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Perhaps part of the reason quit lit is so common is that colleagues who remain recoil in horror when they talk with someone who quit. The quitter is left with n

Perhaps part of the reason quit lit is so common is that colleagues who remain recoil in horror when they talk with someone who quit. The quitter is left with no one to talk to but the cold vacuum of internet. For months I would get emails asking if I was "okay". When I would giddily explain that I've never made a better decision than leaving my faculty appointment-- that would be enough to never hear from him/her again. Academia in its modern, McKinseyfied, perverse form doesn't do much good for anyone/anything besides endowments. It's really hard to admit that after you've sunk a decade into it (and are supposedly lucky enough to be faculty). For my own sake, I wish there had been a faster way to look behind the curtain... C'est la vie!

bladewolf47 6y ago
First time I've encountered the term McKinseyfied in the context of academia, can you elaborate on that?
- brighton36 6y ago
  Prestige as a product. Which, is increasingly the function of the university.
- scroot 6y ago
  I believe that the poster means that the University system (in the US at least) has been overtaken by "management theory" over the past four decades or so. This is the same theory prominent in business schools / MBA programs. As a consequence we see the vast expansion of academic bureaucracy, completely different metrics for "success," and an attitude towards students that treats them as customers rather than pupils. It's worth noting that the core aspects of academia have been either pushed out or dramatically altered. Universities might be flush with cash, but they do not pay their teachers (it's no coincidence that adjunctification of the system begins with the management theory era). Professors are left to fight for resources that are being spent elsewhere: on sustaining a much larger bureaucracy (this or that "provost"), or on ancillary services like college sports or other customer-focussed amenities.
  - alpineidyll3 6y ago
    Better than I could have said it
  - noobermin 6y ago
    I want to believe this won't be sustainable but given the demand for college increasing every year it looks like it will continue until something cracks.
- alpineidyll3 6y ago
  University governance has been aligned by dollars to departments like the business school, which literally didn't exist just a few decades ago. Provost's plan using dollars as the metric of value. These changes have completely changed what the word university means, although these institutions have the same names. Here's an academic account: https://www.aaup.org/article/rise-and-coming-demise-corporate-university https://www.aaup.org/article/rise-and-coming-demise-corporat... For easier digestion Scott Galloway is spot on (Prof at nyu) https://youtu.be/d8kwzSTITP0 https://youtu.be/d8kwzSTITP0
mjburgess 6y ago
So you're blaming the semblance of market reforms for the overproduction of PhDs? The reason we have too many PhDs, and too many students is the same: our dumb parents generation thought that "education" was important and demanded government support for all their children. Without the state artificially funding this no one in their right mind would do it. Our parents demanded it, and we got it. Turns out its a scam. Hardly anything to "McKinsey"ificaiton
- alpineidyll3 6y ago
  It's not just about phds. Undergraduate education is significantly compromised because universities literally focus on customer service metrics, and are directed by the business school. At prestigious institutions this is literally a revolving door with mckinsey which can be followed through key appointments but I was using the word to make a more abstract illusion.
  - mjburgess 6y ago
    Are you sure its customer service metrics and not the oversupply of students? Are you sure it isnt that students who couldnt complete an entrance exam 30yrs ago are being given $50k - $100k loans to get a degree they derive no value from? The average IQ of an undergrad 30 years ago was over 120, now it is 105. University doesn't "educate" you. At best it trains you in a discipline that you have to, on arrival, have an aptitude for. The (pseudo-)educational experience isnt transformative, it doesn't take a person who cannot learn complex topics independently and turn them into a person who can. It facilitates. That means c. 10% of the current population of students are actually suitable for university. Everything else is a bubble created by "aspirational" parents demanding $100k loans for their children.
    - alpineidyll3 6y ago
      If this is the case, (and I'm not disagreeing outright) I think the fault lies with primary Ed, and the oft true perception that education is unnecessary because the stamp of intelligence can be bought. Cough, kushner, cough.
zitterbewegung 6y ago
In college it seems like unless you have a really good GPA and have parents or yourself to be independently wealthy the best advice for academia or even getting a degree is getting out as fast as you can for Computer Science. For me it took me six years when I traded money for time at Community College. Also, bumping up your own earnings by a significant multiplier is probably easier if you bypass getting a Masters Degree and just start doing interview prep. Whats even better is hitting multiple multipliers. I was in a Computer lab where someone got an offer letter from Facebook which was extremely high and they IPOed. Now I think he is doing some kind of javascript style hosting stuff but I think he is independently wealthy.
0d9eooo 6y ago
So, I left a tenured position. The linked piece resonates with me. I'm actually not so sure it's that common relative to the number of people who actually leave. After I left my position I started learning about other tenured faculty who left their positions also, some of whom I respected quite a bit and who I never imagined would have any reason to leave their position. One place interviewed me for a faculty position later, the primary problem being that they had multiple tenured faculty leave and had holes to fill. None of these individuals who left their positions wrote about it. I do think you're right in the sense that it's this thing that no one knows what to do with. You've built up these relationships, your colleagues are all in academics, and many of them are happy. So they don't understand. You're kind of a glitch in the matrix, and no one knows how to approach it because it's not supposed to happen. I've been told everything from that I'm a total badass to crazy and insane. I myself haven't figured out which is more accurate yet. Maybe both. The fact that these experiences compel some kind of cathartic explanation speaks volumes about the problems in academics though. It's like there's the commonly agreed-upon story in academics, the face being presented, and then there's reality, and they don't line up, so people just kind of pretend the glitches don't exist. Not too long ago on HN there was a blog piece going through one person's (an economist?) exploration of whether or not biomedical research was in crisis. (I've tried to find it but can't.) It was frustrating to me because so much of what they detailed was true, but in the end they just decided something like "oh well, it's obvious this field is in crisis, but research is getting done in the end so it doesn't matter." It's like this ship in flames, where people are burning and there's emergency sirens going off, and as long as the individuals in power are happy, and there's a good narrative being presented to the public, with results in the media to talk about, no one cares. I just can't tell where this is headed: if the ship is going to finally sink so far that it becomes something you can't hide, or if it's just going to keep on like this indefinitely, or if it's going to get fixed, or what. Universities have survived much worse than current circumstances, so it seems implausible to me anything will fundamentally change.
- alpineidyll3 6y ago
  Imo it will boil down to economics and the undergrads. Universities have survived a very long time, but they used to sell education not prestige. Prestige is an asset that can rapidly lose value: ask MIT-bioscience donor Jeffery Epstein ;P. It's humourous to watch them scramble to get classes going because if a year of young people just move on without universities, the jig is up. The admissions scandal should have already done it :/....

bladewolf47 6y ago

First time I've encountered the term McKinseyfied in the context of academia, can you elaborate on that?

brighton36 6y ago
Prestige as a product. Which, is increasingly the function of the university.
scroot 6y ago
I believe that the poster means that the University system (in the US at least) has been overtaken by "management theory" over the past four decades or so. This is the same theory prominent in business schools / MBA programs. As a consequence we see the vast expansion of academic bureaucracy, completely different metrics for "success," and an attitude towards students that treats them as customers rather than pupils. It's worth noting that the core aspects of academia have been either pushed out or dramatically altered. Universities might be flush with cash, but they do not pay their teachers (it's no coincidence that adjunctification of the system begins with the management theory era). Professors are left to fight for resources that are being spent elsewhere: on sustaining a much larger bureaucracy (this or that "provost"), or on ancillary services like college sports or other customer-focussed amenities.
- alpineidyll3 6y ago
  Better than I could have said it
- noobermin 6y ago
  I want to believe this won't be sustainable but given the demand for college increasing every year it looks like it will continue until something cracks.
alpineidyll3 6y ago
University governance has been aligned by dollars to departments like the business school, which literally didn't exist just a few decades ago. Provost's plan using dollars as the metric of value. These changes have completely changed what the word university means, although these institutions have the same names. Here's an academic account: https://www.aaup.org/article/rise-and-coming-demise-corporate-university https://www.aaup.org/article/rise-and-coming-demise-corporat... For easier digestion Scott Galloway is spot on (Prof at nyu) https://youtu.be/d8kwzSTITP0 https://youtu.be/d8kwzSTITP0

mjburgess 6y ago

So you're blaming the semblance of market reforms for the overproduction of PhDs? The reason we have too many PhDs, and too many students is the same: our dumb parents generation thought that "education" was important and demanded government support for all their children. Without the state artificially funding this no one in their right mind would do it. Our parents demanded it, and we got it. Turns out its a scam. Hardly anything to "McKinsey"ificaiton

alpineidyll3 6y ago
It's not just about phds. Undergraduate education is significantly compromised because universities literally focus on customer service metrics, and are directed by the business school. At prestigious institutions this is literally a revolving door with mckinsey which can be followed through key appointments but I was using the word to make a more abstract illusion.
- mjburgess 6y ago
  Are you sure its customer service metrics and not the oversupply of students? Are you sure it isnt that students who couldnt complete an entrance exam 30yrs ago are being given $50k - $100k loans to get a degree they derive no value from? The average IQ of an undergrad 30 years ago was over 120, now it is 105. University doesn't "educate" you. At best it trains you in a discipline that you have to, on arrival, have an aptitude for. The (pseudo-)educational experience isnt transformative, it doesn't take a person who cannot learn complex topics independently and turn them into a person who can. It facilitates. That means c. 10% of the current population of students are actually suitable for university. Everything else is a bubble created by "aspirational" parents demanding $100k loans for their children.
  - alpineidyll3 6y ago
    If this is the case, (and I'm not disagreeing outright) I think the fault lies with primary Ed, and the oft true perception that education is unnecessary because the stamp of intelligence can be bought. Cough, kushner, cough.

zitterbewegung 6y ago

In college it seems like unless you have a really good GPA and have parents or yourself to be independently wealthy the best advice for academia or even getting a degree is getting out as fast as you can for Computer Science. For me it took me six years when I traded money for time at Community College. Also, bumping up your own earnings by a significant multiplier is probably easier if you bypass getting a Masters Degree and just start doing interview prep. Whats even better is hitting multiple multipliers. I was in a Computer lab where someone got an offer letter from Facebook which was extremely high and they IPOed. Now I think he is doing some kind of javascript style hosting stuff but I think he is independently wealthy.

0d9eooo 6y ago

So, I left a tenured position. The linked piece resonates with me. I'm actually not so sure it's that common relative to the number of people who actually leave. After I left my position I started learning about other tenured faculty who left their positions also, some of whom I respected quite a bit and who I never imagined would have any reason to leave their position. One place interviewed me for a faculty position later, the primary problem being that they had multiple tenured faculty leave and had holes to fill. None of these individuals who left their positions wrote about it. I do think you're right in the sense that it's this thing that no one knows what to do with. You've built up these relationships, your colleagues are all in academics, and many of them are happy. So they don't understand. You're kind of a glitch in the matrix, and no one knows how to approach it because it's not supposed to happen. I've been told everything from that I'm a total badass to crazy and insane. I myself haven't figured out which is more accurate yet. Maybe both. The fact that these experiences compel some kind of cathartic explanation speaks volumes about the problems in academics though. It's like there's the commonly agreed-upon story in academics, the face being presented, and then there's reality, and they don't line up, so people just kind of pretend the glitches don't exist. Not too long ago on HN there was a blog piece going through one person's (an economist?) exploration of whether or not biomedical research was in crisis. (I've tried to find it but can't.) It was frustrating to me because so much of what they detailed was true, but in the end they just decided something like "oh well, it's obvious this field is in crisis, but research is getting done in the end so it doesn't matter." It's like this ship in flames, where people are burning and there's emergency sirens going off, and as long as the individuals in power are happy, and there's a good narrative being presented to the public, with results in the media to talk about, no one cares. I just can't tell where this is headed: if the ship is going to finally sink so far that it becomes something you can't hide, or if it's just going to keep on like this indefinitely, or if it's going to get fixed, or what. Universities have survived much worse than current circumstances, so it seems implausible to me anything will fundamentally change.

alpineidyll3 6y ago
Imo it will boil down to economics and the undergrads. Universities have survived a very long time, but they used to sell education not prestige. Prestige is an asset that can rapidly lose value: ask MIT-bioscience donor Jeffery Epstein ;P. It's humourous to watch them scramble to get classes going because if a year of young people just move on without universities, the jig is up. The admissions scandal should have already done it :/....