100 Reasons

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Monday, June 23, 2014

93. There is no getting ahead.

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Graduate school attracts highly ambitious people, despite the fact that academe is a terrible environment for highly ambitious people. How s...
146 comments:
Monday, January 13, 2014

92. There is a social cost.

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As you grow older, you begin to appreciate the value and rarity of genuine friendships. Graduate school is hard on friendships, and so is th...
289 comments:
Monday, September 9, 2013

91. Downward mobility is the norm.

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The term "downward mobility" describes the phenomenon of falling into a social class lower than the one into which you were born. ...
420 comments:
Monday, May 27, 2013

90. Virtually no one cares about what you are doing.

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In graduate school, you often feel alone because you often are alone, but also because no one cares about what you're doing. You spend ...
247 comments:
Monday, March 25, 2013

89. Virtually no one reads what you write.

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You are not paid for your academic writing (see Reason 88 ) because no one is willing to pay to read it. In fact, virtually no one is will...
247 comments:
Monday, January 21, 2013

88. You are not paid for what you write.

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You could argue that professors are paid to write, because they’re required to produce publications as a condition of their employment. But ...
174 comments:
Monday, November 12, 2012

87. The financial rewards are decreasing.

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No one working in academe will be surprised to learn that among the most common search-engine queries bringing readers to this blog are quer...
229 comments:
Monday, September 10, 2012

86. It is a state of being.

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Graduate school is not school in any sense that you have experienced school before (see Reason 47 ). Nor is it a job, although a job is ofte...
212 comments: