RE: advanced education
Why would anyone want to become a professor? I couldn't handle the pay cut.
Well, the pay cut is certainly painful (can you say 50%
without grimacing? Consulting work helps, but still . . .). But as
one who has moved back and forth regularly between academic
and corporate jobs, I keep coming back to universities for 2
reasons: teaching and research.
Believe it or not, despite loudly-proclaimed horror stories about
"today's youth," some of us actually enjoy teaching them. Yes,
many of them whine. Yes, many of them simply want a high-paying
job instead of an education. Yes, they have no clue that "Butthead"
is not an appropriate signature line for emails sent to faculty. But
many of them do care, and every time I leave teaching, I miss working
with students - the fun of a good classroom discussion, the chance
to work one-on-one with students writers (to show you how twisted I
really am, I actually *like* teaching freshman comp), the general
"coolness" of watching the light-bulb go off when a student really
learns something.
The other reason I keep coming back is that I like research. In my
tw career, I've begun to specialize more and more in environmental
writing (I do a lot of consulting for a local forestry company), and while
I still get a huge kick out of writing software manuals, management plans,
reports, newsletters, etc., I also like thinking about the "whys and hows."
How does rhetoric work? Why do people react so strongly to certain
words? How can documents change both action and perception? I learn
some of that by "practical writing," and some of it from research. I'm a
writing geek who likes to theorize in my spare time. . . .
Call me crazy, but I can't manage to walk away from either side of the
profession. And since I've been doing both for 13 years, I don't see a lot
of hope for resolution in the near future!
Marie
Marie C. Paretti
Assistant Director of Professional Writing
Department of English
Virginia Tech
mparetti -at- vt -dot- edu
http://www.english.vt.edu/~mparetti
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References:
RE: advanced education: From: Diane Evans
RE: advanced education: From: Jane Carnall
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