Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
You and I obviously have very different experiences.
Sure, not all 'Ivory Tower Academics' are like that. But there is a good chunk!
I know someone who is now a Doctor (PhD not MD, not in forests...thats MINE!) but he has never held a regular job. He got good grades and scholarships.
And that was his path. Undergrad all the way to Doctorate without so much as setting one pinky toe in the real world.
You're right though, he did have a relationship. With another student doing the exact same thing. And he talked about it...to his Professor.
Academia is probably more incestuous than the Ozarks.
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You're right, we do have very different experiences. Full disclosure. I have a PhD. I have been an executive officer in one of the largest higher education institutions in the country. I have taught at one of the top five public universities in the country, and have been in the guts of higher education in the United States, allowing me to gain insight into what road a lot of people took to their terminal degree. So yes, very different experiences and very different insight.
I do appreciate your story about your acquaintance. I've run into those as well, and they are as big a ######bag as you would expect. Self absorbed and stuck in their little world, which is confined to
their books and subject matter. They did not have opportunity to wade in the world and gain the experience you think all instructors should have (and they should). But these people are such a small minority of the people you are going to run across in a college or university.
Most instructors/professors are there because they want to share what they know. They are there because they are experts in their fields and want to help create the next generation of experts. Even though there is a lot more money in the private sector, and I mean a lot more for someone with credentials and expertise like some of these people have, they stay in academia for one reason only - there is an endorphin rush you get from helping a student have their a-ha moment, and understand something complex, that is second to none. Helping someone better themselves by changing perspective or expanding their knowledge in an area is what it's about. There is nothing better than standing on the stage during convocation, shaking the hand of each graduate, and seeing the pride and hope in those faces. It is almost priceless and something that keeps people serving in higher education, even though it is an industry with more warts than one of dissentowner's frogs. So don't discount and don't disparage the whole profession because of a few doofs. There are mostly good people in higher ed, and they got there the right way, not how you suggest.