Take Me Home

Today, I am ashamed to admit that I want to go home. With all of its horrifying elitism, exploitation, and general misery, I want to be a teacher again. I had another interview today that I won’t go into too much detail about on the extremely off chance that I might get the job. However, I will say it was one of those horrifying tribunal/firing squad setups that, in business terms, are meant to test how you operate under pressure, but in reality, are a way to bully the candidate so that those lucky enough to have the jobs can feel good about themselves. Hooray for false meritocracies inside and outside academia.

Aside from this just being a very stressful situation for anyone and especially for me with my checkered past of anxiety problems and the fact that I am sick yet again, what really made me sad today was that every answer I had to their questions was about teaching. Now, this should not be in any way surprising since that’s all I’ve done for eight years, but today, it depressed me. It is extremely disheartening to try to squeeze years of struggles and work and passion in a career you love into a box of transferable skills.

Teaching, like a few other professions, is sold to us as a calling, and as harmful as that rhetoric is since it leads us to be easily exploited, it’s hard to shake that when you do love it so much.  I loved teaching even though after years of listening to my middle school teacher mother’s complaints I swore all of my life I would never do it. That very first day was like a revelation, and even though my first class was a nightmare in ways that would make experienced teachers shudder, those students will always be in my heart. Now, here I am trying to explain why helping someone learn to love literature is so very much like answering phones in a call center. It’s not necessarily that one is better than the other, but it’s just not me. Ah well, so it goes.  I’ll be back with my usual piss and vinegar soon.

Straight Up

I’m back today again with another rant and another futile request. The backstory is that yesterday, I was supposed to have an interview for an ESL instructor position. I was cautiously excited; I’ve learned not to get truly excited about anything job-related because it usually finds some way of falling apart. The reason for this is that for years now, I’ve been a sleaze magnet.  Whether it’s a strip mall diploma mill or an office looking for someone to do their bitch work for minimum wage and no benefits, I’m their girl. No one with any legitimacy has been interested.  This time, the school, though very small, was legitimate. I would finally have the potential to get back into an actual classroom and help people build better lives for themselves.

Now, the job description had very little information (Huzzah for Craig’s List fetish for anonymity), but during the initial contact, I was told that more information would be sent to me before the interview. More information was indeed sent in the form of a physical address and a link to the website containing zero details about the actual job.

People…let’s stop with the games. We are all painfully aware that the balance of power is tipped firmly towards the employer. Unless something drastic changes, this is always going to be the truth, especially for academic flotsam like me. So, why can’t you just tell us the details up front? What is the pay? Is it full time? What are the hours? Are you going to require me to travel to Japan on my own dime to learn how to properly make soba noodles so that I may adequately perform your low-wage, no respect job?

I understand that for the high-rollers, not telling the candidate the salary is a matter of negotiation. At the bottom-feeder levels, though, it’s just a stupid game. You know exactly what you’re going to pay, and the candidate knows what they can or cannot accept in terms of salary or work hours. Making them physically come to your company/school/shack behind the Quiznos is not going to change their mind anymore than you’re going to change your mind and give them more money as a result of the interview. I’m imagining the employers believe the jobseeker’s thought process to be something like this:

“Well, I need a bare minimum of $10 an hour to actually live indoors and have the privilege of food once in a while, but dang it, I’m here already, so I might as well take this $7.25 with no benefits part time job with a fluid schedule.”

Really?

I’m pretty sure that’s never worked, so just tell people up front. I know you don’t care about inconveniencing them, but think of the time you’d save yourself not having to interview someone who can’t take the job anyway. That’s a whole lot of Angry Birds time you just netted.

You know you want to.

Worthless

In an undergraduate writing class, by means of feedback, a classmate sent me the meme “Arguing on the Internet is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you’re still retarded.”  As unbelievably offensive as that is and as irrelevant as it was to the piece I had actually written, the message did stick with me. There is generally very little to be gained from participating in the back-and-forth, my team vs. your team chest-thumping that passes for discussion on the Internet. That being said, one particular argument about “worthless degrees” keeps recurring on both Internet comment boards and dollar-per-paragraph “news” stories enough that I feel it must represent some portion of the populace’s genuine view. This argument is rarely effectively addressed, though I have seen some brief defenses pop up in comment threads since the adjunct issue started really gaining national attention in the last year or so.

The statement is always something along these lines: “Well, you got a worthless degree, so you have no right to complain about being on long-term unemployment/working at McDonald’s/having no real way to pay the bills much less contribute to the economy in any meaningful way, etc.”

Now, what exactly constitutes a “worthless degree” is completely in the mind of beholder as is what constitutes a worthwhile one. It generally falls along the lines of any degree in the humanities and most of the social sciences is worthless, and anything in one of the “hard sciences” or business is worthwhile. I can only conjecture that they get this idea from those same dollar-a-paragraph articles I mentioned before, and certainly, there is evidence to support this idea.

Here is where someone from the Humanities, probably one of those lucky few that have tenure due to their age or their wealth and thus their ability to go to an Ivy League school (though I must begrudgingly admit that even they do not have much advantage in this cesspool of a job market)  would step in and say “Oh, but college isn’t just job training.” They will then go on at length to discuss the virtues of being a well-rounded citizen and the “life of the mind.” This might even come from someone who is currently making poverty wages teaching hundreds of students at schools where their presidents and many of the administrative staff make hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can only assume this is a kind of defense mechanism, a way to assure themselves that they haven’t wasted their lives and are now in a pit they can never crawl out of. I understand this sentiment well. If they do address the issue of actual employment in these fields, they will usually vaguely refer to the idea that even if there are no stable academic jobs, the corporate world LOVES to hire humanities majors because they have “critical thinking skills” or “creativity.” This is, of course, a farce on two levels. First, again, the job numbers show this to be completely untrue post-2008, despite whatever anecdotal evidence might be provided, and second, those that majored in the sciences have critical thinking skills and creativity by the truckload along with a whole other attractive skill set. So, not only is this response completely inadequate, it is abstract, elitist, and arrogant, yet, it’s really all I ever see offered. Little wonder that these attitudes persist.

So, what should we say to this argument? Well, first there is the obvious callousness of thinking it is reasonable for anyone who is willing to work hard, degree or not, to not be able to get a job that actually pays a living wage  and *gasp* maybe even a little more so that they can spend money to get this slug of an economy moving again. This becomes even more absurd when you consider that, in this case, the person you are talking about, regardless of your opinion of the specific major, spent anywhere from four to ten years busting their ass to accomplish something that still very few people have. Regardless of the skill set, anyone who has worked that long is, at the very least, dedicated, hard-working, able to think critically, creative, and reasonably intelligent. I don’t say this as a way of “tooting my own horn” or putting people down that don’t have degrees. There are plenty of people without degrees that have all of these qualities and more. The point is that the piece of paper graduates have and the years they put into getting should at least give them the benefit of the doubt that they are competent people.

And this isn’t just my opinion. Years ago, it was fairly universally accepted that this is what it meant, and those with college degrees were virtually guaranteed (exceptions being the rule) a good job. When I was growing up, the one piece of advice I heard consistently, as did most my age I’m sure, was to go to college, that going to college would open doors. And for all I could see, that was true. Those without college degrees in my town were factory workers or workers in the service industry (both necessary, but back-breaking professions) while those that had college degrees, any college degree, had the good jobs. The man who ran the city’s juvenile detention center along with my father had a Bachelor’s in Physical Education, and there were a hundred other examples just like him to be found.  So, there was every reason to believe that a degree would at least land you squarely in the middle class, and at best, make all of your dreams come true.

Fast forward past the economic collapse, and we live in a world where this could not be farther from the truth. There’s a lot to be said about the effects of the collapse, the destruction of the middle class, the dearth of jobs and fair wages in general, more than I can even remotely scratch the surface of here, but I can say from experience that my degree is, at best, useless and at worst, a liability in terms of finding secure employment.  But here’s the rub: it’s not just me. It’s not even just humanities major; it’s everyone with a degree. Sure, things might be a little rosier for those in the sciences, but it’s a pale, pale rose with a hell of a lot of thorns. There are quite a few wonderful, in-depth articles on this subject, but in general, the point is that it’s no picnic for science majors to find work, yes even the beloved engineers who are always vaunted in these screeds against “worthless” degrees. We have a top-down system that keeps all the wealth concentrated in the hands of the few and the rest of us, regardless of who we are and how hard we work, begging for scraps.

Now, let’s turn to this idea of “worthless.” These people rarely provide any particular evidence that these majors are worthless aside from pointing to job market figures, and as I mentioned before,  my experience provides ample evidence of the severe problems existent in this current economic climate with trying to find decent work holding one of these degrees. Does that make them inherently worthless though? My Master’s in English, for example, is always  at the top of the lists and one of the first examples, if any are given, out of the mouths of those making these claims. However, I would argue that my skill set is more necessary now than ever. Maybe not my ability to talk about symbolism in “A Rose for Emily,” but my ability and my love of helping others to learn how to write and my own reasonable ability to string together coherent thoughts. In the digital age, writing is more critical than ever. In comparison to earlier times, we communicate exponentially more through writing – emails, memos, texts, comment threads, etc. It is absolutely crucial now to be able to present yourself in writing to the world. And because of failures in the K-12 system (another topic too broad to be dealt with here) and the influx of ELL learners, there is a never-ending flood of students who do not have the basic writing skills needed to be successful in life.

It is also crucial, given the massive and unprecedented amount of information produced daily, that we have tools to dig through that information to get to the truth or at least to some reasonable approximation thereof. Most of the students I’ve dealt with are drowning in information, completely incapable of discerning fluff from fact because on the Internet, fluff does a very good job of masquerading as fact, and I daresay the general populace has this same issue. I don’t think it is necessary for me to go into great detail about why it is important to be able to distinguish fact from fiction, but suffice to say that uninformed electorate is the path to tyranny (dramatic I know, but the truth nonetheless).

The idea that my skill set is necessary isn’t just my own. Look on most job boards, especially those in academia (Higheredjobs is one), and you will see that Composition/English/Writing is one of the largest categories. The problem is that the vast majority of them are adjunct jobs: vastly underpaid, temp work with no benefits and no security. So, we do recognize the value of this job, but we’re just not willing to pay for it. And so it goes with any number of these other “worthless” degrees and professions. Internet commentators and pundits will scream to the high heavens about “unskilled labor” when talking about food service or retail jobs and use this as an excuse to keep them in abject poverty, but when they want a burger or need a shirt, they are more than happy to, quietly, recognize the necessity and value of these services.

I ask, then, that we use the term “worthless” a little more carefully, and examine how the system we’re all caught in determines worth, how they convey worth, and the narratives that are being built to keep it that way.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

So, I haven’t been on for a while, and that’s partially due to my crippling fear of sharing my writing with the world (a fantastic quality for someone who has always wanted to be a writer to have), but mostly because leaping out of the ivory tower has largely resulted in me ending up flat on the pavement below. Though I have netted more interviews once I started looking outside of academia, I am still facing the same sort of rejection.

I would not, however, be too quick to draw conclusions from my experience and assume that everyone attempting to leave will meet the same kind of dead end. In fact,  this wonderful blog, How to Leave Academia, is ample evidence that plenty have made the transition successfully. I have special circumstances that tie me to one specific area, at least for now, and that area is dominated by a university, so there simply aren’t many jobs outside of it, and administrative jobs at the university are invariably given to their own graduates. If I could cast a wider net, it’s possible I would have more success, and somewhere down the line when I am able to leave and move forward in terms of deciding on a new career path, I will talk about those experiences.

While I stagnate, I will focus my discussions on the job market and education in general. There are things that aren’t being said that damn well need to be, and even if for my own sense of catharsis, I’m going to say them.

Hurts So Good

Two weeks have passed since my EPIC DECISION to leave academia. In that time, I’ve moved from self-righteous anger and an overwhelming excitement to start a new journey to huddling in a corner and whimpering. It’s easy to talk about leaving your identity behind, but doing it is terrifying, especially when you can see it concretely happen before your eyes as you change your C.V. to a resume, which is a massively crucial step in leaving academia, by the way, and one that I had no idea about until I began researching the issue and stumbling upon great resources such as selloutyoursoul.com whose great advice I’ve mentioned before. I would also highly recommend using the OWL at Purdue’s extensive section on resumes to learn how to make the switch. I, and a friend who is also leaving, are trying out the skills-based resume format. Since I got a callback within a day of sending out one of these resumes, whereas I got nothing but ignored in the past when I tried to apply outside of the academy, I have to say it’s pretty effective.

Now, how this job is going to turn out is a whole other deal. I am continually baffled at the refusal to post a salary. It’s just a waste of everyone’s time to do this. Do they think that if you take the time to go in, and the salary is terrible, you’ll just decide that you’re le tired and take it? The same goes for employers who don’t call or send an email. For those that don’t already know about this, I’m sorry to tell you, but as you venture out to look for your new career, you will find that the application process has gotten absurd. Not only do you need a specially tailored resume, cover letter, and references, you have to fill out a long online application that can take up to an hour, and here’s the kicker: you’re filling in the same information that is on your resume. If anyone can explain this, I sincerely want to hear it because otherwise, I’m assuming it’s like some Chinese water torture that HR people invented to amuse themselves.

I will use any excuse to post a Mythbusters video because they rock my world.

All complaining aside, though, it’s encouraging that I already have a call back from someone, anyone. Maybe this will work out after all.

Insane in the Membrane

So, in the last post, I mentioned the mentality of the academic a.k.a academic brain damage. I’d like to talk a little more about this here for the edification of those unfamiliar with our particular sickness and want a good laugh and for those currently suffering from the malady to hopefully help them get on the path to recovery. Let’s break the features into a list because lists are awesome:

1. There can be no fun/fulfilling/meaningful career outside of academia

This is a biggie and probably the number one thing that kept me clinging on for five years. I firmly believed that any job that didn’t involve literary scholarship, teaching, and/or creative writing would be a soul-sucking roller coaster ride of misery that would have me reaching for the noose within a year. I had some support for this idea from the 9 months I spent as a data entry temp, and I’m sure everyone has horror stories like this about crappy little jobs in the “real world” where happiness goes to die. Because of what we’re told and because of these small experiences, we believe that leaving academia would mean selling our souls to Mr. Monopoly.

He actually looks like a fun guy to me

Of course, the reality is there is a whole host of interesting, meaningful jobs outside of academia, jobs where people might actually make eye contact with you, and you won’t have to sell plasma to make ends meet. You might not land one of these uber jobs right off the bat; I’m certainly not expecting to. But, the point is that there is at least the very real potential of doing something you like and are actually paid for, whereas once you’re stuck in that particular circle of hell that holds adjuncts, there’s no redemption.

2. The prestige, the feeling of “changing the world,” and living the “life of the mind makes it all OK.

Let’s be brutally honest here. We really REALLY love being called “Professor.” We love that we get to strut around 150-year old campuses imagining that we are walking with all the great thinkers of the world. We love that people are just a wee bit impressed when we tell them what we do. It’s really hard to imagine intelligent adults putting up with less than minimum wage pay, no health care, and “office space” in the attics of old buildings that we share with the drama clubs for any other reason.

This is not something we like to admit to anybody and certainly not to ourselves, but quitting is like giving up an identity. It’s shameful to some extent, but on the other hand, these are people that have spent at least six years (a master’s) and as much as twelve years, maybe more (PhD), dedicating themselves to a subject, becoming experts, living the “life of the mind.” It is gut-wrenchingly hard to just walk away from that, to accept that the life you worked so hard for was a lie, and your accomplishments don’t matter to the rest of the world. The key is to understand that you haven’t lost everything. You can use some of those skills you honed like research, analysis, and writing, and add to them to make a whole new, exciting path for yourself. An this brings us to….

3. I can’t leave because I don’t have the time or money to get another degree, and I can’t get a good job without one. 

Everyone who thinks about leaving or who does leave instinctively looks to school as their way out. I’m echoing Sell Out Your Soul (I highly recommend buying his book) here, and it’s a very important point. Academia and business approach knowledge in different ways necessarily. To master anything in academia, it takes a very, very long time and rigid, specific credentials. In the real world, credentials don’t matter so much. They only care about results, what you can do for them. A degree is fine, but do you actually have the skills the employer needs, and can you prove that? I’m on a journey now to learn a whole host of new skills that I hope will make me attractive to my new employer, and I’m doing so without any formal classes. Read books, follow blogs, maybe even take some free online courses, practice your new skills. Show that you’re a hard, independently-motivated worker that won’t spend all day on Farmville. This is my approach based on the advice of a number of other successful academic ex-pats. It might take time, but at least you’re building skills while working instead of incubating in a classroom for years.

 I had to rid myself of of this crippling mentality, and it took a long time. It’s scary to take that leap out the window of the Ivory Tower.  However, I want better for myself, and so should you. Let’s see where this wild ride takes me!

No More Teachers, Dirty Looks

I am a thirty year old gal with an M.A. in English Literature and five years of bouncing around the country teaching writing under my belt.  I am one of a growing number of academic expats, leaving behind the fruitless struggle for a real career in the Ivory Tower to try their luck in the real world. It took me entirely too long to come to this decision, and certainly a big part of that is my love for teaching, though my last jobs (online instruction at for-profit) could only be called teaching in the most marginal sense. The other part is the mentality that academia, particularly the humanities, fosters in its students.

This mentality stops us from seeing our own potential and the potential of careers outside those looming university walls. There are a lot of fantastic, outspoken people out there working to help lost graduates break that mentality, including James at selloutyoursoul.com, The Adjunct Project, William Pannapacker, and countless other individual bloggers out there, telling their story like I am. But our voices aren’t very loud, and despite a few articles here and there in the New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Ed, this issue has received very little real attention, and thus there are thousands of struggling graduates out there that have no idea they don’t have to live as some glorified day laborer, happy with the scraps that fall off the table just because someone calls them “Professor.” It sounds grim, but I have faith in the power of the individual to do their part, to add their voice to the chorus, and to eventually accomplish their goal. So, that’s what I am doing.