Babe's asleep, must shovel!

[bklyndirt]

Will run outside to deal with the snow in a moment, but I just wanted to take a moment to breathe, contemplate, and write.  I have made a vow to myself that from now on, Audrey's sleep time will, very strictly, be my work time.  I refuse to do housework while she's asleep, even though it's necessary and I feel like I'm still digging myself out of

Comments

[bklyndirt]

I have my Masters in Landscape Architecture. While I practiced LArch for a while I really missed the pure ideas that were part of my studies. So much of the work of being a Landscape Architect is producing technical drawings and managing projects, that ideas and form get lost.

While it may not show in my journal, I am a good academic writer. I didn't realize that I had a talent for it until I handed in a draft of my capstone paper and had it returned to me with the most minor of revisions. Everyone else was busy working on 3rd and 4th drafts until their work was acceptable. I'd love to write academically again, I would love to be back in an academic setting where I can get funding for research instead of always having to work to a client's bottom line. I'm a strong researcher and have always had a knack for synthesizing data. I was a good teacher and have always been able to give insightful critiques.

I would most likely get my PhD in environmental psychology as it relates to the built environment. Though I might wait till Audrey is potty trained. Dissertations and potty training don't necessarily go together.

[thesaturdaygirl]

I have no doubt you'd be a good academic and wasn't implying otherwise. I was genuinely curious as to if you were hoping to go into an academic career or if you could do other things with a PhD in your field (and I didn't know what the field was). Frankly, if you wrote in academic prose I wouldn't be reading your journal because that kind of presumption would be infuriating! ;)

I've loved being a grad student and have excelled at it...have lots of articles, done major conferences, am one of the best reviewed instructors in my dept, etc. It's a great (if not very lucrative, financially) life. I have not found it as trying as others have, quite honestly, and have gotten my diss written fairly quickly considering I started it when Wren was 6 mo old and got a bit derailed by having a surprise pregnancy halfway through. But being a grad student is different than being a lifetime academic, and academia is notoriously hostile to women and particularly women with children (I've written articles on this, so I've done a lot of research). For that reason, among others, I am fairly disillusioned with academia and won't be pursuing an academic career after I finish my PhD this May. I highly recommend looking at the boards (esp the "personal" forums) on the Chronicle of Higher Education website to see some of the bull$&^ academics have to worry about and deal with. It might make you run away screaming. ;)

Mostly though I don't advise going into academia if you're not in a position to follow jobs around the country because that is essentially the only way most people have a shot, given the already horrible and rapidly declining (lots of cuts these days) market. But maybe that is not a concern here and you would be okay moving to less ideal places, in which case -- I don't think it's as hard as everyone says to get a job. I think that's all a lot of machismo.

Anyway I heard all these comments before I started my PhD too (I was 23, though, so very young) but my sense of exceptionalism was strong enough to convince me to go anyway. So probably you will not think back on this comment until you're 8 years in and feeling like "WTF DID I GET MYSELF INTO?" Haha. I think every grad student believes they will be the exception to these rules, and I probably would have been had I decided to do a full-scale, nation-wide search like most people (the average grad student applies to 60 jobs and I applied to 16, all geographically limited to the most desired location -- the northeast/middle atlantic coast. I scored 4 interviews, which is AN INSANE ratio apparently, but I blew them off because I knew I don't want to do this for the rest of my life and had only applied out of a sense of obligation to my advisers). I don't regret my choice to go to school, and have enjoyed these 8 years but, technically it was a waste of time considering the end result. Thankfully I'm an English major and therefore narrative is as important to me as end result. ;) I would not go back and do it differently. But I would definitely be considering all of these issues really seriously if you would be going to school as a means to an end (I got funded the whole way through so I always framed it in my head as a current JOB rather than a lifetime aspiration, b/c I knew statistically a PhD is less likely to not get a job than get one).

Good luck with thinking this all through!