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October 14, 2003 [feather]
From a former would-be professor

This morning's post on whether one should or should not go to grad school in English drew this letter:


I was one who felt the call to pursue a graduate degree, and I felt it right down to my 30-something year-old bones. I just didn't want the initials next to my name, I wanted to teach, to wear myself out teaching, studying, being a Big Scholar. I chewed onİthe ideaİfor years, fought against it, but finally, happily, gave in, willing to endure penury and the death of a social life to do this wonderful thing.

My first year of pursuing this dream seemed perfect. I discovered I had a talent for writing (well, more of a talent for post-first-draft editing) that matched my passion for the subject matter. I won writing awards and was having a blast. By the end of the third semester of my official pursuit I was telling myself, "Well, I still want the degree, but only so I can bring the system down from the inside."

Then I took time off,İwandered the UCLA bookstore and perused the "Literary Criticism" stacks. I matched what I was readingİwith what I had received (and quietly rejected) in lecture from some truly excellent instructors and came to the very depressing conclusion that I had almost nothing in common with the Big Scholars I would be obliged to emulate.

What I read, later, in the blogs only confirmed what I already was intuiting, which is that I would have received an education that I couldn't take seriously, and all so I could get in front of students and tell them that graduate school was pointless.

I think it is because I didn't discover "classic" literature until long after my earlier college days (I was a music major, and in high school I wasİan overgrown Bart Simpson). I was able to enjoy Shakespeare precisely because I didn't have to worry about what anyone felt about my opinions. I could like this, hate that, and be indifferent about the rest, and, better, not feel obliged to give deference to Authority.

Bad enough to be conservative, religious, and outspoken. But to believe that my interpretations (developed for free instead of at the cost of $6000 a quarter) are as valid as any Professor's - now THERE'S an intellectual crime.

I return to these blogs because I keep hoping - even while I know it is a waste of time to do so - that I will see something that says, "Hey! It's safe for guys like you to come aboard!" In the meantime, I'll keep on reading these many, many posts that only tell me that I made the right choice when I put awayİ"The Evolution of Post-Modern Theory"İand picked up a computer manual instead.

This note goes to the heart of the issue: Feeling "called" at age twenty--or even thirty--is no gauge of anything except high immediate interest level combined with an active and optimistic prospective imagination. It's common--even expected--for people contemplating pursuing academe's version of the literary life of the mind to declare their "passion" for their "work" and to announce their profound sense of (often political) mission. But real passion is rare indeed, and rarer still in a life that is yet so young. Too often, enthusiasm is mistaken for, and glorified as, passion by people who are simply too young to tell the difference. For individuals like this particular correspondent, preparing for an academic career on the strength of that supposed passion forced him to realize how much of his certainty was centered on misplaced pipe dreams. Feeling passion, or an untroubled youthful simulacrum of same, is not the same as understanding reality, and should never be allowed to mask it.

Thanks for writing.
posted on October 14, 2003 4:40 PM