I have spent the entire duration of my college career (a mere 5.5 years) working for various campus groups while I completed my degree in Computer Science. I started out by serving an unrewarding semester for ResNet, the student computer support group. After that, I worked for the campus ACM and eventually moved on to working for the Engineering IT help-desk, where day to day tasks included, but weren't limited to, refilling/debugging printers, helping faculty connect to shared drives, and basically sifting through phone calls to save my managers a few hours during the day. I can easily say I enjoyed that job. I felt minimally useful, and had plenty of extra time to read slashdot.org and work on my own homework and projects. However, after working in an academic environment for so many years, I have come to a few morbid conclusions.
Academia sucks
I know there will be plenty of people out there who will tell me how wrong I am. However, I would like to pick apart a few examples of what I think are the largest contributors to why academia is such a horrible field to be a part of. These are very personal examples for me, and I'm plastering them on the Internet so that they may be ignored by a much larger audience.
In my experience, academia has far more bureaucracy than necessary. ITS in particular has an entire college of engineers and technical minded people that could be writing software for them. Yet some narrow minded bureaucrat at the top is making all the wrong decisions. Decisions such as investing in another contract with absolute SHIT software from Blackboard instead of the open-source alternative Moodle, which the entire department of Computer Science could be contributing to, free of charge! Or shooting down intuitive ideas, such as combining campus related news and events with the Google Gadget APIs. Instead, they decide to use shitty legacy and propriety code to run the student “Portal” that no body uses anyways. But I suppose if just 20 people use it, then they can afford to pay one of my best friends a substantial salary.
The blockade of misplaced authority
I have never directly experienced this until now, but I would like to start with examples from some of my peers before moving on to my experience. I hear ridiculous stories of professors intentionally standing in people's way from being successful. A bold statement I realize, so I will break it down.
Some people are put on this earth to make your life more difficult for absolutely no reason or motivation. My friend David had this experience when trying to get an override in order to receive the credit he deserved for his excellent work at the student run radio station. This course in particular is one that all KJAK employees receive credit for, and would provide a boost in GPA. He served many years running the station including rebuilding it from the ground up. Twice. When he confronted the administration desk with the necessary signed papers in hand, he explained himself to the receptionist. An advisor who overheard yelled through the wall to deny his petition, and asked him to leave. He tried to explain again, emphasizing his years serving for KJAK (which consisted of countless hours into the night managing computer and audio equipment). Unfortunately, he was not able to enroll in the class and receive the credit he deserved that semester. Along came the next semester, and the extremely helpful advisor of the College of Engineering took care of all the overrides that semester.
Another friend, Jessie, attempted to complete a 4 and a half-year degree in 4 years for financial reasons. She reached her last semester to find that one required class was not being offered. When she asked to substitute the next highest class in the same category (even suggesting that she could do work over the holidays and take a test to ensure that she had the necessary grounding to be in the class), the professor in charge of the class readily agreed. However, he wasn't sure if the class would fulfill the requirement, so told her to ask her advisor. Her advisor was out for a major surgery that semester, so she asked the director of undergraduate studies. She also asked who could sign her graduation application, since said advisor was on sick leave. The return email came a week later, completely ignored the question of who could sign the application, and simply told her to ask the professor in charge of the class, who was conveniently out of town. A few days later, the director changed his mind and decided that there would be no substitutions. When Jessie talked to him in person, explaining that her parents had enough money for 4 semesters but no more, and that she needed to graduate on time so that she could obtain a job to support herself, the director repeated himself, and told her "I don't know what to tell you. Good luck." She is still fighting, but in all likelihood will be delayed in graduating by a semester if she is lucky and finds a part-time job that pays enough.
My dismal efforts
I have spent a dozen hours (and am planning to spend dozens more) preparing a talk on hacking, computer security, RFID dangers, and other information the normal non-computer-geek needs to know. This talk is intended to be presented to students, faculty, and staff, not just the nerds that hang out in our beloved ACM room. But the process has been long and discouraging. I hear rumors that faculty will only come if they are paid for the 2 hours, that students will only come if they are receiving participation points from their professors, that my time isn't worth enough and on top of the hours spent preparing my talk, I would also have to find someone to fund it. In order to accomplish my philanthropists goals, I have to be famous and jump through all the hoops and then some. So, I will apply to speak at DefCon and put the exploits about the university out in the open public before NAU will accept my talk. As if they are better or more prestigious than an international hacker convention?
My response to this is absolute outrage. There is one question in particular that has been haunting my sub-conscious for nearly a decade; at what point do you stop learning? At what point in someone's career does a person, especially an educator, say to themselves, “I am done learning because I know everything”? Is it when they receive their first or second PH.D? Is it when they have worked in the field for 20 years and decide to retire to education? Is it when new technologies are developed every single day? I must just be young and naive because I cannot fathom refusing free information from people who know more about something than I do. Especially people who have such a deep understanding of computers like hackers do.
The fight continues
While working in and around academia, I have experienced this sort of aroma of apathy. A sheer lack of passion for anything, really. I like to think that I am an outlier, in that here I am, wide awake at 1 AM on a Saturday night, writing a blog entry with the hopes that putting my ideas on the Internet will help me sleep at night. Another common dilemma that College has shown me is that often my passion for learning more about a subject surpasses what my professors can teach me in the confines of a classroom. Furthermore, despite being unemployed, I continue to work on a dozen projects throughout the day. I compose symphonies of code every day for my monolithicmedia.org project as the hunt for employment continues. Yet, I am discouraged every day I see funds to education drop, teachers getting laid off, programs and student organizations are cut and dissolved. And even more discouraged when I see teachers and their supporters petitioning the capitol instead of doing what they love. I have one cold, hard response; governments aren't built to listen to their people, and you shouldn't have to be paid to help the world become a better place, get over it and get on with your life.
Despite such miserable outcomes and apathetic responses, I continue to fight for education, especially when some “educators” won't. I am however, absolutely grateful for my wonderful professors, staff, and friends who continue the fight with me. They are the unappreciated heroes of our time, and it is those few who deserve the salaries of rock-stars and athletes (and fellow doctorates in other fields for that matter). These are the people who have inspired me to never stop asking questions!
Special thanks to:
Pete and my other managers who love the idea of teaching people what hacking is all about
Abe, Eck, James and my other professors who have instilled on me such a insatiable passion for technology
My parents and friends who are always there to support me in all of my endeavors
