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Academia Wasn’t Meant For Me – #Postac Guest Post

By Karen Kelsky | February 5, 2021

Shared with permission.

Hi there,
I recognize that you probably receive many, many messages. I’m sure a lot of them come from trolls. I don’t really expect a reply. I mostly just wanted to send this someplace safe. I’m not currently in a position to be able to claim my voice because I haven’t (yet) found a new job outside of academia.
That said, I recently (finally?) have come to the realization that academia wasn’t built for me, and I decided to write about that.

Academia wasn’t built for me. That realization has changed my life.

I was the first person in my family to earn a graduate degree, and one of the first in my family to attend college at all. I do not come from a socioeconomically privileged background. Growing up, my family lived well below the federal poverty line, and my bachelor’s degree was funded by a Pell Grant. All that said, I recognize that I’m a relatively-privileged, white, cis-gendered woman with a master’s degree. Still, academia wasn’t built for me.

I have a disability. Among other things, I suffer from chronic pain that requires medication and consistent medical interventions including physical therapy, in-office procedures, and surgeries. It’s exhausting. I, frankly, don’t know the exact amount I’ve spent on healthcare since starting graduate school, but last year alone it was over $8,000 – after insurance. Of course, these appointments and recovery from the procedures take time as well. I joke that managing my healthcare is my part-time job. The truth in that comedy is that balancing a full-time job, writing a dissertation, and managing my healthcare is exhausting. It’s taken me a while, but I have finally realized that juggling all those things and maintaining work-life balance is impossible. Especially because academia wasn’t built for me.

Academia wasn’t built for people with disabilities. Just like it wasn’t build for women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ folks, or other non-white, non-cis, non-male individuals. I’ve been made to feel guilty for taking time off to work on my health and being firm about boundaries to protect my mental health (which only happened AFTER recovering from a mental health crisis).

For years I thought my failure to thrive in my doctoral program was a personal failure. I thought I was all talk and no substance. I thought I oversold and underdelivered on my potential. I thought I wasn’t strong enough or together enough to be successful. I thought if I knuckled down and pushed harder, I’d make it.

But I’ve come to the realization that the problem is not that I’m “not cut-out for academia.” The problem is academia isn’t inclusive, and it wasn’t built for me.

Instead of feeling like a failure, I’ll take my master’s degree and the marketable skills I’ve developed over the last 6 years in graduate school to a better-paying job that allows me to manage my health without spiraling deeper into debt.

Academia wasn’t built for me, and I’m moving on.

Similar Posts:

  • Ph.D. Poverty–Guest Post IV
  • On Selling Out: A Semi-Manifesto – Langer #postac post
  • “You’re so Lucky…” and the Job Market – An Anonymous Guest Post
  • A Provost Leaves Academia: A #Postac Post
  • Ph.D. Poverty–Guest Post I

Filed Under: Alt-University Critique, Goodbye Ivory Towers, Marginalized Voices, Ph.D. Poverty, Quitting--An Excellent Option

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Shhh says

    February 6, 2021 at 9:13 am

    Thank you for sharing this brave post. Spot on. I also have severe chronic illnesses and managed to complete my PhD – just barely.

    Reply
  2. just different says

    February 6, 2021 at 3:11 pm

    I wish “successful” academics–those for whom academia was designed–were more aware of just how bad the non-inclusiveness is and how much they themselves have benefitted from that. And I wish they would stop gaslighting us with the attitude that non-inclusiveness is the same thing as “competitiveness.”

    Academia _should_ be a meritocracy in the sense that rewards should be proportionate to talents. At the moment it’s nothing close to that. How well you fit into the system is a far better predictor of success than how talented you are, how committed you are, or how hard you work.

    Reply
  3. lb says

    February 7, 2021 at 8:29 am

    Wow.  Life is not easy.  Everyone gets their own set of cards to play with.  Yours are very, very similar to mine.  That being said, your choice was to not play the game. My choice was to play the game and not the “it” beat me.  It took me down a long windy, obstacle -filled road until I got my PhD.  Whining about how the system “wasn’t built for you”  and quitting does nothing to change the system.  It is changed by those who persevere despite the challenges and then do something to alter it…from the inside.

    Everyone has to decide what is right for them and graduate school is not for everybody.  But please…don’t whine.

    And I am sure that straight, white men *love* the fact that so many in our society hate them for biological facts that they did not choose.  Slightly ironic, isn’t it?

    Reply
    • kj says

      February 8, 2021 at 1:13 pm

      Those who are marginalized shouldn’t be expected to brute force their way into a system and change it from the inside. Instead, those on the inside who talk about inclusivity should also be willing to listen and understand some of the barriers that prevent entry for those who are different. Pointing out systemic issues that disproportionately impact marginalized members of society (i.e., exceptionally low pay during grad school/training and lack of adequate healthcare coverage) isn’t whining. OP didn’t express hate for straight, white men. she just stated the obvious about who benefits most from the way the academy is structured.

      Reply

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