Comments on: The Unicorn That Roared

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:56:46 +0000

Yes a million times. Clearly I didn’t have time in the 500 words allowed, but the issues reach much farther. In our discipline probably even more so, because many if not most of us in English end up at CC and non research focused colleges, when all we’ve ever been told and taught (and promised) are R1. There tends to be a strong myopic view that requires us to see R1 and universities as the only way to be happy and have succeeded–I know I’m a victim of that view to this day!

As for the other part–I’ve written my feminist creed that connects all these “choices” and shows their interdependence one time too often…I hoped that most would realize that choices are often not as freely taken as we’d like to think…especially the older and more committed to and responsible for others we become.

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:51:44 +0000

Thanks for your comment, and I’m glad it spoke to you. As for the love of the subject–yes and no. I actually remember making those same arguments myself. I look back now and while I don’t regret getting my degree (on most days!), I do think that practicality and idealism must balance out somewhere. Love for something won’t take care of your health insurance or feed your kids. I was privileged in that I’ve had financial support throughout, but that’s clearly not the norm!

By: Evamarie

Evamarie — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:56:16 +0000

Also I can just imagine the flak that the scholars here discussing tv stuff get. I study Classics – Greek and Roman studies and people sneeze at me sometimes over the “uselessness”. I can’t imagine if I told them I studied TV.

I personally don’t slight, in a way I envy it because I bring my scholarly mind to the table when I watch even regular tv, but I know that the general public does. Even some other academics.

By: Evamarie

Evamarie — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:53:39 +0000

I have an MA and I’m a Teaching Assistant which right now pays just enough but next year I could end up with nothing. I get undergrads asking me about doing a Masters, especially since my major is Classics – one not widely used in the regular job stream. I tell them that the jobs are limited and it can be a struggle. However, I also tell them that if they have a true love for what they are studying, they should do a graduate degree for that reason. It’s a better reason and a more useful reason than “it gets better”. In a way we are like musicians or other artists where the future is bleak but for the lucky few and it’s love that gets us through it.

I was also grateful for this post since I might one day end up a Unicorn myself.

By: Francesca Coppa

Francesca Coppa — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 22:38:06 +0000

I think it’s really a matter of being able to properly assess the risk, and it’s important to think about what information we give students to enable them to do that. You’re totally right to note that the conversation is, almost by definition, lacking a certain diversity. 😛 “It gets better” is just facile; the next level (and still wrongheaded, I think) is the advice given to students by faculty at big universities who don’t recognize that their jobs – teaching graduate students at big universities – are relatively rare in academia (i.e. universities with graduate programs are relatively few compared to four year institutions, and that’s not even getting into community colleges, junior colleges, high end prep schools, nonprofit organizations, think tanks etc. etc. where many Ph.Ds choose to work or end up working.) Then there are the–what did you call them? — “family and locality and external circumstances affecting our mobility.” You call these “choices: and this is the only place where I disagree with you, because I think these things tend to be structural conditions more than “choice.” But I had a graduate advisor tell me really early on that I was going to see less talented men who were willing to move from place to place surpass me if I wasn’t willing to give up my ties to location, culture, and family. But I was not willing to increase the risk of damage to my life and happiness by putting literally ALL my eggs into a single academic basket, and think that’s often what we’re implicitly asking graduate students (and junior professors) to do.

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:51:29 +0000

Oh, I’m not suggesting that I’m not 🙂 And I’m well aware that I am both lucky and privileged in my own way and that my situation is certainly as much a function of my own choices as it is of structural problems. The fact that I have a voice, that i was invited to blog at Antenna, that I was asked to be on a workshop at SCMS suggests that I’m not really representative of the “us” I talk about above. and yet it’s that very situation that allows me to speak up. Ironically, the conversation on my DW/LJ where I linked to this has been very depressing and full of personal testimony to the very thing I’m talking about. Is it indicative that these conversations take place there rather than here?

As for your cynicism–it certainly is justified! {hugs}

By: JLR

JLR — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 07:50:13 +0000

I totally understand and respect the life choices you’ve made, but believe me you are “good enough”! I think the expectation that academia is a meritocracy is insidious. Traditional career success seems to be just as much a matter of privilege, conformity, and luck. Or at least that’s my cynical reflection in my still-jobless present.

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:30:07 +0000

Thanks!

I know I feel the same way when students ask about grad schools. I mean I went and I don’t regret it. And I remember telling everyone it wasn’t to get a job, I just wanted to learn! But at some point you do need to earn a living and….

So yes, like you I live the constant question of should I discourage people from doing what i do, loving what I love. But I think we need to talk about all sides…including that being good enough may just not be enough. It’s necessary but not sufficient!

By: deborah kaplan

deborah kaplan — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 03:34:52 +0000

Goodness, I’m so grateful for this post I can’t even say.

As an independent scholar and adjunct instructor, every group of students I have brings the conundrum of students coming to me asking for advice about PhD programs. I want to tell them — because it is the experience of the vast majority of people I know who went to PhD programs — that is a bad economic decision, a bad quality-of-life decision, and they shouldn’t do it. But as an instructor in a graduate program… I don’t know.

I don’t want to discourage people from scholarship, because scholarship has been such an important part of my adult life, and the encouragement that other (primarily independent) scholars such as yourself have given me has made such a huge difference in that. But I do want to discourage people from buying into the “it gets better mantra” of doctoral programs. For most people it doesn’t, if by “better” means “your years of the grind will pay off in the tenure-track position you’ve been told you deserve.” Or even “you are likely to be able to make more than minimum wage teaching at the college or graduate level.”

By: Kristina Busse

Kristina Busse — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 02:54:00 +0000

I think one of the things i most appreciate about fandom as it relates to academia (as opposed to the pleasures it brings me and the friends i have made) is the way it has shaped and modeled my academic interactions. I’ve seen a lot of calls for mentoring and I do believe that we’ve been doing a fairly decent job of that, especially in the way we are used to a wide range of ages, status, income, academic background (not idealizing here, but when you debate a canon point, you don’t necessarily know whether this is a senior lit prof or a HS student, and the latter may indeed have the better arguments :). And online interaction helps a great deal when F2F is impossible. I’m certain I wouldn’t be a voice at all if it weren’t for the Internet, and while I very much appreciate your kind words, I know that I wouldn’t have published the first thing after grad school if it hadn’t been for fandom and the lateral support I’ve continued to receive (and hopefully give).