Questions and doubts about academia
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm having a bit of a crisis
I always thought I wanted to get into research and academia. But lyk, I'm sort of doubting it now. Also note that I'm a law student and I'm going to be talking about this from a purely social science perspective, so it doesn't apply to other subjects coz idk how that works
Okay so, idk if I'm the one in the wrong here, but I kinda feel lyk the reach for so much of this stuff is soo narrow, uk? For instance they write elaborate articles about theories about race, gender, caste, etc, and then they discuss it in these conferences, and.... that's about it? Lyk don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely NOT saying that this isn't important, and I like reading these new perspectives and attending these panel discussions and conferences myself. And ik it's important to spread knowledge about this stuff. But also, lyk, they just speak about this stuff with other academics in their fancy halls and that's it.... what exactly does this do to help the ppl on the streets? What is this doing to actually help the ppl going through these problems? I get it, individual ppl learning and changing makes a difference in many lives, and the general idea is that someone is going to learn this stuff and make policy changes or something, but who?
Idk if this is a country specific thing, but things are still really fucking shit irl here. And I really don't see what kind of change these theories are making in the lives of the general population. And I get the irony, if my work ends up actually helping ppl it will be from what i learnt in these very papers and events, but even so, that's maybe 5 ppl compared to 1000s.
Am I wrong? Am I tripping? Idk, it feels like a crisis because I thought I had my life planned out but I'm extremely unsure now