A Pessimistic Thread on Academia While I Procrastinate Because I Feel Like Shit and I'm Almost Out of Anti-Depressants Again:

I'm still fuming about that Tweet from earlier, about how you just need "imagination" and "drive" to succeed in academia, and how a PhD shouldn't be considered a "free pass" for a career.

Sure, a PhD shouldn't immediately garner you the ability to become God King of Science. But it would be great to feel confident in getting A job, ANY job, after all of this shit.

I've made some terrible decisions for the sake of getting the PhD, and I'm gonna graduate with a PhD in a subject that already has a poor job market in the middle of a global pandemic with 6 figures worth of debt.

(not to mention I'm a migrant, an Asian woman, with mental illness, who is trying to keep my head above the water on a GOOD day)

every day I swear the standards get upped - it's not enough to have a handful of publications, they have to be FIRST AUTHOR publications in NATURE or something.

its not enough to have presented at some conferences, you have to CHAIR ALL CONFERENCE SESSIONS and also organise it and also publish an edited volume afterwards and also did I mention these conferences cost hundreds of dollars?

I work when I can (but currently can't, and even when I can my visa prohibits a lot of things) but I'm also doing a PhD but I'm also doing side projects that make me happy but these side projects are distractions and won't mean much on a CV because its not prestigious enough

I need to apply for funding but I can't apply for most funding because I'm a migrant, because I'm a foreigner, because I self-funded, I need money so I don't starve, so I can live in a house, so I can afford my next set of visa charges, so I can pay off my debt one day

and now there's a pandemic going on, but don't worry! you're writing up! its business as usual for you! but I can't access my meds, but I already live precariously as a migrant, but my family is a country away and I'm scared for everyone, but I'm tired and depressed...

what am I working towards? what awaits me at the end of all this? not a job, not a post-doc - a PhD isn't enough for that, not anymore. not a stable home life, god forbid it get easier for a foreigner to remain in a country they now call home, with their partner

I can't even say that I'm looking forward to leaving academia after this, because what's left? did I waste years of my life, hundreds of thousands of dollars, because I was told that a PhD is what I needed to be taken seriously, or at all?

whenever I tweet about how miserable I am in the last stretch of the PhD, I always get the same well-meaning replies: "we need your voice in the field!" "you're doing good work!" "it would be a shame if you left!"

but no one else does the work in academia - marginalised academics are supposed to work for the sake of being accepted, but no one budges to make room for us.

"we need your voice to diversify the field!" - but you have to fund it yourself, you have to work twice as hard to get here yourself, you need to be doing 4x the work of more privileged folks to even get consideration by the academy

I'm just tired of having to advocate for myself, for others, for trying to make space in places where the senior, tenured folk won't make space, where marginalised academics get pitted against each other for funding and awards and papers and publications

I don't want to do the work anymore. No one should have to do this work. Why should any of us work so hard to be part of a space that doesn't want us?

I'm tired of performative allies, of departments claiming they want to diversify but put the onus on you, the "diverse academic" to do the work for them, so they can claim your labour and make it their own, while you get nothing in return

if academy wants me, I'll be around. but I'm not trying any harder - I've got debt to pay off, I've got visas to gain, I've got so much more to do, the idea of becoming a "prestigious academic" seems laughable at this point