Do What You Love, Part Six
Jan. 12th, 2020 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI resigned from my job earlier this week.
I'm going to teach my classes for the spring semester and help my advisees finish up their MA and MFA theses and capstone projects, but then I'm gone. I've already talked to the leasing office at my apartment building, and I will be out of DC by the end of May.
I feel really weird now. I went to college straight after being kicked out of high school when I was sixteen, so I've been in higher education continuously for twenty years. This is what I always wanted to do, and I've devoted my entire life to doing it.
I don't think I can explain how bizarre and upsetting resigning from my position is to someone outside of academia. It's like saying, Well, I left my job at my law firm after six years, and now it will be all but impossible for me to work as a lawyer again. All of the skills and experience I have are now useless, so much so that I may as well have a blank CV. This situation is crazy, because of course it is, but I'm worried that people outside academia will think I'm crazy for suggesting that this is the case.
Likewise, I don't think I will be able to explain my decision to anyone inside academia. In fact, I'm afraid that most people are going to be openly hostile.
I keep telling myself that academia is a cult. People inside the cult can't see outside, and people outside the cult won't understand.
Still, there's nothing to do but to keep moving forward.
I'm going to teach my classes for the spring semester and help my advisees finish up their MA and MFA theses and capstone projects, but then I'm gone. I've already talked to the leasing office at my apartment building, and I will be out of DC by the end of May.
I feel really weird now. I went to college straight after being kicked out of high school when I was sixteen, so I've been in higher education continuously for twenty years. This is what I always wanted to do, and I've devoted my entire life to doing it.
I don't think I can explain how bizarre and upsetting resigning from my position is to someone outside of academia. It's like saying, Well, I left my job at my law firm after six years, and now it will be all but impossible for me to work as a lawyer again. All of the skills and experience I have are now useless, so much so that I may as well have a blank CV. This situation is crazy, because of course it is, but I'm worried that people outside academia will think I'm crazy for suggesting that this is the case.
Likewise, I don't think I will be able to explain my decision to anyone inside academia. In fact, I'm afraid that most people are going to be openly hostile.
I keep telling myself that academia is a cult. People inside the cult can't see outside, and people outside the cult won't understand.
Still, there's nothing to do but to keep moving forward.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-22 06:08 pm (UTC)Thank you so much, and this is really good to know!
I've heard some gossip about people in my field who were denied tenure, and there seems to be a tendency for people to blame them. Like, their work wasn't good enough, they were a difficult person, etc. I'm sure this is true of some people, of course, but I know for certain that it's not true about most of them.
Looking back on this from the perspective of January 2020, I think what the people who ended up leaving have in common is that they're all female. It's frustrating to see brilliant women be forced out - especially since some of the men who were hired to replace them have gotten caught up in #MeToo scandals during the past two years.
I think the moral of this story is that, since toxic people are going to be toxic no matter what, the best thing is to cut the people spreading gross gossip out of my social contacts. As a legend once said: