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Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

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Re: Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

#111

Post by disqard »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #41
0xEF wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the need to point out that it's not difficult for people whose identity is not centered around their jobs, since I see that disconnect in the comments. I found the author's take full of the pageantry that I often associate with people who make big deals out of fairly inconsequential things, but before I begrudge the author their take, I have to remember that my career is of relatively little importance to me.…

In the 19th century you had the same job for life. If you were a blacksmith you stayed a blacksmith and died a blacksmith in the village where you were born. Your surname was synonymous with your skill. Wheeler. Smith. Potter. Even in the mid 20th century people worked for the same company for life. The "corporate" (body) world meant something very different than today. The corporation took care of you. It paid for y…

IMHO, this is one of the most "wise" replies on this thread. I personally experienced that "reality of academic life", with my own (now abandoned) Ph.D journey.

It's worth calling out how recent (and US-centric) it is, to strongly invest one's work with one's entire reason for being. Derek Thompson termed it "workism":

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...

I appreciate the extra nuance you added, about the "where and with whom they do it". I can personally attest to the importance of work colleagues and environment, over the work itself. The former can make up for the latter, but rarely (if ever) the other way around.

Re: Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

#112

Post by gowld »

greener_grass wrote: post #19
bowsamic wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving academia is like this. It's very sticky and scary to leave. I remember how devastating it was for me. I think it's because there's a very strong sense of a missed dream, and that you can never return.

Out of curiosity, why can't you return?

Academia is a guild. There are far more people who want the job that can get it, and has very strong employment protections for members. They don't welcome outsiders anyhere except the bottom of ladder.

Re: Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

#113

Post by voxgen »

Aurornis wrote: post #50
voxgen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen similar reactions and I can't help but think she's intentionally communicating provocatively to make people engage their brains. You shouldn't just "take her seriously", you should take what she says *critically*. Hear the information and opinions, then decide for yourself whether to accept them.

> Hear the information and opinions, then decide for yourself whether to accept them. This sounds awfully similar to the “do your own research” defense that is often used as a cop-out disclaimer for quackery topics. When someone presents themselves as an expert on a topic and invests a lot of time into making convincing videos about their beliefs, defending them with a “do your own research” feels like a tacit admiss…

The difference is sources. Sabine shows her sources prominently on screen, with searchable citations to find the original. She makes it clear in her phrasing whether she's paraphrasing a source, or passing her own judgement.

It's easy to know whether to internalize what she says when you view it critically. Ask "does the presented research seem legit, complete, and impartial?" and "is her conclusion logical?". She gives you the receipts to check. This is not the same as deciding whether to put blind faith into a comedian's off-the-cuff anecdotes and opinions.

I often disagree with her conclusions, but at least she makes it very easy to validate her chain of though, find where our views diverge, and only absorb the information I trust.

Re: Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

#114

Post by muffinman26 »

mynameisash wrote: post #109
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't regret skipping college graduation and I barely remember high school graduation I do regret that I didn't join any clubs in college until my last semester, and that I didn't make the kind of friendships I wanted

> I do regret that I didn't join any clubs in college until my last semester, and that I didn't make the kind of friendships I wanted As a parent of teenagers, I struggle with how the hell to convey this to my kids. They are so engrossed in YouTube, stupid memes, and games that they don't join any clubs or sports at school; they don't seek out IRL activities; and my 17 year old has no interest in getting his driver's…

Have you modeled to them how to make and develop friendships? Have you tried asking them what they've tried to do to make friends?

Limiting negative stimuli isn't enough for people to automatically replace it with good stimuli. It's the same struggle as leaving an abusive relationship or toxic job. People can know something is bad, but they're much less likely to leave a bad situation if they can't imagine what the better alternative is.

For example, my Dad is terrible at making friends. His co-workers and acquaintances like him, but most of the time his only significant relationship is with his spouse and his kids. My mom was great at making friends and finding community, but her ways of relating to people seemed inaccessible and indecipherable to me as a guy.

I did and do go to clubs of various sorts, but it's a real struggle to figure out how to turn those casual acquaintances into meaningful, reciprocal friendships. As soon as I had my own struggles or wasn't obsessively invested in the club, those friendships vanished overnight. I don't know any good books or resources to learn the skill of making friends. I can definitely see how someone who had more mental health struggles or was less extroverted than I who struggled to make friends in these situations would give up on trying.

Re: Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

#115

Post by voxgen »

evilduck wrote: post #72
voxgen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen similar reactions and I can't help but think she's intentionally communicating provocatively to make people engage their brains. You shouldn't just "take her seriously", you should take what she says *critically*. Hear the information and opinions, then decide for yourself whether to accept them.

Her channel has strayed far beyond the topics she has credibility in. A physics academic talking about AI, sociology, and politics… why should I care? Even of the physics topics that she does cover it’s all “pop-sci” news coverage stuff, she’s not even using her actual depth of knowledge to make videos that are different than the layman takes from dozens of other YouTubers. Someone speaking provocatively and authorit…

> Her channel has strayed far beyond the topics she has credibility in.

I appreciate that she makes her videos so easily verifiable, by prominently showing her research, that it was easy to see the point when this started happening and tune out. A lot of opinion-faucets on the internet try to be irrefutable by hiding their sources.

I don't trust Sabine intrinsically, but I trust that I can notice when she under-researches a topic or makes a leap of logic. She conveys enough good information that I find it worth my time to watch.

Re: Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

#116

Post by hirvi74 »

ryukoposting wrote: post #58

> We create meaning around the stress and soften transitions with rituals and rites of passage. I graduated into the height of the pandemic, so I never had a graduation ceremony. Instead, they played a shitty video presentation over Zoom and my parents cracked open a beer and watched it on TV. By the time I got invited back for a ceremony, I had already moved hundreds of miles away from my university. Obviously, I tu…

I skipped mine. Graduating college was not something that I was necessarily proud of. I wouldn't dare try to take that feeling away from someone else though. For me? College was just an obstacle -- a chore -- that was just a step in a much longer journey.

Re: Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

#117

Post by einsteinx2 »

CheddarB0b42 wrote: post #98
contrarian1234 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is generally true and the generalization is actively hurtful. Promoting a skewed/miserable perspective on academia. It all depends on the institution, your funding situation, your field etc. The miserable academics are the ones that moan the loudest. There is often an online circlejerk of whining academics that wind themselves up (esp PhD students). Also the ones that are barely scrapping by are th…

"Complainants and their critiques can be safely discarded because they need to git gud." She states in the first three minutes of the video linked above that she was excelling academically. How bizarre to observe a lack of research in a thread complaining about how the academy has drifted from the conduct of pure research. Three minutes. One hundred twenty seconds. That's all it would have taken.

I think you meant “one hundred eighty seconds” ;)

Sorry for being pedantic. I just thought it was funny in the context of a thread about PHDs.

Re: Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

#119

Post by justsomehnguy »

ryukoposting wrote: post #58

> We create meaning around the stress and soften transitions with rituals and rites of passage. I graduated into the height of the pandemic, so I never had a graduation ceremony. Instead, they played a shitty video presentation over Zoom and my parents cracked open a beer and watched it on TV. By the time I got invited back for a ceremony, I had already moved hundreds of miles away from my university. Obviously, I tu…

> I sometimes wonder if I'll regret that choice later on down the line.

How many people regret not buying a high school ring?

Re: Mourning and moving on: rituals for leaving a career (2014)

#120

Post by iamleppert »

imwillofficial wrote: post #73

Holding a wake for one’s career and inviting people strikes me ad incredibly narcissistic.

I'm sure the author (in addition to this blog post) posted some trite little post on LinkedIn with a photo of a vista or something. We live in a golden age of narcissism.
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