Too cynical for academia?

[Cumberlandgap]

I think I’ve had it with academia. I’m in a particularly dysfunctional department so my view is skewed but I hate the competitiveness. I also hate how ‘delighted’ everyone always is ……Delighted to be presenting at x conference, delighted to be chosen for x

I also hate the continued monetisation of education. Everything is about bloody metrics because good metrics means more money…

We are under pressure to award ‘good grades’…Basically grade inflation.

I’ve had it I think. I came to HE 15 years ago thinking it was a fantastic place to be but it’s really not. I can’t play the ‘delighted’ game and I can’t award 2:1s to average students who would have scraped a third 20 years ago.

I suspect you are very much a black cloud in your department and amongst your students.

So do yourself and everyone else a favour and Jack it in

Ha ha! If only you knew. Thanks for your helpful response though. Do you work in university yourself?

The most surprising thing about your post is that you’re under pressure to give good grades. I’m under constant pressure from SLT to reduce our overall grades as they are so twitched about grade inflation.

if you’re not enjoying it leave but I find it fine doing a good job without getting involved in the peripheral stuff. I don’t go to conferences, I don’t do research, I barely bother with school meetings.

Btw…I get on well with the students. Teaching them is the best part of the job. It’s the university structures and utter ruthlessness of colleagues that disenchantments me.

Seven years ago I started a job at a uni (from global corp). I knew it was a mistake within two weeks. I delivered my project and bailed six months later. Back to global corp and you couldn’t pay me enough to enter HE now.

Some observations:
Self-aggrandising language
Talking a lot, saying very little
Very narrow-minded, felt really stifling and in a bubble
Constant talk about D&I, but big tokenism and elitism in practice

It was like being surrounded by strutting pigeons with very high opinions of themselves. And they constantly bash the corp world, which I found hilarious as most of them have never had a corp job.

😆😆😆

Very well put I can relate 100%. Loving the 🐦analogy.

It's a pathetic shit show.

OP, YANBU. Get out and get yourself a job with professional people.

Not an academic, but worked in a professional services role in a faculty for 10 years, and had to work closely with teaching and research staff. I totally understand where you are coming from. The culture in our Uni felt toxic and it made me increasingly depressed. I left the sector completely 18 months ago and I've never looked back.

Honestly, in your position I would look at your marketable skills and consider a career outside of HE. IMO the HE sector in the U.K. is unsustainable in it's current form and I'm almost certain some Unis will be at the point of bankruptcy before long. Not a bad time to consider your options and make a move....

Thanks. I do need to consider my options.

the pigeon analogy made me laugh.

Might it be worth trying to move to a different university/department if you love teaching?
I'm a teaching fellow in a very mixed department and despite the poor employment conditions for many of us, (and the current massive pile of marking) I love it. Some collegiate departments do exist!
Otherwise, yeah, you will have masses of transferable skills and a career change might be fun. I switched from a civil service role to this in my 30s and a change is a good thing.

I think the most tiring thing in HE is the exhortation to be 'passionate' about everything.

Quite honestly I don't feel passionate about any part of my role as an academic. I quite like bits of it and there's others I can't stand but most of it lies in the 'meh' category. I work as hard as I can in the hours I'm given because if I do more I make myself unwell and I'm limping towards retirement

@AlyssumandHelianthus I'm also a Teaching Fellow and really struggling with the isolation. If I didn't see students - I would never speak to anyone. I am the only TF in my subdept. Do you have colleagues that you regularly interact with? I just don't know what is normal.

I have a supportive circle in my department. We all feel a bit disillusioned. I don’t think the toxicity of my department helps though! Everybody is very competitive, fake ‘super enthusiastic’ and desperate for accolades. There’s a lot of favouritism and bullying.

I could probably cope with the challenges of HE if I was in a supportive team.

I know what you mean OP. I worked in academia for 10 years and am so glad that I left. It takes a little adjusting, but I'm so much happier now.

I remember reading somewhere that scientists tend to score highly on narcissism. I'm not sure whether academia creates narcissists, or whether narcissists are drawn to academia, but it certainly seemed a pretty common trait, particularly amongst the men I came across while working in academia.

Actually I think most academics who enjoy the job are rather cynical. One can enjoy components such as teaching, research, etc, but these are embedded in So. Much. Crap. I think only the political animals in my School enjoy the job as a whole. Maybe also people who ate cynical enough to ignore the work they don’t care about - eg , @QuintanaRoo may be in a teaching focused post, but if she is not, then she is demonstrating this approach by simply writing off research. It’s a thought, unless it will get you made redundant.

I feel very similar to you, OP.
In my own department, I felt that there was a much more critical attitude to management when I arrived (10 years ago) than there is now. And it's mostly the same people around so it's not a matter of generational change. 10 years ago people treated metrics and other management impositions as something you needed to engage in to appease the gods, but which were largely bullshit.
Now, people do genuinely believe that if recruitment numbers, student satisfaction rates or grant capture figures dwindle for a year or two, it's not a temporary blip or a combination of multiple factors, but rather a reflection that there's something we are not doing right and we should punish ourselves and try to be better.
Not sure if my experience is unique, but I think lockdowns have a lot to answer for - in the past, there were opportunities to informally talk to colleagues in corridors or by the photocopier after a meeting, say "all of this was a load of bullshit wasn't it". Even after lockdowns were lifted people are largely working from home and only turning up to teach.
Also the fact that in the last few years management has aligned itself with the "good" causes: EDI, mental health, etc. So critique of management can sometimes be easily interpreted as someone not caring about EDI or mental health, which in thee current university is akin to career suicide.

I agree with the distaste for the humblebragging on Twitter, especially in the forms "I am honoured/humbled to have received prize X or amazingly big fellowship Y". If I ever manage to obtains something similar, I'll just own it. Or not post about it at all as it's a little bit distasteful, imho.

My direct line manager tends to send out 'be kind' messages, while at the same time not being kind behind the scenes. My job is still great, but it does feel like the fun bits (conferences, freedom to handle things as you see fit, summer for research) is steadily eroded. But that could just be my career stage!

Great Contributions on this thread. I recognise all of them.

It was like being surrounded by strutting pigeons with very high opinions of themselves. And they constantly bash the corp world, which I found hilarious as most of them have never had a corp job.

Absolutely this. I moved from the financial services to a teaching role and this annoys me all the time. A lot of the academics I work with wouldn't survive two minutes in industry.

Having said that, I do love my job and work in a very supportive team.

It does sound like it's time for a change OP - my career change has been tough but very rewarding on the whole. Maybe time to look at going in the opposite direction to me?

Hi @Acinonyx2 yes, I do have colleagues who I see pretty regularly (more in the autumn & spring terms as that when their modules run) I think we are quite an unusual department as we're all either teaching fellows or sessional lecturers. I see the people who come into the office where we do our prep. It takes a bit of effort to get anything social going, but we have a WhatsApp group where we chat. We all have different specialisms and we're not REFable so perhaps that helps.
I really like my colleagues they are really interesting people and we do go out for a drink a few times a term

@Acinonyx2 sorry posted too soon, I was going to say our uni has a teaching fellow network that meets once a month - if you're the only one on your team you could see if your uni has one too.
I'm still a bit new to academia, but I think academics are often a bit shy (or distracted by research, or on the spectrum) and need pulling out of their shells a bit so it's worth persisting with being friendly, asking people if they fancy a drink etc.
I've found that if you ask people for a coffee they always think you want to do research with them or set up a department or something though. You have to say, I'm having a break now, want a tea? For them to know what you mean.

This would have been a longer message but the amazing Mumsnet magic eraser board wiped my comment before I could send it. It isn't just academia, everywhere is now full of preening overpromoted overconfident pigeons who think we should all be brimming with enthusiasm and ambition to be a "leader". I miss the days when you could just go in, do your job, maybe even meet a colleague for a lunchtime coffee without feeling you were under surveillance, and then go home and have a bit of a life. I'm so disillusioned with the whole thing I'm changing my screensaver today to a countdown to the day I can take my pension. Assuming that the bloody government doesn't move the goalposts again of course.... and the really sad thing is that as recently as 10 years ago I was still quite ambitious. Now I just can't take the bullshit and posturing any more.

mmmm i could have written this.
from the toxicity, to a strong dislike of the twitter humble brag game.

one thing i m not sure about: "A lot of the academics I work with wouldn't survive two minutes in industry." Many of my colleagues are total sociopaths who excel at overperforming (with disgusting attitudes). They are generally very gifted people. The only thing they would not get away with in industry is the bullying and harrassment, which they don't even hide.

I m at a conference this week and it seems like a massive chore. I don't want to write my talk. I don't feel "passionate" about the niche niche niche subtopic. I find, most of all, the game we play of turning a very general review keynote of a fairly bland field into an opportunity to showcase one's glory.

As a result, my talk contains none of my work, because it does not really fit, and it s already worrying me, in the context of what else is presented.

Except, you know, you are giving an (I assume) invited keynote at a conference. Which is pretty cool all things considered!

@AlyssumandHelianthus Yes it's worse now it's Easter term. I think linking up with other TFs would be a good thing going forward - a network doesn't exist currently. There are a couple that I see but they are both about to leave 😥So now to Oct is mainly marking (which I hate, frankly - I like teaching) some writing (which I like but deadline is very soon) and a (very) small research project which I just cannot seem to settle on (OTOH so little time for that in this job - hard to judge, OTOH I do want to do it and it is an expectation in principle). Other staff I never even see in passing - people are crazy busy and locked into their own mini-research empires. I think this must be like working in politics where all interactions are very intentional and weighted to something or other. I'm constantly searching the google drive to find out what's going on.... Your place sounds much nicer.

It's not the actual doing-of-the-job I think academics would struggle with in industry. It's working in a team, making and accepting agile changes to procedure, taking on work that's technically below pay grade in order to get a project out. That sort of thing.