it could, in fact, be worse
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009My brother has a post on his blog about the high cost of higher education, and the bind students find themselves in now: get a degree or don’t get a job. May I offer this: there is always the alternative of a reasonably priced state school with *ahem* fabulous instructors. I teach at one. Our students get a great education. Is it Harvard? Luckily for them and for me, no, it’s not. It’s a small campus with the resources of a top notch R-1 university.
To respond to other thoughts on the blog of my brother, who I love dearly: Are things worse now than they were, oh, 25 years ago? I think those of us firmly planted in middle age will always say so. But there is this: are we living in the Great Depression? No, we’re not. Might we have to give up some things? Yes, we might. Is the environment a mess? Yes, it is. Will it get better? I think it has a much better chance of improving now than it did, oh, 25 years ago. “Green” was only a color then.
Finally, this, something I talk about with my students all the time: Is finding a good job a matter of “luck”? Not really. It’s timing, persistence, location, persistence, preparation, persistence. And, probably this: redefine what it means to have a “good job.” I teach at a college many would never wish to because it doesn’t have the reputation of an Ivy League school, it doesn’t have the salary of one either, and oh my goodness sakes, it’s in the Midwest, how awful. I read the online forums of academics looking for work and you would think that if a city doesn’t have a decent latte and a good independent bookstore and a swanky organic food aisle that they’d been dumped in some circle of hell.
Are there things I miss here? Sure. I’d love to have a Unitarian congregation right here in town. But then again, I’d probably be at the barn when there was a service, so okay, take that off the table. I’d love to have seventeen bookstores I could browse in. But, then again, I’m broke and the library on campus and in town is great, so never mind the bookstores either. I’d love to have a downtown vibrant with nightlife and art galleries and readings by writers I admire. But then again, I’d spend time doing that instead of writing my own book, and 9 times out of 10 art disappoints and readings are exercises in displays of ego, so take that off the list too.
What do I have here, where jobs are scarce and salaries are low, Unitarians are few and far between, and a good latte is hard to find? I have a decent job teaching students who surprise me at times with their passion and hunger to learn. I have a core group of colleagues I admire and love to work with. I have time to write. I have rent that is reasonable, a place to board my horse I could never afford on the East Coast or West. I have long roads with wide horizons. I have the joy of finding beauty in corn and beans, combines shrouded in clouds of dust; of working to find common ground with Republicans and born-again Christians; of making amidst the factories and farms and small half-gone towns a life that works.
