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> combination of job security and high prestige I literally spat out my coffee reading that. Have you even been near a university in the past decade? They ar

> combination of job security and high prestige I literally spat out my coffee reading that. Have you even been near a university in the past decade? They are filled with miserable, neurotic, anxious, demoralised husks of people who once thought they could make a difference in the world. "Academics" are broken people in a broken system, labouring under zero-hour contracts, callous, toxic management and clueless deans and chancellors who are at least two generations out of step with reality. The university system has effectively destroyed higher education. There is nothing of value left there, least of all security or prestige.

macleginn 3y ago
I have worked at about 6, in 4 different countries. Yes, most employees have a bad deal, but there is always a core of permanent teaching stuff who do have a pretty good deal (cf. https://www.amazon.com/Good-Work-You-Can-Get/dp/1421437961 https://www.amazon.com/Good-Work-You-Can-Get/dp/1421437961). It is a tragedy that the system produces much more people who really want to be in the system than what it can reasonably employ at the moment, but as for retaining enough good teachers to give a decent education to students, it works both in countries where education is expensive (US, UK) and where it is essentially free (Germany, Israel).
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  Well if we're comparing experience, I've worked at about 30 universities in dozens of countries over 30 years and I see no evidence whatsoever that at present it "works" or that permanent staff are any happier or secure than anyone else. The thing we can agree on is that it's a "tragedy". Maybe 20 years ago it wasn't like this. But let's quit living in a P. G. Wodehouse mythology.
  - michaelt 3y ago
    Academia seems like a very variable experience, depending on your ambitions and so on. If you want to bring in funding, have phd students, and publish a lot of papers it’s a lot of work, and in a lot of fields PhDs are massively overproduced, and you’ll suffer through endless postdocs. On the other hand, this is one of the only places you can get paid to do pure maths, and you can choose what you work on, and you get called professor, and you can’t be fired, and you’re surrounded by 19 year old girls? Good luck finding those employment conditions anywhere else!
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      > surrounded by 19 year old girls? Sure, if those are your priorities. All great, until you grow up, get married, have children, reach your intellectual prime and realise that you should probably contribute something real to the world. That's when the cloisters of "academia" start looking like prison bars. You realise you're surrounded by institutionalised infantilism, involuted bureaucracy, and frighteningly insecure people. Being a "professor" relishing power over 19 yo girls isn't what a mature life is about. But hey, it's not just academia. I know many from the military and other services who hit their mid 30s and quit, not through lack of career advancement, or money, or through physical fatigue, but because they were surrounded by man-childs and stuck in a classist, sexist, self-serving culture akin to a boys boarding school. Institutions profoundly arrest self-development and I think they attract people who are in a sense "stuck in life" but lack the courage to assert their real, full potential. Anyway, we keep selling "university" as some Hogwarts themed funfair ride to young people who can't afford it. That's why I got out. It's so awfully unethical. I'd rather build pedagogical and research relations with grown-ups who I can treat as equals and who have some skin in the game.

macleginn 3y ago

I have worked at about 6, in 4 different countries. Yes, most employees have a bad deal, but there is always a core of permanent teaching stuff who do have a pretty good deal (cf. https://www.amazon.com/Good-Work-You-Can-Get/dp/1421437961 https://www.amazon.com/Good-Work-You-Can-Get/dp/1421437961). It is a tragedy that the system produces much more people who really want to be in the system than what it can reasonably employ at the moment, but as for retaining enough good teachers to give a decent education to students, it works both in countries where education is expensive (US, UK) and where it is essentially free (Germany, Israel).

nonrandomstring 3y ago
Well if we're comparing experience, I've worked at about 30 universities in dozens of countries over 30 years and I see no evidence whatsoever that at present it "works" or that permanent staff are any happier or secure than anyone else. The thing we can agree on is that it's a "tragedy". Maybe 20 years ago it wasn't like this. But let's quit living in a P. G. Wodehouse mythology.
- michaelt 3y ago
  Academia seems like a very variable experience, depending on your ambitions and so on. If you want to bring in funding, have phd students, and publish a lot of papers it’s a lot of work, and in a lot of fields PhDs are massively overproduced, and you’ll suffer through endless postdocs. On the other hand, this is one of the only places you can get paid to do pure maths, and you can choose what you work on, and you get called professor, and you can’t be fired, and you’re surrounded by 19 year old girls? Good luck finding those employment conditions anywhere else!
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    > surrounded by 19 year old girls? Sure, if those are your priorities. All great, until you grow up, get married, have children, reach your intellectual prime and realise that you should probably contribute something real to the world. That's when the cloisters of "academia" start looking like prison bars. You realise you're surrounded by institutionalised infantilism, involuted bureaucracy, and frighteningly insecure people. Being a "professor" relishing power over 19 yo girls isn't what a mature life is about. But hey, it's not just academia. I know many from the military and other services who hit their mid 30s and quit, not through lack of career advancement, or money, or through physical fatigue, but because they were surrounded by man-childs and stuck in a classist, sexist, self-serving culture akin to a boys boarding school. Institutions profoundly arrest self-development and I think they attract people who are in a sense "stuck in life" but lack the courage to assert their real, full potential. Anyway, we keep selling "university" as some Hogwarts themed funfair ride to young people who can't afford it. That's why I got out. It's so awfully unethical. I'd rather build pedagogical and research relations with grown-ups who I can treat as equals and who have some skin in the game.