Starting over in a new place....

[TakeruK]

The reality in my situation was "student-without-spouse can be here at all hours, so that student-with-family can go home."

 

Seriously, it was unfair.

 

It's nice to get some recognition that my adviser was, really, unfair in the decisions she made. In the past on this forum i've been told i was somehow an awful person for choosing to leave the program.

 

Wow, that's the worst combination. I know that sometimes, some profs expect international student (who wouldn't be able to travel home for the holidays) to stay in the lab and work during the break while students with families nearby are expected to go home and they're recognized for coming in (hasn't happened to me but I've seen it). I've only remember you describe a few events from your previous grad program (this one, the one where you were mocked for using 'isms', cat-sitting/scone-buying, and the anecdote about the keys) and all of them would point me to leave that program ASAP. Maybe I am missing something, but who would ever want to stay in a program like that?

 

Also, unless there is some extra hatred/tension or whatever between you and guy-with-wife, I think guy-with-wife did a crappy thing as well. Nothing unethical or illegal of course, just bad "sportsmanship" in my opinion. If my colleagues and I got a suggestion from a prof that we had to go get something unnecessary 3 hours of the way, we would have talked with each other to come up with some plan so that everyone benefits. We would probably all agree to not bother at all, or take a road trip together and make it fun, or one person would do it and share with the others (who would share in the cost too), and everyone else can return the favour at some other point in the future. I mean, maybe there is something that would make "guy-with-wife" unwilling to cooperate with you, but I think what he did was pretty crappy.

 

My philosophy is that even though academia is a competitive field, and while we should all strive for excellence ourselves, there is no need to deny our colleagues any assistance that doesn't represent a large cost to ourselves. It's not like guy-with-wife's project would have gone horribly if he had let us you use the magic-whatever-thingy when he wasn't using it or after he was done (or if he offered to pick up an extra magic-whatever-thingy if you had given him money for the thingy and the gas...and maybe take him and his wife out for lunch or whatever). After all, academia is a collaborative field and I view competition as a way of encouraging all of us to be our best so that all of our work is improved, not as a way for one person to be the best and "win".

[Loric]

Well.. yes.. and I agree.. but..

 

In the arts it's hard to convince people of the greater good. I'm not even sure they believe in it as a concept. I mean, they may recognize it and even extoll the virtues for a particular project, but often the concept of just doing with the greater good as the goal just doesn't happen all that often. It's not that I think the sciences or anything really do any better morally, but it's harder to justify a frilly art project as being less about ego and more for the "greater good" than it is for cancer research or something. I'm sure we all know someone who obviously ego driven but works in a "vital" field.

 

So when you walk into that sort of field and you are trying to work your way to the top, you sort of accept that you're going to have to make a few compromises. The number and extent of which is really what you try to curb, but you're not coming out of it unscathed if you have any rational shot at succeeding.

 

And, like with sports, for one to win - someone else has to lose. Funding is finite, audiences are finite, expendable income is finite. You have to beat someone else to succeed in the business. The school I went to seemingly drafted in pairs the year I attended with just that mentality in mind. The prior two years of admission in my area had quit.. so they had slots, but with the way the tract was laid out, there would only be full support for one person in the final year (3 year program if i recall properly.) We're talking number of opportunities, venues, etc.. Things that couldnt be fudged to really accommodate a second person.

 

So they drafted two people. I was offered a job, a nice stipend, and a tuition waiver. I was practically getting paid to go to school - in the arts.

 

And likely as much as you, if not more so, early on I was questioning what on earth was going on and why I was encountering this treatment. I'd been in the field for nearly a decade by this point - I didnt start in college. After one particularly brutal critique I had another student come up to me (classes are mixed from the various emphasizes and also include upper level undergrads sometimes - so there were other people) and say "Stop." and I'm like "What?" and she - the only person who is still my facebook friend from that school - told me to stop stressing out and that my project was good, in fact, better than everyone elses. I was like "Gee, thanks, but they tore me a new one."

 

But she insisted - "They're only hard on you because they expect more from you. They're aren't getting any flesh to tear into or any theory to debate from anyone else, so they go after you. Did you see how bored she was during guy-with-wife's presentation? It was awful, what could she say that wasn't just snarky and mean?"  And since leaving, the more and more it has become apparent through various channels that between myself and guy-with-wife.. I was the one they expected to "win" and they didn't expect me to leave, rebel, anything.. at all. They really thought I was being groomed by all that nonsense.

 

This little scene always comes to mind when I think about my past.. http://www.hulu.com/watch/13046

 

For years and years I'd have killed to be on the "right" side of that little lecture. To be in the room and one of the people waxing poetically about some "high art" ideal that some commoner just didn't get. It suited me, it suited my ego. But now I watch it and I see just how cruel and degrading it is, and I try really hard to not be that like that. I don't always succeed, but I want to make learning about the ideas more accessible because I do think it'd benefit the "greater good." It's part of why I've now chosen to go back to grad school.

 

So.. here's hoping I get to start over in a new place.

[TakeruK]

Like you said, I don't think it makes sense to say that cutthroat competition/collegial collaboration exists only in one field or another. It's just human nature to compete (or to collaborate, or both), and we will find humans being humans everywhere. 

 

I agree also that resources are limited, whether they be funding, audiences, time, whatever. We have no choice but to compete. Right now, I am working on finishing a paper that I know another group is also working on. One of us will finish first and "scoop" the other--for one of us to succeed, the other will "fail". I think it's funny that science is all about replication yet few journals will accept a paper that repeats another person's results! So, despite all of my generosity displayed above in helping out others, I'm not going to be emailing our competitors and letting them know how far we are along etc. At the same time, I'm not going to go and purposely sabotage their work or present incomplete results just to be first. I think there is a lot of ethical gray zones in academia (like any profession, really) and for me, I know where my limits are and I try to do what I'm comfortable with. If it turns out that success in academia will only come to those who are cutthroat competitive, then so be it, I'll have to find something else, or be okay with "losing". 

 

I think the "pair up students and see who is better" strategy is super crappy though, and it might not always be effective--a better qualified student might end up leaving. But some would argue that the better qualified student has thicker skin, can "handle it" etc. However, I don't see why this needs to be a pre-requisite for being a researcher and I would argue that we should seek a more secure and supportive work environment. The "macho" old days are history! In my field, programs that "groom" students like that are going out of fashion (but they still exist unfortunately). I don't know if it is the norm for yours still!

 

About the Devil Wears Prada clip...when I saw that part I thought they were just making a mockery/caricature of what fashion people are like the same way the character of Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory is a caricature as well. I didn't know people actually acted like that or that anyone thought it would actually be acceptable to act like that! Hopefully your future experience will be better.

[CageFree]

The reality in my situation was "student-without-spouse can be here at all hours, so that student-with-family can go home."

 

Seriously, it was unfair.

 

It's nice to get some recognition that my adviser was, really, unfair in the decisions she made. In the past on this forum i've been told i was somehow an awful person for choosing to leave the program.

 

 

That shit happens in the workplace too. I took a "corporate" job after college, and had a coworker with the same job description who was married with kids. She often had to leave early (doctor, PTA/teacher, games, etc.), and I was left doing her work, often working unpaid overtime. Guess who got promoted? The person who would go to the manager's office and share stories about their kids while I was picking up the slack. I was told I was "too young" to be promoted, even though I did more work and did it better. I quit not too long afterwards.4

 

For what it's worth, it sounds like you did the right thing in leaving.