:LIB: alert I know but I'm in a pickle as I think about grad school. I already have a degree in poli sci and international relations that was slightly painful to get through with all the pro-IMF and :vote: rhetoric, but I enjoyed myself ultimately and it got me into a pseudo organizing role. Feeling stuck tho and I'm thinking of grad school, but I'm afraid any public policy or urban design track will just be neo liberal pablem to the max. And I'm concerned about becoming a little cog in the machine perpetuating this horrorshow we live in. But at the same time policy is fascinating and I love it so much and there's the shrimp brain part of me that thinks I could make a difference, no matter how small. Anyone else dealing with this?
Does it advance the cause of socialism to flagellate yourself for not sufficiently adhering to a proletarian aesthetic?
This conversation comes up a lot. Don't turn down a paycheck from anyone unless they make bombs or the ethical equivalent of bombs. In the best case, you may do some good. In the worst case, you may be so incompetent as to slow down the machinery you're paid to be a part of. And either way you have the coin of the realm to funnel into The Work. And so it is with education, analogically.
This advice is for the US and similar systems.
I recommend against grad school that you have to pay for unless you're truly passionate about it and you find a great advisor who's good to their students. You can drop the passion part if it's paid like STEM usually is, that can be developed with a good PI but is not worth the timesink if you're not paid.
A STEM PhD will usually pay you and tuition for classes. And if you don't want to keep going after 2 years of classes, you can exit Ruth a free Master's degree.
If you're unpaid and not that into it, the imposter syndrome, accumulating debt, and generally poor structures of grad school labor standards will be stressful without much payoff. And God help you if you get a surprise bad advisor.
Yes! No. Well, yes. I have a very similar story to you. Poli sci undergrad -- enjoyed the studies/hated the ideology-- organized a touch. But I got out of nearly all electoral work shortly after graduation and got into another line of work that would require me to eventually go to grad school anyways.
So now I'm tearing myself into little pieces trying to find a way to fit my new field with something resembling my old one, and trying to avoid the incredible :LIB: -ness of BOTH of them. The main thing holding me back from really going to grad school (besides money, time, etc.), is like yours -- becoming another enabler of capitalism's continuation. After having worked with my coworkers (whose broad trajectories I'd likely have to follow) for a bit, I've seen the belief in a better world and the very concept of community agency ripped away from them. Once they were "idealistic" (in the vernacular sense), but now they "accept reality" (again in the vernacular). It's like seeing Freire's pedagogy in reverse.
I reassure myself that I will be different -- but will I really? Does it even matter that I go through all that they did and think myself apart from them? Or will I just be trapped in my aloofness, acting no differently than any other enabler of the status quo?
funnily enough I graduated with the same degree combo as you. I'm pretty ambivalent about grad school myself, I think I'd likely only do it if I had a specific job opportunity or something. already spent enough money on the first degree. As far as the fear of becoming a little Eichmann, as long as you aren't getting involved with MIC or evil cop stuff i think it's fine. I tell myself that any socialist revolution will need plenty of bureaucrats and planners so I am trying to get myself into the best position for me to defect to the revolution, even if that just means getting some experience in a field so I can be useful. Kinda a fabricated hope atm but whatever I'm also getting paid,
The concept of grad school isn't bad. It would be free in a socialist country anyway. Idolize MS and PhD-holders like Angela Davis or Che or Xi and you'll be fine
Hopefully it makes your career path a little safer in the capitalist hellhole
I think a problem you're facing is there's a big difference between organizing to build socialism and working for a "progressive" NGO.
I got my grad degree and, unable to find job in the bs I studied, went into education. It sounds like you already have an "in" though with your pseudo organizing role. I had no connections which, in hindsight, determined my career path (at least I got a free ride in grad school tho; don't go if it isn't tuition free).
Perhaps if I had been politically aware when I was deciding whether or not go to grad school, I think I would've decided against it and tried being a salt instead.
I’m currently on medical leave from my grad program in neuroscience. I mostly hope I can use it as a ticket to get out of the US before it collapses.
You probably won't make a difference, but you enjoy it and need to collect a paycheck somehow. You can have a little policy as a treat.
