25 Lessons From Grad School That Weren’t (Totally) True

Source: PhD Comics

Halfway through my second-year on the tenure-track, I see that I am faced with another important moment in shaping my career.  Though I effectively proved that I am an independent scholar through the grueling process of completing a dissertation, I still face the challenge of defining my career for myself.  The training wheels are off.  It seems, however, that the task of professional self-definition is a more salient and intense process for me because I intend to carve out my own path — one that prioritizes difference-making, health, happiness, and authenticity.

Just after one year in my job, I have stumbled across lessons I learned in graduate school that were exaggerated, completely false, or overly-simplistic.  It appears one necessary step of my journey toward a self-defined career as a teacher-scholar-advocate is to unlearn, or at least contexualize, such lessons.  Here are 25 lessons that I have identified as problematic or untrue.

1. The only fulfilling career path in academia is a tenure-track (and eventually tenured) faculty position at a research I university.
2. One goes where the job is.  Period.
3. All new (qualified) PhDs get (and want) tenure-track jobs.
4. People who do not complete graduate school are weak, stupid, or uncommitted.
5. You must attend the big, national, and/or mainstream conference in your discipline in order to succeed.
6. Academia and activism do not mix.
7. Service should be avoided, and never includes community service.
8. One only becomes relevant through publishing a lot in the top journal of one’s field.
9. Teaching is not as important as research.  Really, we do it just to get paid.
10. Academia is an equal opportunity institution.
11. Higher education is filled with liberal-minded, social justice-oriented people.
12. Objectivity exists and is the ideal approach for research and teaching.
13. The rankings of universities are an ideal indicator for quality of training.
14. Quantitative methods are better than qualitative methods.  Can the latter even be trusted?
15. One should wait until they are an “expert” to blog or advance other forms of public scholarship.
16. Homophobia no longer exists in academia.
17. Black people are more likely than white people to get tenure-track jobs — because they’re Black.
18. Graduate programs are concerned with the health and well-being of their students.
19. If you do not love graduate school, you will hate being a professor.
20. Race, gender, and sexuality are narrow areas of research.
21. Peer-review is 100% anonymous.
22. No one will get mad at you for blogging.
23. Breaks during the academic year are just opportunities to get ahead on research.
24. Grad students’ opinions matter in the major functions of the department.
25. Sexual harassment does not occur in academia.