End of an Era, Start of an Epic

So here's a few words on the termination of studies for the PhD -

One, it's tough to find the right word for what this process is. Termination is really harsh. Cessation is much softer - and what was used in my emails to my supervisor and grad chair - but it's still not right. The closest approximation is "I have decided to not continue this course of study." "Quit" and "dropped" aren't even apt, at least in my mind. I remember reading the classic Matt Groening "School is Hell" way back when, and it had a cartoon for the grad school dropout. (If memory serves, they're supposed to be the saddest people on earth. There was also a note with it that said something like, "If it's not making sense, just read another book!") I don't feel that I'm dropping out; I feel that I achieved the metaphorical "ABD" (since there's no program or lambskin for that) and that this was probably what I came for.

"Brand" is another word, one that I used way back when as a Social Science rep for a preliminary session for discussion of either a new Dean for grad studies or a change in the program (I really can't remember which one). Simply put, there've been more and more reports about the dilution of PhD brand as more and more are produced, and that there's less and less positions for us to fill. Yeah, I know that scaremongering is easy, lazy reporting. But I also sat in on a lot of job hire functions (go for the juice and cookies, stay for the insight into the process) and came away with more and more questions. How was it that there were this many applicants for such specialized positions? How is it that we came up with these names out of so many in the stack? How is it that so many... underwhelming applicants (all unhired) made it onto the shortlist? Are the rest of the names in the long list this underwhelming, possessors of C.V. poison, or simply really, really unlucky? I've discussed them with lots of people since, and a lot of those questions remained for me. I can live with questions... but there's other words that influence things here.

"Expectations" is another word, to be perfectly mercenary and perfectly personal. I'm really not interested in trying for the big university life of academe. I like to teach, preferably at a high level. But I'm not interested in living anywhere other than near my family, and they're all in BC. BC does have more universities on the way - in a manner of speaking, depending on how all of them shape up - but it's not sure how the colleges are going to go. And, quite simply, such considerations are quite a few years away, even if I stayed the course. There's several more years of uncertainty to have to endure, and I've been unsettled for a few years. Heck, the trip to grad school was done because of uncertainty. I'd spent four years as a substitute teacher, and governance changes for BC's schools made it pretty unlikely that something would come up soon. Four years of subbing would burn most anyone out, and I was torched. Thankfully, the MA program was an excellent reboot, and the community of grad students that I was in was a fun and welcoming one. So... roll it over and give it a try.

"Try" is another word. The PhD program was, at times, challenging, tiring, exhausting, and reflective. I saw it, in a way, as the first stage in a career (albeit a pretty low-paying stage). Did anyone see Oronte Churm's blog post on archaeology back in July? The first stage (Days 1-2,190) sort of captures the feel. Instead of the whole "week's probation for a dishwashing gig," this was sort of like a decade's probation for an academic's gig. (Really, lecturer/seminar instructor would be the parts I'd be looking to do, but you have to take the whole gig on if you want to get anywhere with it.) And I've seen other people further along this process than I am. Some have done fabulously with it, and some... seem to have not. I suppose that's life, but it seems that there's fewer in the first position. (And to make it in the first position you've got to have a knack for grants, it seems - never one of my strong points.)

"Me," ultimately, is the final word to consider here. I just didn't see me in PhD anymore. (It probably doesn't help that the lyrics to the Beastie Boys' "Dr. Lee, PhD" are pretty garbled. How could you fail me like this now, pop culture?) I simply didn't want to be defined by what I did anymore - or, rather, what I was aspiring to do. I suppose there's many things I'll still be defined by, but that's neither here nor there, and having one less major definer will provide me with a better focus for my life as I live it. And it's fairly unlikely that I'd manage to purge the verbal tendencies that I've acquired over these past few years, so my students will likely continue to have to ask me to re-word questions that are phrased over their heads. (I remain unapologetic about that, except when my phrasing is tortured and incomplete. Except for in this post - some of these issues and words can only be approached poetically, even if it's bad poetry. As long as it's not as purple as the patriotic doggerel that J.V. introduced in seminar...)

So what can readers of this take? Well, take whatever you want. Even though most of the readers will be linked from my Facebook page - a pretty diverse crowd - I'm really only assuming that colleagues will have read this. For my colleagues, I don't think of this decision as the end of our collegiality (though I'd really rather just say that it's friendship). There's no way to excise the history, let alone historiography, from my thought patterns, and it's not as though I'm renouncing anyone here. We'll likely not run into each other at conferences now, though, but you're always welcome to come and visit, just as I hope to still be able to visit people in Ontario. (I'm sure that wine tourists will be the most likely visitors, naturally.) Your friendship, advice, help, and conviviality has been dearly appreciated over the years. I hope that the students I help at the high school level will be better prepared for the university courses in which you'll encounter them, or at least to act like decent, thoughtful citizens who don't take umbrage at the traditional list of "OMG the things these professors study on taxpayer money" titles at Congress time in June.

I nearly wrote earlier today that "It is with regret that I announce" this decision, but I quickly deleted that. I don't regret this decision, but it was not an easy decision to come to. It took a lot of thought and reflection for me to arrive at this point, but here it is. I remember a discussion with a friend in the teacher program at UBC about our future education options, and he argued that the key thing is to aim to be an intellectual rather than an academic if you're going on with further studies. That one always stayed with me. I'd like to think that I've started on that path, but I know that it's a lifetime of study. It might seem odd to some that this self-defined lifetime path is the better one than a five-to-seven year course of study, but it makes perfect sense to me.