F***ing Academia

Yesterday I traveled to Zurich “on business.” Hah I wish I were actually legit enough to say that. It was more like my advisor at Uni Bern wanted me to meet with her former boss at ETH Zurich in order to gain some guidance on my project. “Guidance” is putting it lightly since he proceeded to interrogate me. He couldn't for the life of him imagine that I wanted to write something based on science but also creative (à la Terry Tempest Williams style). He kept asking, "So are you a sociologist then? A psychologist? A natural scientist?" Totally turned me away from academia (not that I needed more turning away).

I then showed him a diagram I made that is essentially how my brain envisions the story I would like to write. It looks something like this:

His response was, “So are you going to make a model out of this?”

A model? These are peoples’ lives we are talking about. Did he not read the title I’ve given my project, “A Voice Behind the Numbers”? No, I would not like to calculate the “horizontal and vertical actor integration,” conduct a “formal social networking analysis,” consider both the “conceptual and empirical significance” or the “operationalization through social networking analysis” (phrases taken from the last article I read that I just had to write down).

What ever happened to describing what actually happens in our world? In words that you and I and Joe Schmo down the street can all understand. That make us want to keep reading, and compel us to act and create change. Where sentences flow nicely from one to the next and are not separated by multiple citations that break up a train of thought.

When I woke up this morning I proceeded to make a list of all the things I hate about academia. Thus far they are:

•            You are placed in a category. If you look at humans, cultures, societies and the development of human civilizations, you are an anthropologist. Not far from this category, if you study the development, structure, and functioning of human society as well as social problems, you are a sociologist. If you study the human mind and human behavior, you are a psychologist. If you analyze political activity and behavior, you are a political scientist. According to Mr. Intimidation at ETH Zurich, “it is too difficult for one person to do all of these.”
•            You must learn (and learn to accept) lots of jargon. Academics would probably prefer to call it “discourse.”
•            Articles are very abstract (is that why you must write an abstract at the beginning of them? Jk.). Sometimes there are no tangible examples.
•            When I read one of my advisor’s papers, I got hardly anything out of it. But when she explained her project to me in person, it sounded fascinating.
•            Academia stays within academia. It is often not financially, logistically, or conceptually available to the general public. (Not to mention that articles are peer-reviewed so you are always kind of preaching to the choir).

Okay, clearly I am worked up about something.

Perhaps I am trying to do something non-mainstream, which may involve displeasing those whose work is considered mainstream. Well I suppose that’s a choice I may have to make. I am sure that all of my literary and environmental heroes got to where they are now not because they wanted to please Advisor Intimidation but because their hearts were so set on something that nothing and no one could stop them. I bet it wasn’t easy. But then again, those who have made the biggest changes throughout the course of human history haven’t exactly had the easiest of lives.

Well I am feeling very young and inexperienced and at that stereotypical place of trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, so if any of this seems obvious to you readers out there, get at me. I suppose that’s one of the perks of being on the interwebs :-)

And to be honest, it’s actually kind of nice to be worked up about something. It was starting to feel a little too perfect around here. All those public bike paths, public swimming pools, public hooks where there is so much trust that you can hang your belongings while swimming laps of the river. All in all, life is pretty dang good.