I recently read an article comparing trying to become a professor in today’s economy to trying to become a dinosaur when you can see the asteroid coming.*  I found the comparison disturbingly apropos.  As anyone who has tried knows, seeking a professorship in these days of reduced education funding and massive, impersonal online classes ranges from “long shot” to “tilting at windmills.”  If your doctorate is in music, you can slant that toward the windmills.  And yet, like Don Quixote, we keep trying.  Yes, we fight a system that doesn’t even notice our efforts in hopes of a job that probably doesn’t exist, but the key word here is “hope.” Someday, the windmill might really be a giant, and if, by some miracle, we vanquish it, we would find ourselves using our education to do valuable, satisfying, meaningful work, and that would be worth any amount of bruises we get from trying.

 

*Wheeler, David R. CNN Opinion, “Will online classes make professors extinct?” Last modified November 25, 2013. Accessed January 17, 2014. http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/25/opinion/wheeler-tenured-professors/.