- Constant immersion in ideas (good, bad, or indifferent) from the wide range of human experience
- Constant contact with people who also have constant contact with those ideas (meaning that one can actually converse with them instead of having to explain everything)
- A heightened appreciation for ever-subtler jokes (mostly puns – and then there is Bales, which is not a purely intellectual reference)
- Having the pleasure of talking about the stuff one enjoys every week while school is in session
- Related to that, the pleasure of having people pay attention to what one says (mostly)
- For those who tend towards the sadistic, there is the pleasure of wielding power embodied in the red pen
- Professors have .edu email addresses. That sort of email address can get lots of fees lowered.
- One can justify favorite books because “I’m doing research.” (provided one doesn’t have a mid-life crisis in the middle of a semester)
- One can justify having shelves and shelves of books – they’re one’s livelihood, after all
- One has access to ILL services!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Ten reasons to be in academia
I will post something educational-philosophically-related one of these days, but a conversation earlier today inspired the following list (not in order of importance, necessarily):
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Yay! the Hobbit is here!
ReplyDeleteGood list. I especially like the one about having shelves and shelves of books.
I know I overused and abused the ILL one.
ReplyDeleteThough on my side I disagree with #4
:-)
My favorite is #2.
ReplyDeleteI use something very similar to #8 now when I buy books - I always say, "It's for the children." It's usually more for me than for them, but at least I get to buy books. :-)
Re: #3: Just wait till our offspring starts punning. She's getting it from both sides. :-D
ReplyDeleteHuzzah for the power of the red pen. :-)
ReplyDelete