A bit of introspection
Mar. 9th, 2006 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassIn the last week, at least three separate people (the Master of Massey College, the registrar of Massey College, and a professor I greatly admire) have all said I should return and do my PhD. I've had a hard time putting into words why I think this is a bad idea. Yes, I love the Middle Ages. Yes, I love trying to unravel the Latin language (though I might like it more if I didn't have an exam looming over me). So why shouldn't I stay on and work on my PhD?
Today in class I was given a perfect example of what I don't like about academia. We're reading the Dragmaticon by William of Conches. It's a wonderful book of medieval natural philosophy and I've enjoyed reading it. In fact, I'm inspired for a few SCA projects I want to do when I return to Montreal.
In class today, someone asked the seemingly-innocent question of when it was written. Apparently there's a controversy over this. Understand that in academia, there's a controversy over everything. A previous scholar of William of Conches, a man named Ranke, set the date in the late 1140s, for a variety of reasons not worth going into here. A contemporary scholar, who gave a talk at UofT last week, sets the date in the mid 1140s, for other reasons not worth going into. I see a conference paper or journal article approaching in the near future.
Now, bear with me... whichever of these two scholars is right, this book was written over 850 years ago! In my mind, a five-year difference doesn't really matter. This is why I'm not cut out to be an academic.
In academia, you can't have interests. To me, "interest" is the desire to read a book (say, William of Conches' Dragmaticon) and maybe google the author or read a general-interest secondary source about it (eg: something I'd find at Chapters). To an academic, "interest" means you're reading scholarly articles about it, perhaps writing scholarly articles about it, and generally know a heck of a lot about it, its author, its circumstances, etc. I don't care about all that. I just want to read the book.
For a paper I'm writing, I'm currently looking at travel writing in the middle ages (pilgrim accounts and pilgrim guides). There are a surprising number of them. But I can't just read them. I need to read about them. I need to find something scholarly and insightful about them. I need to write about them. I can't just enjoy them for what they are: I don't have time.
I especially don't like researching and writing on a deadline. I hate the feeling running out of time and just then finding the perfect article or book that would help me immensely. I hate the pressure of 3 papers due in one week, and feeling like I'm not making progress in any of them. And, apparently, if I stay in academia, this is what the rest of my life is going to be like: running from one deadline to another, spending most of my time reading things I'm not interested in, and writing things I find superfluous.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I don't want to do my PhD. Much as I love having access to thousands of primary texts (written in the middle ages), I don't want the pressure of needing to read dozens of articles for every medieval text, or needing to produce my own articles for any topic I'm interested in. My interests don't run that deep.
I told the registrar of Massey that it is possible that something could happen in the next month and a half to make me change my mind and want to do a PhD. I don't know what this might be. Quite frankly, I can't imagine anything that would make me change my mind, but stranger things have happened.
No, as it stands now, I'm perfectly content leaving with only two more letters after my name, and leaving the deep research on obscure topics to those with interest in such things.
Today in class I was given a perfect example of what I don't like about academia. We're reading the Dragmaticon by William of Conches. It's a wonderful book of medieval natural philosophy and I've enjoyed reading it. In fact, I'm inspired for a few SCA projects I want to do when I return to Montreal.
In class today, someone asked the seemingly-innocent question of when it was written. Apparently there's a controversy over this. Understand that in academia, there's a controversy over everything. A previous scholar of William of Conches, a man named Ranke, set the date in the late 1140s, for a variety of reasons not worth going into here. A contemporary scholar, who gave a talk at UofT last week, sets the date in the mid 1140s, for other reasons not worth going into. I see a conference paper or journal article approaching in the near future.
Now, bear with me... whichever of these two scholars is right, this book was written over 850 years ago! In my mind, a five-year difference doesn't really matter. This is why I'm not cut out to be an academic.
In academia, you can't have interests. To me, "interest" is the desire to read a book (say, William of Conches' Dragmaticon) and maybe google the author or read a general-interest secondary source about it (eg: something I'd find at Chapters). To an academic, "interest" means you're reading scholarly articles about it, perhaps writing scholarly articles about it, and generally know a heck of a lot about it, its author, its circumstances, etc. I don't care about all that. I just want to read the book.
For a paper I'm writing, I'm currently looking at travel writing in the middle ages (pilgrim accounts and pilgrim guides). There are a surprising number of them. But I can't just read them. I need to read about them. I need to find something scholarly and insightful about them. I need to write about them. I can't just enjoy them for what they are: I don't have time.
I especially don't like researching and writing on a deadline. I hate the feeling running out of time and just then finding the perfect article or book that would help me immensely. I hate the pressure of 3 papers due in one week, and feeling like I'm not making progress in any of them. And, apparently, if I stay in academia, this is what the rest of my life is going to be like: running from one deadline to another, spending most of my time reading things I'm not interested in, and writing things I find superfluous.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I don't want to do my PhD. Much as I love having access to thousands of primary texts (written in the middle ages), I don't want the pressure of needing to read dozens of articles for every medieval text, or needing to produce my own articles for any topic I'm interested in. My interests don't run that deep.
I told the registrar of Massey that it is possible that something could happen in the next month and a half to make me change my mind and want to do a PhD. I don't know what this might be. Quite frankly, I can't imagine anything that would make me change my mind, but stranger things have happened.
No, as it stands now, I'm perfectly content leaving with only two more letters after my name, and leaving the deep research on obscure topics to those with interest in such things.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-10 09:10 pm (UTC)I will add that there is only one exclamation point directed at the reader, the other one is directed at god for not gifting me with perfect spelling.
People don't like being yelled at in person, not just in lj, and that doesn't stop me either. When someone deserves to be yelled at, I will yell at them. I'm an aggressive dick that way, people liking me is rather secondary (strangely they do anyways, I've never understood that, 'cuz I;m not even pretty!?!)
Lastly, in the same manner that you expect that Julie can respond to you herself (which is an entirely different issue), you could have told her this in person or sent her a private e-mail. When you commented on the open forum of LJ, you rolled your dice and set yourself up for what I like to call the lj game (okay, I don't really like to call it that, but I'm in a rush to get to work and couldn't think of a better name).
Other than that....er..... yeah.... everything Julie said.
;)