I hopefully took my last written exam in December. I left the classroom feeling like I failed it. I did not answer one entire question. I only superficially answered the other questions. I cannot memorize key words like I used to. This was a key word class.
I ended up getting an A on the exam. I ended up getting an A in the class.
This last class typifies my whole academic career.
As an undergraduate and Masters student, I felt like I had an anonymous donor who paid professors to give me As. As a PhD student I just got by, but I always got by.
I have always been lucky. I have always been confused about what was really important. I learned a lot of bullshit in my years of classes, but I never learned confidence. I never learned to accept or face my limitations. I just kept getting by, easily at first, difficult at last, but I never learned the substance of life. I never learned that work and the ability to create were much more important than a written exam.
It is about time I started to learn.
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4 comments:
I know I've said this before but I'll say it again - academia teaches you nothing about life. When you really look at all that your professors have "accomplished" in life you realize they haven't done shit. Sure they might have published some papers that no one reads and been a part of the joke known as the Doha Round but have they really accomplished anything? No.
This, my friend, is why all of our colleagues will be taking terrible jobs at one and half star "universities" or shitty consulting jobs - they have nothing to offer of substance. I'm not saying that because I'm bitter, quite the opposite. What Gilles, Orden, and Kats can't teach you is how to innovate and we both know that's the difference between writing papers that are meaningless and being a cog in government handout machine and making changes like Dean Kamen.
Grades are meaningless, degrees are meaningless, and courses are meaningless. The difference between those that do and those that do not cannot be measured by written exams. Get out there and do something before it's too late.
No doubt that you are right. Now it is me finding the courage to create opportunities for myself.
I don't think it's that you never learned confidence. but I do think it's that you never allowed yourself to become an asshole about the profession - or about the academic lifestyle..
I had written a couple of other paragraphs in regard to this post but after re-reading them it was just a bunch of warbling.
but I will say this. don't become a savant -- in professional and philosophical terms.
and I can tell you that down the road when the shit hits the fan and the mortgage is due, the car's in the shop, the baby's crying and your wife has number 2 on the way, you won't give a goddamn about any fucking exam, or grade, or academic careers. But you for damn sure will know all that you need to know about the substance of life. and the importance of work. and especially the ability to provide. and you won't learn any of that from any book anywhere.
GGM
Ain't that the goddamn truth. I've learned more by being married the past 10 months than I ever did sitting in a classroom.
GGM - You really nailed it on this:
"...and especially the ability to provide."
That, my friends, is why academics fail the commonsense test almost every time - most have never punched a time clock or had to do without.
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