how's the masters going? thoughts on academia?
the master's went! i feel nothing! i hated it! i somehow finished my damn dissertation. i don't really have a working relationship with my supervisor and i don't like him very much so i've been slow wrt getting his comments on my manuscript (i wanna publish, submitted a protocol and everything)
as for thoughts on academia...my key takeaway from all my time in undergrad and masters is not to take academia seriously at all.
(these are all thoughts i've been expressing over time so a lot of my anger and frustration has dissipated, but there are strays here and there lol)
i think more than any intellectual thoughts i have, i'm led by my experience and emotions here. my time in educational institutions + interacting with research fellows, teaching assistants and profs has been absolutely disastrous for how i perceive the world, the people around me, and myself - undid all the grounding and pragmatism of my childhood as well as the idealism of my adolescence.
especially studying here in the UK, the lack of critical thought is absolutely MIND BLOWING. what really ground my gears was *just* how racist profs can be; not overtly so (though some were), but just in how resistant they were to students questioning any paradigms + in how they never acknowledged the power and history behind knowledge production -- doubly surprising since my field is heavy on social science methods and cross cultural competency. and these are the people who get put on boards and panels for studies in the global south. meeting experts irl in some of the most renowned centres and programmes for my field...girl what a joke.
the farce of it all aside, academics are truly some of the most depressing people to hang around. truly corrosive to the spirit. i thought it was just a problem w my field (mental health) but it really isn't! i suppose people doing business or finance PhDs would complain less though. but yeah it all seems to be a sort of insecurity olympics where academics rile against corporations and corporate employees...while behaving in the exact same ways in the exact same work conditions! all while being in massive denial about it. AND while looking down at the same world we analyse from a glass house, without a shred of self awareness.
admittedly i'm still reeling from my biggest regret in life so far (this damn master's degree) but i know that this anger and bias arose out of something genuine. i wanted to quit my field and quit academia for good after i was done w my dissertation lmao. but with time and perspective, i've simmered down a bit. still, i think the only way i can survive in my field and in academia is to treat it like fun playtime. because ultimately that is what it is, like with any field: a bunch of white ppl in the global north treat the world as their cute little playgrounds where they have a silly goofy time while the rest of us break our fucking backs to get anywhere.
(i am taking a big fat break from academia...a far cry frm 19 year old me who was very committed to wanting to do research in this field and was convinced that he had the grit to make it through)
