One faculty member wants to get this article published. The other is rather infamous for simply being "unable" to read anything and give comments on it. This second faculty member has not read any drafts and is holding up sending this article to publication. Needless to say, these two faculty members have gone a few rounds. Matt's problem is that faculty #1 is giving him orders to finish getting this draft together, without any input from faculty #2. However, sending in this article as is requires taking faculty #2's name off article which could injure his reputation. Yes, I'm leaving out how faculty #2 has shot himself in the foot since there was nothing grad students could do, either through action or inaction, to prevent this.

So now, Matt is clearly in the crossfire between these two faculty members simply by obeying the Second Law. Granted, I've only been in grad school for 9 years, but I'm fairly certain that he needs to protect himself at this point and get the f&%^ out of the crosshairs here. But he can't. Such self-protection conflicts with both the First and Second Laws in this case. Given the amount of times this has happened to Matt, and the amount of times he's shot himself in the feet, I tend to think of him as grad student Swiss cheese. I think it's rather apropriate that he's the president of our grad student association.

Back to the analogy. Grad students are the NS5's. Yeah, I'm talking about the movie here which, at best, only bears a slight resemblence to Asimov's original stories - adjust and keep up. So, if we're the robots, who's VIKI - the evil over-bot? I'm going to go with academia itself. In the movie version, VIKI is hard-wired with the three laws but then, due to random segments of code (the ghost in the machine, see below), she evolves. She cannot evolve out of the three laws. They are all that guide her. As a result, she evolves without empathy and attempts world domination.

The creator of the robots, who seems to have a philosophy Ph.D. somewhere in his background, sees where this lack of empathy will lead. He tries to give warning. Perhaps this is where someone should pay attention. I don't know if it's the professoriate or lay people but someone really ought to be taking notice of these dystopic ideas. For this evolution without empathy can only lead to one thing: revolution. And it ain't humans'.

Perhaps that's what happened to academia - it evolved without empathy. Insert your comment about the corporatizing of higher ed here. I have no conclusion to this. I'm just blogging out loud. So, given the analogy offered, here's a monologue for you to ponder:

"There have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter moat of a soul?" -I, Robot the movie

A Call to Subversion

Last week I stopped in to see my advisor. It's how he verifies that we are still alive and "working" on our dissertations rather than running off to become cat herders in the Himalayas. Someone mentioned such a fictitious job in a Versatile Ph.D. post and I thought that it might actually be good career prep for anyone going into academic administration. Anyway, I stopped in to verify that I was, in fact, not dead yet.

He seemed a bit testy that day. We used to be friends, before he became an Advisor with a capital "A." The past gives me a good view on his moods. So, I left with a "hi" and sympathetic smile for the frazzled grad students sharing his office suite and wandered down to one of the labs to see who I could distract there.

In one of the labs was the subject of this particular post. She was doing some digital errands rather than running stats for her dissertation proposal. We started chatting. Clearly, she was not above procrastination. We got around to the subject of my leaving academia. I say it whenever I'm not afeared of losing my head just so I can get used to it.

This grad student suddenly looked around the room very quickly. Upon verifying that no other grad student was within hearing range, she turned back to me. In a low whisper, very conspiratorially, she said that she's been thinking of leaving academia too. She doesn't want to make all the sacrifices necessary to be a professor. She said this in a whisper, not out of shame, but out of fear. She was worried that if word got out, the snakes would slither out of the department pit and swallow her whole, anaconda-style.

I did the only reasonable thing for a person in my position, I told her what little I knew. I told her of a place I had heard of, outside academia. It had jobs, that paid living wages, with benefits. A place where you could have a life outside work. A place where you were not alone and isolated in a cutthroat world of competition, of unnecessary cutthroat competition. I told her of the good folks in the digital world who left breadcrumbs and glowing billboards along the road out. Of the career counselors who can show the way and all those who were on the other side, cheering us on.

I don't know what she did. I haven't seen her since. Hopefully, she went looking for other paths beyond the faculty-sanctioned ones. Whether she takes one or not, no harm can come from knowing of their existence. If I find out, I'll let you know.

The whole exchange got me thinking: is this the way it has to be? I know there are articles out there. Blogs galore. An entire site has been created just to support the networking of Ph.D.'s who wish to leave academia. And yet, so few grad students know they have options. I didn't and I've been here for going on 9 years. I know no one in the post-academic sphere wants to keep these options a secret. Fairly certain in fact that if they could afford to do so, these options and resources would be posted on billboards all around every university in the country. And yet, so few know.

I don't think the problem is the universities. The career center at mine goes out of its way to get word to the grad students. I'm blaming this problem on entrenched traditional views and the all powerful koolaid. I picture it as a glowing, radioactive lime green punch with rehydrated pineapple slices in it, if you're curious. I think someone should spike it.

So, is this how word must spread? Through whispers in empty labs? In parking lots? Running between meetings/classes/office hours? Do you think it's whispered over partitions in libraries' grad study rooms? Do you think people anonymously place career fair fliers in grad student mailboxes? I hope so.

I have read posts from people who hope to change the system from within. Who, upon realizing just how broken the system was, refused to run from it. I wish them the best of luck. But such change will not endure long, will not be possible, until the realities of academic life and post-academic options can be discussed openly. Until they can be talked about out loud, loudly, in public, without faculty dismissing, denying, or deriding them. Until they can be written about, in black and white, with the author's real name attached. When the author of such statements need no longer fear for their tenure, or their degree. It cannot be only a few brave souls either. It must be a majority willing to acknowledge that academia is not a utopia, that there are other options out there for Ph.D.'s and hold these options in equal esteem with professorships. Then change, true long-term change, will stand a chance.

So this is my call to subversion: whisper to each other when you must. Talk, shout, raise billboards when you can. Write it. Get the word out when you're able. And maybe, some day, all grad students will know they have options - and grad school may no longer engender such despair. And please, someone, spike the punch!