It's 6:30 a.m., and my alarm goes off. I'm awake (barely) for my first day at an 8-to-5 job after years in graduate school. My desk job is the result of my attempt to venture into the nonacademic world after finishing my Ph.D. last June.
At that time, the obstacles on the academic path had loomed ominously, and I was deterred by the thought of continuing to live hand-to-mouth and struggling for years to find a full-time job with benefits. I dreamed of finding a job that would be both intellectually stimulating and comparatively secure.
It wasn't long after that first morning at my new job that I began to realize exactly what I had abandoned in leaving academe. I was reminded of the famous essay in which Virginia Woolf proclaims the basic requirements needed to be able to write and be intellectually productive: money and "a room of one's own." Her words, directed at women in the early 20th century, seem just as relevant for men and women with intellectual pursuits today. Was Virginia Woolf right? And had I, in rashly breaking off the academic path, lost track of what was needed for intellectual freedom?
'Five Hundred A Year'
I had long struggled with living at or below the poverty level as a graduate student. I suppose that fact had really been more of a burden to my family and friends than to me. At any rate, I didn't want to prolong my dependency by doing adjunct teaching.
So I decided to look for nonacademic jobs in big cities, where I was certain that work would be easier to find. After three months of applying and networking as best I could, I finally landed a single interview, for an entry-level position as a copy editor. The position asked for fewer qualifications than most of the jobs I had applied for, but I was offered a good benefits package and a salary nearly three times what I had earned as a teaching assistant. I considered myself lucky, and packed up and moved.
The cost of living in the big city, however, is such that tripling my salary has made little difference in my financial situation. In calculating my new set of bills, I found that I'm in exactly the same situation as in graduate school: I only earn enough to pay the bills. The difference now is that I don't feel that the work I'm doing contributes to my intellectual development or my career advancement. "Intellectual freedom depends upon material things," Woolf maintained in her essay. That basic requirement somehow continues to elude me.
'A Quiet Room'
At least, I thought, I'm in the big city. I had escaped banishment to a small college town. But why did I fear life in a small town, anyway? The small town, reputedly devoid of culture, eligible men, and Thai cuisine, is the bane of the worldly, well-traveled graduate student. No one told us when we applied to graduate school that the majority of the jobs would be in tiny towns, far removed from the luxuries of urban living.
Certainly, one of my motivations for trying out a nonacademic job was to be able to move to a big city, with all of its promises. And I'm finding that the cultural opportunities abound, but since I've met few people outside of work and all my coworkers are married and living in the suburbs, life in the big city is not as exciting as I had imagined.
I actually had the chance to take another look at a professor's life in a small town while I was in the process of moving this past fall. I stopped to visit my parents in the small college town in the Midwest where I grew up, and where they both teach at the local university. They have a house with sun coming in the windows, a grassy backyard, and a vegetable garden. It only takes five minutes to drive anywhere in town, but my parents, who are in their mid-60s, still ride their bikes to work. My mother would ride off on her bike at noon to teach her afternoon class, waving back at me as she disappeared over the hill.
Why was I afraid of a small town? I wonder ... as I sit in my cramped apartment in a high-rise, with a view of another apartment building out the window; as I commute on the subway 30 minutes to and from work, early in the morning and late at night; as I work in my dimly lit cubicle all day. Woolf had warned about the need for quiet and concentration, and about the interruptions and interferences of daily life. Is the small college town the end of civilization, or the idyllic place for intellectual pursuits?
'How Unpleasant It Is to Be Locked Out'
From my high-rise apartment, I have a sliver of a view of distant trees and the spire of a building at a university far away. After a week of straining to see that ivory tower in the distance, I decided to go and see it up close. I went to the university's library, where I do not have privileges (I have no library privileges anywhere, anymore), and I roamed between the shelves of the foreign literatures, running my fingers along the books that I now feel almost forbidden to read.
As much as I longed to be free of the constraints of the academic career, I've realized there is something much worse: being locked out of the ivory tower. As I sat in the stacks, I wondered if I had squandered everything I had worked for, everything I had loved, by taking a nonacademic job.
I realized what a privilege it had been to have the time to devote to my own research and writing while in graduate school. Should only the most competitive, or those who sacrifice the most, be allowed to keep that privilege? I left the library and went to find the building whose spire I could see from my apartment window. The sign in front of the building said: Human Resources. The symbolism wasn't lost on me.
So I'm trying the academic job search again, with the hope that I might still have the chance to resurrect my academic career and, eventually, even attain the necessities for intellectual productivity. However, applying for an academic job while you're locked out of the university is complicated. How can I defend my commitment to teaching, when I decided not to teach as an adjunct this year? How can I write and remain engaged in my field, when I don't have access to books in my own field of research?
The obstacles to writing are complex, as Woolf would attest, and writing both inside and outside academe has its difficulties. As an academic, the pressure to publish means that academic writing is necessary and must be done between teaching and grading papers. As an office worker, you can fill your evenings and weekends with the pleasures of writing and reading, but you lack the stimulation of an academic environment.
For now, I'm exploring the flexibility of the "real" world, but if I'm allowed back through the locked doors, I'll be thankful for all the privileges of academe.
Had I forgotten the lessons of Virginia Woolf, who pointed out that intellectual productivity required certain things, like money, quiet, and a room of one's own? Or were those the very things that I had been struggling to arrange?
I'm not sure where one finds intellectual freedom, whether in the all-consuming life of an academic, or in the secret, night-time writings of an office worker. But I know now, as I continue to find my way, that I'll have Woolf's words ringing in my ears.
