Grad school, ugh
January 23rd, 2007 by rivercrow
That sums it up.
I started back to school in fall 2005. The first semester was good–a bit redundant, considering what I’ve done for a living, but good. I did learn new processes.
The second semester I took two classes. That was a mistake. The workload would not have been so bad…except in one class I had the Boomer ESTJ from Hades as a team mate (should have fired her) who was best buds with the professor–and the prof made me team lead. Talk about “topping from the bottom”. And the prof is the program director. Anyway, this woman created endless problems and confusion–truly a living troll. Oh, and I had major personal problems (which have gone dormant, but I can’t let them sleep) and work fiascoes.
What I took away from the spring 2006 semester was a confirmation of my dislike of academia. I wish I’d gone to grad school when I was younger and not (quite) so cynical. I did enjoy the editing class a great deal; that was worth any effort. The other class was nothing more to me than a review of what I had done 15 years ago with a healthy dose of lessons in “corporate plagiarism.”
I took the fall 2006 off to work on other things, which I think I failed miserably at. Just burnt out and enervated. And I needed to reconsider if the program was worth my efforts. But gotta get back on that horse someday.
I’ve been looking at programs that really interest me. Things I have not done before. Maybe a return to being motivated by passion rather than motivated by food. (More on that in another post, I promise.) I realize it could all be delusion and madness. And the outcome could be as useless as the degree in English literature I already have.
Still, if you’re going to do something that’s going to consume your free waking hours for a couple years, it should be something you enjoy, right?
Ah well. Wish me luck.
4 Responses to “Grad school, ugh”
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I hear your distress, crowsie. For many years I was an academia junkie.. enjoying these types of corridors albeit running on auto pilot while amassing a wide variety of degrees. My participation in academia was more a hobby though.
I think you really need to address why you are wanting to acquire this type of knowledge via academic degrees. Is it in order to seek recognition by others because of this “certified stamp of approval” in order to further your career, or is it to acquire knowledge for your own personal development?
To acquire degrees for the purpose of furthering/cementing yourself in your chosen profession is at most times difficult, since motivation to follow this type of course is often marching to an external drum beat. This external drum beat pushing you through these degrees often only serves to replicate/maintain the existing hierarchal order and system within academia itself, leaving you feeling personally unchallenged and unfulfilled.
The degrees I found personally fulfilling (other than those I had amassed as the “norm” dictated via my educational career/professional path) were the ones in areas that many saw as “unrelated” to my actual paid professional path. These “unrelated” areas, I never saw as “unrelated”, as from what I could see, all disciplines overlap and interact with each other at some level, especially in the field of education. So I set off to learn, demystify and understand certain areas within academia during my time when I occupied an executive position within the Teachers Union. I found that I was wanting to know and understand more on Industrial Relations matters which lead me to undertake a LLB and a B PSYCH .. yeah, although they may appear to an outsider as areas that are very unrelated, for me they were crucial for my own curiosity and personal development and they were degrees I actually enjoyed doing. Not once did I find them to be a drag or a chore.
I guess the base line is crowsie, enjoyment comes when you are marching to the inner beat of your own drum. It is a shame that the $ cost of embarking on such courses for the sole purpose of personal development makes it near impossible for people to do now though. Still, I wish you all the very best and lots of luck in finding some area/course of study you can enjoy, whilst marching to your own inner drum beat.
The plan was to work on my technical writing skills and possibly retool myself as a technical writer/editor. Given that I’d spent 10 years as a graphic designer/desktop publisher, it seemed like a logical use of my skills. However, I found myself bored with the content and frustrated at the political SJ triviality of academia.
I need to do something radically different. I look at this as the normal progression of me. After nearly 20 years of using computers for publishing and 11 years of computer support, I’m really ready to veer into something different.
Where my interests lie–increasingly–are in myth, archetype, and psychology. Transformative psychology mostly, but maybe organizational. I have doubts that I could make a successful career transition, though. Probably too hindered by my own bad-selftalk, to tell the truth. What kind of income would I find in this subject area? Probably not much…. And statistics absolutely terrifies me.
A course in either Transformative Psychology or even Transpersonal Psychology would indeed appear to be the most personally beneficial for you which will, without a doubt, enable you to free yourself from your own “bad-selftalk” shackles … working towards awakening personal awareness in the realm of intuition. .. many books are in the aether awaiting a channel.
On the other hand, Human Relations Departments are a growing area of necessity within many corporations over here and many Organisational Psychologists have gained full-time employment (and very highly paid) within these corporations although some remain as freelance consultants contracted to the company for specific purposes. Crowsie, have you ever thought of simply doing a degree in Human Resources and Industrial Relations if your interest is in Organisational Psychology since you are worried about future employment? This type of degree would help you with a career transition.
Today I discussed organizational and transformational psychology with some consultants who have been hired to try to change our corporate culture. I’ll be taking one or both of them to lunch in the next few weeks for more information.
There is an MBTI qualifying class and exam in a few weeks in my region. I’m planning on attending and mentioned this to one of the consultants. He had come to MBTI after his graduate degree in education; he admitted he has not yet tired of type talk.
I wonder if my background in government and information technology would be useful for moving into some kind of organizational psychology area?
On another note, I am getting control of my less helpful selftalk, but I find it requires constant vigilance. I wonder if Introverts have a greater tendency towards selftalk than Extraverts? It seems we have so much rattling round our skulls all the time.