Re: Academia [NO LOOPING]

[Tom Ritchford <tom@swirly.com>]

><gee, no one ever ripped me off in Academia like the Real World.
>
>Are you SURE? [for instance: did you maybe buy the same book in 
>different forms for 4 -6 years. A book that was, basically, 
>*Enlightenment* propaganda?].
>
>But skipping all that,how about on a practical level? Once i was in 
>a graduate seminar where the required booklist totaled 345$. I 
>announced to the small class that I had all 7 of these books and 
>would gladly make copies  [of the selected readings] for each 
>student. The Prof blew a cold chill, and made it very clear that 
>this would NOT be appropriate. It was years later before I started 
>to understand-at least in the sciences- what the publishing/academia 
>relationship is-similar to Doctors and drug reps.
>
>My first master's degree taught me nothing I'd not learned as an 
>undergrad and cost around 20,000$. It was simply a way to use the 
>school's name to get in a Doctoral program -otherwise 
>unapproachable. One could say that i knew what I was getting into, 
>but they, nevertheless, picked my pocket at every turn.

Well, I think more and more that I was very lucky
to go to a Canadian university, where the tuition and student
fees were less than $2K a year, scholarships plentiful, and
class sizes small.  (And great teachers too...)

The stuff I hear about never being able to find professors,
eg... it's crazy to me, I could go to two floors of the
math dept. and find almost all the professors at any time
between 10 and 5.

And in at least one case the professor chose a book
because it was as good as the others and a lot cheaper...

(fave story... I was having a rather obscure argument with
a professor about a point of group theory.  The class
(6 people!) was initially nodding along but after a bit
I imagine they were just nodding...  finally the teacher
says, "Wait a second, why am I arguing with you?  *I*'m
the professor!"  it was very funny...)

Enough!  the peril of being underemployed is excess email...

        /t


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