What They Tortoise

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

Joe wonders:
"I would have thought that I would have thoroughly enjoyed grad school, the
opportunity to teach at the university level, and then get tenure.
 
I envy those of you who had the finances to go on to grad school in spite
of bleak employment outlooks and admire those of you who didn't have the
finances but had the cojones to do it anyway.
 
So what is it about grad school that elicits such scorn?"

The student money issue and job market were not quite as pressing concerns
for me at the time.  I had enough money to just spring for out of state
tuition and enough money from the G.I. Bill to afford a place to live and
make a big lasagna that could last for a week.  (If I was feeling really
giddy, I could afford to buy a beer once a month.)  Then I got a 
assistentships and fellowships that actually allowed me live comparatively
well.  When I got married, my wife and I actually had the equivalent of
1 1/2 (low) incomes, which in relative terms was probably more plush
than I've lived until the last year or two.

The job boom of the '60s had gone into the dumpster by the time I got to
grad. school so I just walked in with my eyes open and said that this was
what I was going to do, and that if I couldn't get a job teaching I would
do something else.

Some of the courses were exhilerating, and I had three professors whom I still
regard as models of scholarship and teaching.  What alienated me, among other
things, was the utter arrogance (often abetted by incompetence) of some of
the other professors, as well as the various bureaucratic hoops to jump
through.  I was much more soured by the Teaching Assistant strike we had in
my final year, when within the English Department few of the "good" people
supported the TAs and some were downright weird.  (I think many were still
bearing burn marks from the "Troubles" on the Wisconsin campus of the 1960s.)
I was able to write my dissertation on TRP, but it was no surprise that my
director quit as soon as I was done (he being the department's Token Hippie)
and my wife's advisor took early retirement (she being the Token Feminist).

I often thought of the Mock Turtle recollecting his school subjects:
	"Reeling and Writhing."  and Mathematics: "Ambition, Distraction,
	Uglification, and Derision."

But overall I  was pretty lucky!

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)