Why I left Academia

My recent reflections on law school brought me back to consider why I didn’t choose to pursue a PhD instead. And it turns out, with very little research into the subject, that I had very strong and valid reasons for not pursuing the PhD. One of the main reasons is my search for stability and security.

As many of you know I love political theory and philosophy. I really do, I like to read all the author and figure out their arguments. In particular I like the history of ideas, I was (and still am!) fascinated with the great adventure that has been human thinking over the past few thousand years. This extends beyond simply the scope of politics but enters ever area of human life that has been written about and thought about-> history, science, architecture. You name one field and I am sure I can find something interesting. So knowing what I love you would think it would be a simple no brainer to try and become a professor.

The thing is, its extremely difficult to become a professor. In many ways law makes way more sense than academia. Academia isn’t a pretty place to be, for a whole number of reasons: The childishness of your colleagues, the incessant navel gazing, the ridiculous demands to publish, the political infighting, the meaningless of much of the work, the temporary and unstable nature of your work until you make professor.

Can I give any examples of these things? Sure can:

1) Demands to publish: Academia is a competitive field, as an undergraduate student it all looks pretty good, read some books, teach some people, write some books. It still sounds awesome. The only thing is, for the most part, academics find little time to write books anymore. Most books, in particular in more ‘humanities’ type courses are just collections of academic journal articles. Career advancement demands that one publishes, and publishes as much as they can. Interestingly, to even get hired for a teaching position after your PhD you have to have had published. I have a serious problem with this drive to publish. Firstly, this is a recent phenomenon, no more than 50-60 years old. Certainly journals existed in the early part of the 20^th century, but publication in these journals wasn’t as closely tied to job security. In the past many professors just elected to teach and write occasionally. The primary vocation was teaching rather than research.

Now the primary demand is to publish and do research giving teaching a hit. Many students at Western will not have the majority of their grade be assigned to them until they reach their third year. When I TA’d I was responsible for 70% if the students grade! Much of the teaching is slouched off to the TA’s. Mount A was really nice and unique in this perspective.

A second problem I have is the meaninglessness of the writing. Certainly writing is to a certain extent meaningful at all times, but in academia it is the rare article that makes a splash. Research has shown that on average only 3 people will read a journal article. The person who wrote it, the person who reviewed it, and a third person, some specialist in the field that would be interested in the paper.

A third problem is that this demand to publish, I think, lowers the academic quality of what is being written. Instead of having 10 years to develop ideas and write a book, professors are expected to pump out 2-3 journal articles a year. But if you look at some of the most interesting texts in the history of ideas, they were written over a period of time. All this makes me feel that there is very little time for reflection.

2)Meaninglessness of the work: A lot of your time as an academic is spent doing either administrative stuff, filing grades, going to committee meetings, organizing spreadsheets etc, or boring repetitive tasks like marking undergraduate papers. You don’t understand how painfull this task is. Worst of all, once you have marked the paper, given some good constructive comments, the student appeals the grade since it didn’t fit in with their expectations. Also, in many sense teaching isn’t what it was in the past. Many times you realize that noone actually wants to be there. You don’t want to be teaching people who aren’t interested in the class (besides you have to go do research or write for that next journal article) and the students would rather be somewhere else. This isn’t very fulfilling.

2) For young people entering academia it is hard to find one solid fulltime position and stick with it for the remainder of your career. During and after their PhD years many ‘lecturers’ work on a temporary or part time basis, having to go were the work is. For instance, my friend works for the Departement of Political Science at Western. Without him the department would fall apart, he is an absolute administrative wizard and is one of the best teachers in the faculty. Yet every year he has to reapply for his position. Other PhD grads I have met are teaching various classes on different campuses. One guy I met, taught a course at Western, York, and Mcmaster in the same semester!!!!. For those of you who don’t know Ontario that means in one week he taught in London, Hamilton, and Toronto. He had to do this every week while living in toronto. Depending on funding requirements, course enrollment, and who else is applying for the position, you might find yourself unable to get the job you held the year previously.

I was complaining about working long hours in the legal world, well academics, especially as a young academic, you still work plenty of hours, with much less pay, and less recognition. And the work can be as mind numbingly boring (Marking papers).

Another few reasons why law was a good idea. Unlike a PhD in theory, a law degree is much more flexible. Much more. People tend to respect you a lot more when they know you are going to law school. People keep calling me Mr. Dubois when I go to the bank! With a PhD in theory your chances of getting a job are pretty slim, no matter how brilliant you are. One friend of mine here, who was as solid of a young academic as I have every seen, published a number of articles, PhD thesis being turned into a book, students loved him etc. Couldn’t get hired to a tenured track position because the department felt that it needed more women in the department. After having spoken to a number of academics the word on the street is departments like to hire women in theory positions because it is an easy way to meet their quota requirements. One guy I met who wrote on the impact of communication technologies on political participation was formerly a theorist who had to write about something else so he could get a job!

I know this all sounds really negative, but it isn’t. It is really just being sober and realistic. But thinking on the experience, and thinking about my recent troubles with having chosen law school is that I kinda want some security and stability in my life. Having this huge black hole in my future as a future academic about not knowing, and not being able to control, were I was going to work, stressed me right out. Of course I am in a similar situation with law school. The good thing is with the law degree, its flexible. A PhD in theory isn’t terrible flexible. At least with law, especially when I a done paying of my loans, I will have a lot of control over where I work. Christ if I want to work in Hong Kong or London England I can! Besides, my prof is talking about me going to Oxford or Cambridge for an LL.M.! I didn’t even think that was possible, certainly not in political theory. Imagine going back to teach contracts at Dalhousie! Or University de Moncton! I could teach and live on the east coast. Sounds kinda sweet….

You may want to read more about leaving academia and its various problems you should check out the ‘Beyond the Ivory Tower’ series of articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education at http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/archives/columns/beyond_the_ivory_tower/

There is an interesting one about leaving academia for law!

Oh yeah, what about my passion for theory and the history of ideas? Well its still there and plan on pursuing it as a hobby. One interesting thing to note, for the most part, the most important political thinkers weren’t academics.

Peace