why am i here?

As if I didn't already think to myself on a daily basis, "what am I doing here?," "why am I in grad school?," "why do I have to cite people?," "why do I have to research stuff I don't care about?," "why am I putting myself in debt, especially when there are no jobs out there?" A recent op-ed article in the New York Times had to reify all of my fears. Thank you. Thank you for highlighting how the university system is failing, how schools just pay poor graduate students measly stipends instead of paying professors. Thanks for telling me there are no jobs out there and I will be in debt for the rest of my life.

The article did make suggestions on how to overhaul the university system as we know it. Some of the suggestions are really great, such as eliminating tenure. Amen! I believe that tenure is the most awful concept ever. I have had some pretty crappy professors in my day and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Another suggestion was having problem focused curriculums instead of concrete departments. The article mentioned water as an example. Amen again. Why aren't we educating people about world issues and training them to tackle them?

...now, back to my wonderfully meaningful grad school homework