Had I Gotten a Doctorate...

It can be annoying when the faculty return after having basically the whole month of January off, and they say, "Oh! I have to get used to setting the alarm for 7:30 again!" Here I am thinking, I had to work the whole month of January and set my alarm for 6:00 a.m., but I make half of what you make. But honestly, I would have been a lot worse off if I had actually finished graduate school and gotten a Ph.D. Let's face it, I was not the most attractive candidate and couldn't even get funding, so I had to take out massive loans to go to grad school. A couple of years in I realized I couldn't play the academia game, so I cut my losses and dropped out. If I had stayed in six years or whatever to get that Ph.D., I would have been far deeper in debt, and I probably would not have gotten a tenure-track position. Then I would have ended up in Adjunct Professor Hell, like so many people with Ph.D.s have over the years. They make half my annual salary, and they don't have retirement plans or even benefits in some cases. They have to have lengthy curriculum vitae proving that they have published and taught just to get one-year, non-renewable positions, while I could get another position like my current one with my two-page resume. I may never make a lot of money, but I am so much better off than a lot of Ph.D.s I know. So I should quit griping and just keep setting my alarm for 6:00 a.m., because at least it is very likely that I will still have this job next year.

Famous Hat