I am a philosophy student. I am currently deciding whether continuing into a PhD or not. According to my professors, I am very good at this and should continue, but I don't really feel motivated. I like reading books for the sake of what they teach me. I feel that academic research is mainly a form of masturbation made by university for university. I have always felt that books were somehow useful in teaching me how to live. The time I spend on doing academic research, exploring every minutiae of a book, seems to me not to be worth the results. I believe books are not made to be experienced in this way, especially novels. I feel that reading, as a form of experience, should not become as totalizing as it becomes in academic life at high levels. There are books and there is life: books are supposed to be related to life and to produce something in life by modifying the way you see the world. When you are working nine hours a day on your research, reading literature that in most of the cases is not worth your time, you are missing on life. You do not spend nine hours reading a masterpiece: you spend most of the time reading opinions on masterpieces. Could you not spend your time better by reading other masterpieces? Or living?
I feel that academic life would separate me more and more from actual life. Faculties of the humanities are somehow "segregated", separated from most field of study. They revolve around themselves.
This is just my opinion. Do you think that academic life is good? Would you take PhDs? Do you think humanities, as they are studied in universities, mainly revolve around themselves?
Amazing that you got through undergrad Phil with such a Nietzschean opinion. Wasn't it 99% will-to-systems?
Anyway, thanks for convincing me to remain as interdisciplinary as I can.
Jaxson Harris
It doesn't seem like you want to so why would you? If you want to get paid to read go to grad school, if you want to get paid to write, be a writer. If you want to get paid, go to industry.
Zachary Young
Why do people lie on the internet
No prof would tell you to pursue grad studies if you didn't like researching. I bet you're some freshman so up his own ass that you think you deserve to be in academia without doing academic work just because you're smart. Do you even talk to your profs, little dog?
Literally what the fuck is the point of this thread, what the fuck
Owen Hall
Go kill yourself. I go to Princeton.
Benjamin Martin
Not OP but how would his prof know if he likes research or not? All the prof would know is that his work thus far is good. That doesn't necessarily entail full motivation.
Carter Parker
Oooooo big man, bragging about his institution to a stranger on the internet. I'm so humbled rn In the scenario OP has created, presumably they would have actually talked about a career in academia, rather than a prof off handedly saying "lol I think you should also be a prof xDDD"
This is foolish
Luis Bennett
Exactly, which is why I am asking Veeky Forums. I'm a senior at Princeton.
Brody Rivera
I'm a woman, not a man. Please do not use male pronouns or assume anyone's gender.
Ayden Parker
So you keep saying
No one in their right mind would ask this place for real career advice. Do you not see how much of a cancerous shit hole this board is? If you, a "senior at Princeton" can't see that, academia is truly doomed Apologies
