Ughhhhh that's all such a fucking garbage mess. I felt very, very lucky at my university because the liberal arts professors, at least, never made me feel like I was in their class on sufferance, which the few technical classes I took definitely did (I was in the way of their research and they couldn't be arsed to teach a 100 level tech class to idiots, you see.)
I understand that research = prestige, but it's a weird way that academia does parallel the non-academic world, insisting that the high producers do more and more (unpaid) in order to let the school save money spend all its money on athletics (I'm not bitter--wait)* when they would have much better results all the way around if they paid people to do all that side work.
* My alma mater is not as guilty of this as big state schools, but Jesus Christ.
"exists solely to transfer legal blame from the institution onto individuals" I hissed when I read this because it tracks exactly with retirement planning. Pensions used to be a thing (still are in some fields, that happens to be where I work) but the entire concept of retirement planning has been dumped onto individuals who have neither the resources nor the knowledge to advocate for themselves but lol here's your petty 401k now die in a ditch. I hate it. I fucking hate it! A pension is a much better thing for everyone in the long run because pensioners spend money in downturns, because They have income, instead of freezing everything because the Dow took a shit. It's literally social insurance and--aaaaaah I need to stop. (This one is my radical soapbox.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2020-07-03 02:23 am (UTC)I understand that research = prestige, but it's a weird way that academia does parallel the non-academic world, insisting that the high producers do more and more (unpaid) in order to let the school
save moneyspend all its money on athletics (I'm not bitter--wait)* when they would have much better results all the way around if they paid people to do all that side work.* My alma mater is not as guilty of this as big state schools, but Jesus Christ.
"exists solely to transfer legal blame from the institution onto individuals" I hissed when I read this because it tracks exactly with retirement planning. Pensions used to be a thing (still are in some fields, that happens to be where I work) but the entire concept of retirement planning has been dumped onto individuals who have neither the resources nor the knowledge to advocate for themselves but lol here's your petty 401k now die in a ditch. I hate it. I fucking hate it! A pension is a much better thing for everyone in the long run because pensioners spend money in downturns, because They have income, instead of freezing everything because the Dow took a shit. It's literally social insurance and--aaaaaah I need to stop. (This one is my radical soapbox.)