Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Institutionalized
Holy shit, it's reading day. I completely spaced out on the fact, mostly because I'm not actively a student anymore. For those of you not familiar with reading day or those of you that didn't have one in college, it's one day off between the last day of classes and the first day of finals. In years past I would have been gearing up for an anal pillaging at this point from a whole host of people.
Here's some crazy stuff:
1) One year ago, plus or minus 4 days, I became a full-time employee and a part of the US economic structure.
2) I am not currently a grad student.
And the creepy part? I'm not totally convinced I want to be a graduate student. Why? Because having spent a large portion of this last year doing statistical analysis and coordinating stress/scale testing at work I have a different appreciation of what contributes to research. I can now say that I have conducted research in the capitalist work place, as well as the academic institution. The only difference: the academic research doesn't functionally matter.
The papers I co-authored are functionally worthless. I have acknowledged that from the get-go. Interference reduction in fixed antenna environments with total modification to both link-state and routing strategy are a good THIRTY years away from being implementable. Academic research in computer science is roughly 30 years ahead of anything we can possibly implement. Not only that, but the vast majority of the people involved in it don't actually realize that. It's research for research's sake, which is fine... as long as the individual appreciates that the fruit's of one's labors are totally ephemeral. Think I'm wrong about that? 802.11b which has been in use for several years now, but is still reaching for broad adoption, is a set of modifications to a protocol called ALOHA that was first deployed in 1970. The vast majority of wireless technology, routing schemes, and all the other who-ha academically researched between 1970 and 2000 has only made tiny influences on the actual state of corporate development.
This conflict can best be summarized as: which bullshit is more tolerable? If I take the academic route I am effectively signing myself up for coworkers so far removed from reality and efficacy that I'm really just making shit up. If I take the corporate world I am essentially a cog in a larger economic institution where I have to listen to talking heads and the forces of "management" that often do not even have a technologically relevant background.
Maybe it is the Taoist in me, but I want to just not participate. I do not want the bullshit, I do not want the hassle, I do not want meaningless papers, I do not want to work 9-5. Life is going to make me choose a path one of these days. The trick will be in finding a path that can at least harmonize somewhat with my other goals.
I should definitely start acting on those "start my own business" impulses I have been getting again lately. That would be good for me...
Here's some crazy stuff:
1) One year ago, plus or minus 4 days, I became a full-time employee and a part of the US economic structure.
2) I am not currently a grad student.
And the creepy part? I'm not totally convinced I want to be a graduate student. Why? Because having spent a large portion of this last year doing statistical analysis and coordinating stress/scale testing at work I have a different appreciation of what contributes to research. I can now say that I have conducted research in the capitalist work place, as well as the academic institution. The only difference: the academic research doesn't functionally matter.
The papers I co-authored are functionally worthless. I have acknowledged that from the get-go. Interference reduction in fixed antenna environments with total modification to both link-state and routing strategy are a good THIRTY years away from being implementable. Academic research in computer science is roughly 30 years ahead of anything we can possibly implement. Not only that, but the vast majority of the people involved in it don't actually realize that. It's research for research's sake, which is fine... as long as the individual appreciates that the fruit's of one's labors are totally ephemeral. Think I'm wrong about that? 802.11b which has been in use for several years now, but is still reaching for broad adoption, is a set of modifications to a protocol called ALOHA that was first deployed in 1970. The vast majority of wireless technology, routing schemes, and all the other who-ha academically researched between 1970 and 2000 has only made tiny influences on the actual state of corporate development.
This conflict can best be summarized as: which bullshit is more tolerable? If I take the academic route I am effectively signing myself up for coworkers so far removed from reality and efficacy that I'm really just making shit up. If I take the corporate world I am essentially a cog in a larger economic institution where I have to listen to talking heads and the forces of "management" that often do not even have a technologically relevant background.
Maybe it is the Taoist in me, but I want to just not participate. I do not want the bullshit, I do not want the hassle, I do not want meaningless papers, I do not want to work 9-5. Life is going to make me choose a path one of these days. The trick will be in finding a path that can at least harmonize somewhat with my other goals.
I should definitely start acting on those "start my own business" impulses I have been getting again lately. That would be good for me...
Labels: employment, grad school, life
# posted by Chris/Stewy @ Wednesday, December 06, 2006 
Comments:
<< Home
you have no idea how much this is the story of my life, except in humanities it's not really even a case of developing things that might see realization in a concrete way in 30 yrs...it's pure ephemera. and i'm neither a purist, nor very good at figuring out ways of feeding myself i like much better. *sigh* good luck with the house-searching! do you have an lj-feed? i'm terrible at paying attention to external sites...
Post a Comment
<< Home
