Final finals

[digsdigsdigs]

I didn't think I would ever cry while grading papers, except maybe out of fatigue, but this batch is so good! I'm a mess. Hopped up on love and pride and a not inconsequential amount of rage that I have to leave this job ... tempered with the intense and continually-intensifying relief at the prospect of getting out. But I actually did a good job teaching this course this semester; I really think overhauling it paid off. If I could stay I could do so much more! You should see the transformations we made this semester! Going to go have a different life now! Augh!

Comments

[achray]

OK so I am a very very senior academic in the Humanities - go and have a different life!!! marking wonderful student essays is not what we get to do 95% of the time as our careers progress (in...most of the world, anyway)!! We're all doomed, etc etc. No, we really *are* doomed, and I see the budgets, so I know.

I absolutely love my job but I would never, ever, advise anyone to stay in academia at the present time. I think people who leave romanticise the profession and remember the good bits, but I also oversee the mental and physical health of a lot of staff who were the ones who got the jobs, and it's not good.

umm, apologies. I couldn't resist.

[digsdigsdigs]

Thank you!! I appreciate the support. :) A lot of my specific frustration is coming from the fact that I've declined to pursue a position doing roughly the same thing with a better contract, that I wanted, because there's a lot of nasty interpersonal/political stuff going on in my program that's going to get quite a lot worse. This program is a sweet spot for my particular interests, and we do some cool & worthwhile community engagement work, so it just feels like an incredible waste -- the program *could have* been well set to escape this crisis entirely, but instead the university pursued a series of management choices and ass-covering strategies so superficial and stupid I'm pretty sure that my decision to leave is going to be the least of the consequences.

But academia at large -- ! I've been working with the NTT labor organizing efforts here in a very anti-labor, anti-public ed US state and it is just beyond belief. I'm sorry to hear that your junior colleagues are also struggling. That definitely tracks with my impression from the friends and acquaintances I have who are new TT hires here and elsewhere. I mean, I was one of the only people I knew who was really pretty happy with their jobs! So. :\

[chestnut_pod]

Oh, much muchness. Glad you're proud and glad you're feeling relief.

[digsdigsdigs]

Thank you! Muchness indeed. It's one of those life transition moments where I'm really having to lean in to the mystery.