21 February 2012
Academiology 101
Don't have a degree? Don't worry about it.
Doubtless you, like I, know a whole lot of people who have spent or are spending a whole lot of time in school. And maybe you, like I, find this depressing, bewildering, and/or intimidating depending on the school or the person. But I am doing my best to get over it, and I urge you to do the same.
Schools of all kinds are businesses, and it's much better business practice to broaden rather than limit your clientele. With the exception of a few very prestigious places, most schools need lots of paying students. The best way to get paying students is to make it easier to go to school: have classes at odd hours, eliminate requirements of locality, help students get money from places other than the school, appeal to popular interests, generate perceived needs for new areas of "study," and make sure academic requirements aren't too hard.
So here is what it necessarily means that a person has some degree: she had the time and money to get it. It does not mean that she is smarter or harder working than someone who doesn't have that degree or its equivalent.
All disciplines uncharacterized by empirical, quantitative skills and requirements have become so inundated with mumbo-jumbo that it is very common for inarticulate persons with little analytical ability and a basic lack of knowledge to fulfill the requirements for a degree. Inarticulate and unknowledgeable people even advance to the highest levels of these disciplines. A guy who can fix a car gave his brain more of a workout acquiring that expertise than someone who majored in communications. The diploma is not always to the smart, nor yet favour to men of skill. The diploma is at the bottom of a box in my attic (I think). If you don't have one, I admire you for seeing through the vanity that is the academy. I was too stupid. A fool and her time and money are soon parted.
Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. The academy can look very appealing, but its main reward is the esteem of men. And what's that worth?
And about that classmate of your husband who's back at the seminary (or wherever) for graduate work: time and money. Time and money. That's all it [necessarily] means. Every non-academiologist husband deserves a big old thanks today and every day for not asking his family to sacrifice any more, even though he could, even though he IS smart enough. If the clergy shortage is a tall tale, an academiologist shortage is downright phantasmagorical. Most parishes can't afford to give a raise for an advanced degree anyway.
(I am indebted to my reverend brother for the apt term "academiology".)
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14 comments:
>>an academiologist shortage is downright phantasmagorical<< Just ask anyone who's trying to find a college/grad teaching position...
And seriously, it's to the point where I'm almost embarrassed about my diplomas. And even more embarrassed that I used to kinda feel like they were some kind of "proof" that it was OK for me to be a SAHM. Oh, how many other things (including charity) I should rather have majored in.
Off to go thank my husband (again) :D.
Good reminder! Thanks! (And it lets my conscience off the hook when people ask me how we will pay for college for "all those children"=)
Though I still sometimes smart (hahahaha!) at the prestigious pieces of paper some of my peers are still collecting, my vanity piqued: "I COULD HAVE DONE THAT, TOO (and probably better than you!)" ... I'm finally starting to realize how little those degrees are worth in the ways that most lives are shaped. Would I trade my children, my wonderful, wonderful husband, for a chance to go back to school and, I guess, change the world? What, one individual at a time... which is what I'm already doing in my own family? (God help me.) I too was soon parted from lots of time and money a few years back for several degrees, and though what's done is done, I can at least teach my children that pursuit of knowledge and excellence and character and Truth is NOT directly tied to how long they spend at institutions designed to capture their time and money.
But ladies, remember your husbands do find some delight that they married women who do have smarts and have a bunch of letters after the last name you took from them.
It makes us look smart.
Bemoaning a degree in a box in an attic is fine. Being able to stay at home and raise the blessings we've birthed is a gift. In order for me to have that gift my spouse is using his degree. If my spouse were suddenly taken, God forbid, I would need to use my degree to support these blessings. That degree isn't really my insurance, although it could be construed that way. I do think that the knowledge bank and world view I refined during my college and graduate schools years did prepare me to be the Mom, church worker, citizen that best allows me to try, mightly, to be a little Christ in my tiny neck of the woods.
Anon--Ah, now, a (potentially) USEFUL degree is a whole different ball of wax than the academiological kind. :D
And you make a worthy point about the worldview/knowledge base refinement that can indeed happen for good students in good settings. (If only it were always so. And were less expensively so ;P)
I second your message, Rebekah, and I know there are plenty like me who went to college simply ebcause it was expected of them. When I graduated high school, I had three choices: college, get married, or join the army. I didn't want to join the army and at the time no one wanted to marry me, so. . . .
This is the kind of post that makes me respect you all the more.
Love,
a girl with no letters after her name
RM, how well I remember writing my "why you should admit me" paper to CSL. Obviously the only right answer was about how my gifts were so spectacular it would be bad stewardship not to give them a degree, but even at that foggy time of my life I was flat-out embarrassed to write it in the clear sight of all the other gazillions of people of varying levels of giftitude who had been admitted to the same program.
Anon, the attic diploma of which I was thinking is the one that says "Master of" something completely useless. It is not insurance of any kind. I also did not say women should not pursue degrees. But they should think even more carefully than men about debt slavery before they start. I do have an insurance-type degree; if (God forbid) I should ever need to pursue employment, I would almost certainly not use it. It is an education degree with LTD. I have encountered few more exploitative and unreliable employers than Lutheran schools (turns out "stewardship" and "ministry" cut both ways) and I would not risk tying provision for my children to one of them if I could help it. I also do not begin to imagine that my alma mater would find me a placement. I am actively crabby on this point, if you will indulge me.
Rev BTB, you dear man, not all of us had those letters before we were marrried, and not all of us got letters which deserve any pride. :( FWIW, my dear friends who do not have extra letters feel disrespected and belittled by the pride of husbands in such things. As I've said before: a bonus we can't earn.
Rebekah - "I have encountered few more exploitative and unreliable employers than Lutheran schools". Yup. That's exactly what I got out of the three years I gave them of my life that I'll never get back. I also carry quite a bit of that bitterness - I mean, active crabbiness - that you do. :)
I was supposed to be a DCE. I had to change programs once I had some wonderful theological training from faithful profs/pastors. I had already met the man that was to be my husband and chose him over a worthwhile degree. I am now one of millions with the idiotic "communications" degree. My husband is my backup plan. Beyond that is providence from God.
I'm very thankful for the initials next to my name. They are MRS. I've been in practice since 1975. Great post.
diplomas plural?
Diplmas - plural? You made that known - great. Don't be so hard on yourself. Hey, I met my wonderful hubby while getting my
BS.
Amen.
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