Who is the Academic?
Surrounded by books, crouched over a microscope, presenting thoughts in front of a lecture hall. Who is the Academic and what is their place in today’s society? I am haunted by these thoughts as I am doing the last proofreading an an academic article, soon to be published in a journal. I wonder how many people will read it apart from the reviewers and a handful of people around the world interested in that specific topic that I am discussing. These are questions that I have been confronted with since my PhD graduation a couple of years ago. On that day, dressed in the doctoral gown I was told ‘You will wear this at every university graduation you will attend from now and on.’
The assumption obviously was that I would strive for a position at a university, despite the knowledge that this will be almost impossible. It really is a noble idea that despite academia rejecting you, you will continue to strive for a position within the institution, you will go hungry for your research and you will go homeless for academic excellence.
It might seem a bit dramatic but this is the reality for many PhDs who graduate and are caught in this narrative that expects them to make great sacrifices in order to maybe one day have a permanent position at a university. Yes, there are some that will. But not most. Most will go from maternity leave cover to zero hour contracts for years, they will run reading groups and seminars for free, they will make sacrifices on heating in order to attend a conference and they will write article after article with the hope that their CV will look good enough one day.
A year was all that I could give that life. The misery of the rejections led to my most unproductive months in years. I wasn’t writing or reading – instead I was obsessing over application and job interviews. I was depressed, anxious and I was quickly losing hope. I had passed my viva without corrections, I was continuously told that I was good at what I was doing, yet I could not find a job.
When finances became a massive issue, I decided to pursue teaching. I found a job as a Teaching Assistant in order to gain the relevant experience and I then applied to do my Initial Teacher Training. While I was settling in with my decision and I started feeling positive about things, the response from the academic world was negative. I felt that people were feeling sorry for me, that they thought I wasn’t strong enough to continue fighting for a university position. I started hiding my title and I decided that I would dedicate myself towards becoming a teacher and that I was no longer an academic.
Since then, I came to realise how wrong I was. An Academic in today’s society is not just the one in university halls. Being an Academic is a way of thinking and a way of approaching things. When you do a PhD, you change the way you see the world, you achieve a high level of critical thinking that remains with you in everything you do. While a university affiliation can be extremely helpful, research can be done without it, people can publish without it and write books without it. I have since embraced this idea of the contemporary academic. I am content with my teaching because I am where I am needed. And I am content with my research because I write and I research when I want to, at my own pace and without my job being on the line.
I guess the whole point is that there is not one type of Academic and not one way of doing research. So to you my friends surrounded by books, crouched over a microscope, presenting in lecture halls and to you my friends in primary and secondary schools, attending conferences during half term breaks and to you my friends juggling administrative positions and writing academic articles. And to you my friends who are still striving for a position at a university.