The Transient Nature of Academia

Yesterday, while driving up to Ipswich to spend the day at Crane beach and watch the see the annual July 3rd Fireworks, a group of us gabbed about the transient nature of being an academic.

Living from place to place, moving until you are in your late 30s, an academic is expected to travel and see the world. You live in various places; experience the day to day hustle of different cities, towns and often countries. You absorb the local customs, the ideas, the history. You attempt to form relationships with coworkers ... but in the end it's all very transient.

I've made many good friends throughout the years in Montreal, New York and now Boston ... but as I moved on, so did they, to Princeton, Seattle, Pasadena, and Tokyo. Soon others will be heading off to Berkeley, Boulder, and Paris.

And why all this restless movement?

We've been told that this is good for us. And it's not only in academia, but it is currently the dominant ideology. Workers must travel. Workers must move to where they have a comparative advantage. Academics can't settle down or else they may become sedentary. They must be challenged and they must learn. Go out and explore.

And so, my wife and I are bound to travel the world, never being able to settle down in one spot, never being able to become members of a long lasting community. We've made many great friends, only to see them move away.

And what humans' need, acording to some, is the very thing we don't have, stability. People thrive when they can form long lasting bonds. Sure things are not so difficult in the age of information, where communication is simple and easy and accessible to all. But will I ever again be able to spend an afternoon sitting on the beach, under an incredible blue sky, sipping wine, playing a game of beach soccer, and just shooting the breeze with these same dozen individuals?
i-6e7eb0c49f126694a7b50dab84855e5c-lab1.jpg

Of all my encounters, I have to say that academics are always the most open welcoming, unpretentious and fun-loving people. I use to think that it was because as academics, we love life; so much so that we have sacrificed much in order to immerse ourselves in its intricate details. In some ways our devotion to studying the world is more holy, than any religious ritual. We are interested in everything and our dedication to the natural world is a reflection of our reverence towards it.

I still believe that this attitude plays a great part in forming the easy going and open attitude that exists in many academic circles. But I do believe that the transient nature of our profession has also shaped us; we are the lonely career, cursed to travel the world as hard working mercenaries ... and as our paths meet we academics feel a sense of solidarity towards each other.

We are alone together.

Tags

More like this

I'm in Italy. Until I get back I've set up my blog to repost some old entries. Here's a post from last year. Yesterday, while driving up to Ipswich to spend the day at Crane beach and watch the see the annual July 3rd Fireworks, a group of us gabbed about the transient nature of being an academic…
This: Is a picture of Phoenix landing on Mars, taken from above. One always wonders where the camera operator is during these things.... PASADENA, Calif. -- A telescopic camera in orbit around Mars caught a view of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute during the lander's…
ScienceBloggers meet in the three-dimensional world: (from left) Janet Stemwedel, John Lynch, Prof. Steve Steve, John Wilkins, David Ng, Ben Cohen. I managed to get back home last night from the PSA meeting in Vancouver, although just barely. My co-symposiasts got a rental car and headed off to…
OK this will hopefully be my last entry on the election - From Seed's endorsement of Obama to the comments of various bloggers on ScienceBlogs and elsewhere it is obvious where most scientists stand on the political spectrum, but why? Yes, it is true that most scientists I know are lefties when…

Precisely. And that's why after 3 post-docs and 1 tenure track position that failed after 6 years because the university decided that my field wasn't a priority for them anymore, I quit academia and became (oh no!) a bureaucrat (science policy). I've now been married for 27 years, lived in the same house for 19 years, and find life just great. (I did really hate the night runs.)

Academia isn't for everyone, and please don't sneer at those of us who have decided that there are better ways to live.

Cheers, and good luck (no sarcasm intended) to those who disagree.

This has always been a tough one for me. I came from a family that always stayed in the house and took its vacations in front of the TV set. Although I hated the inertia of my home, I internalized it enough to live for 17 years in the first city to which I moved after I left there -- a place I never really liked. In some ways, stability feels like slow torture to me.

On the other hand, I've also had the wonderful experience of living in the small Midwestern city I'm convinced I was supposed to be from, for 13 all-too-short years. My husband and I, both mid-life re-treads, had to move away from there for what will probably be a short career-building stop. Part of me never wants to live in the same place for more than two years again, and part of me wants to have another back yard with another butterfly garden and another close-knit circle of wonderfully eccentric friends. All very difficult right now ....

Of course, perhaps that just means that we chose the right fields to be in. :-)

Andreas,

No sneering here, we're all trying to make the best of it. I just wonder whether it has to be this way ...

Julie,

I too love to explore, different places, different people, new things to see & do. I agree, I love and hate this Globe trotting life. Good luck, I hope that you'll end up in the right place.