I am in higher level education in the public university system. I used to view academia as a source of hope in society, and perhaps a progressive institution in someways, or some kind of source of hope with their supposed focus on science and research. After some years here, this "image" I had of academia has been shattered.
What are your perceptions of academia and research institutions, as Marxists?
In as few words as possible: U.S. academia functions as an MLM* scheme where your best career prospect after getting out will be in academia, preparing further students to leave academia only to return, ad infinitum.
Except for STEM degrees. Then you might be able to get a job for the military industrial complex.
Almost no one I know who finished university wound up doing the kind of work they studied for. One's in healthcare. The rest are still doing odd-jobs or wound up back in academia.
*MLM = multi-level marketing, not Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
Yup. Graduate students are expected to do so much unpaid work, at least here in Canada. Not just that, but we (at least in my program) still pay tuition despite not taking courses. We constantly do unpaid work for our own (or our supervisor's) research. We pay out of pocket to present work at conferences. We pay thousands of dollars to publish our work. We have to beg and grovel for the chance to get funding, and the funding system hasn't changed scholarship amounts in over 20 years. All the presentations, publications, funding applications, etc. are just fodder for your CV, so you can have better odds at doing more presentations, publications, and funding applications.
It's such a rigged system.
Honestly, I wouldn't be that opposed to having to stay in Academia and just do research, if the entire institution and system around submitting research wasn't such a corrupt pile of shit. I honestly fucking love doing research, even in my free time, I always have a million tabs open, always trying to read new stuff. Just can't stand the elitism and classism in Academia. Wish being an independent researcher was a more realistic thing.