I still say this is the best academic career guide. I know people like him but I still think Boice is condescending and infantilizing and not designed for people who already know how to read and write, and I still say that my dislike of soft writing guides like The Artist’s Way does not indicate I am unfeeling but only that I have not confused sentimentality with feeling, or speed with bacon for that matter.
The authors of The compleat academic, who are psychologists and are thus familiar with the type of study they cite, say motivation is the greatest predictor of success. Notice, then, how anti-motivational much of what one is told is:
1. You will not get an academic job.
2. You will not be able to write / publish.
3. There is no point in teaching well.
4. Service is a waste of time.
Things I was told, that were also anti-motivational, were that one was doing this strictly for purposes of drawing a salary, and that one should publish articles and books one did not believe in for that reason. I think that if the salary had been good and I had been living somewhere I really wanted to live, and I never got pressing research insights of my own, and I had no idea of anything else I might like to do, I might have been able to accept these ideas. Might.
There must be a better way to advise graduate students than this.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 