Friday, June 22, 2012

What Academia Has Taught Me About Real Life

Hmm...nothing?!

Yeah, that was my initial thought when I sat down to tackle the topic of academia mimicking real life. Upon further consideration, I'm not sure that is 100% accurate.  Since I don't want to sound like a disgruntled graduate student (which at times, I am), I have dug a little deeper into my graduate school experiences to gleam some bits of reality/wisdom/whatever you want to call them.

1) Academia (and Real Life) is full of P personality types.

         Since many of you have no clue what this statement means, let me explain.  There is a personality type test called Myers-Briggs Type Inventory.  It describes an individual's personality on 4 different domains, resulting in an four letter identifier for a personality type.  For example, my type is INFJ.  Supposedly, only 1 percent of the world's population is this type.  Interestingly enough, Mark Harmon of NCIS fame is considered an INFJ.  Must be why I consider Gibbs to be my ideal partner...but anyways, I digress...
        The J in my personality is very strong.  J stands for judging (NOT judgmental type of judging.  Also not Judge Judy type judging).  This means, I LOVE LOVE LOVE prefer organization, structure, and stability.  I like there to be clear rules and expectations, and I expect all involved parties to adhere to those rules and expectations.  The other side of that type is P (Perceiving).  These people love flying by the seat of their pants, considered rules and expectations more flexible, and at times may appear unorganized.  ACADEMIA IS FULL OF THESE PEOPLE!  I'm sure over in the science building or the engineering building, there are plenty of lovely J people.  But here in Norman Hall, J's seem to be few and far between.  Unfortunately for me, that means I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown anytime I have to comply with P exepctations. 
       After spending a little over a year navigating the P World that is in full force here, I've learned just how rigid my J side can be.  Life cannot be organized and color coded all the time.  Plain and simple.  (Yes, I color code my calendar.  Yes, my DVDs are alphabetized. No, I'm not crazy.)  My attempts to cling to a J way of life sometimes results in me being perceived as a stick in the mud.  I don't want to be a stick in the mud!  I don't even LIKE mud! So...real life must be somewhere in the middle of the P and the J, and I am still trying to figure out how to live that way.

2) Everything can be interpreted as political.

        Note: I am not talking federal government type political, more like personal politics.  The classroom you teach in, the time your class is assigned to meet, getting published and getting jobs, who your advisor is...it seems like literally every step you take in academia can be interpreted as a political move and/or ploy.  I find this utterly obnoxious.  As someone who is not a fan of playing these type of manipulative games with others, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.  If a person doesn't play along to some extent, they just don't make it.  Meanwhile, I feel slightly icky and gross if I do play along.  I don't say this to prove my moral superiority because I am in no way superior, I say it to voice my discomfort with this fact of life.  I recognize that this doesn't exist only in academia.  I talk to friends in other career spots, and they all agree.  Life is political.  Work is political.  Family is political.  Sometimes friends are even political.  Time for me to just get used to it, I guess?  Or is this an area for growth and development?  Who knows at this point...

3) You can't be good at everything.

       Perhaps it is naive, but for most of my life I have believed that if you work really hard you can be good at pretty much everything you try.  This has some limits of course.  Physical limits may limit your ability to be good at certain sports, but with other things, this was something I believed to be true.  Basically, I'm an overachiever.  Hello, my name is Dayna, and I am an overachiever.  If you don't believe me, look at my life from ages 4-29 1/2.  As I have trudged through the past few years, I recognize that this just is a big, fat lie.  I probably will NEVER be able to back a boat trailer down the little rampy thing.  Big, fluffy homemade biscuits continue to be just outside of my grasp.  I cannot do free writing.  (See the section on being a J).  I thought I could pretty much be good at most things in the academic realm, but I'm seeing that as an unreasonable expectation as well.  Even my committee chair looked me square in the eyes and said, "You can't be good at everything."  She knows a lot of stuff, so I'm guessing that she's probably right.  Of course, at this point, I can't remember what we were talking about that that moment.  It was probably free writing.  Man, I really hate free writing....it's so pointless...anyway, you can't be good at everything.  Thankfully, you can be really great at some things.  As I continue this trek through academia, I'm sure that I will realize many more lessons that I am in need of learning.  Most of them are painful and annoying lessons...the quantitative research and statistics type of lessons, if you will.  Speaking of not being good at things...whew...anyways...next subject...

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