I feel like an academic loser

I just made the mistake of googling several of my classmates from graduate school. With one exception, they all have multiple publications, get interviewed by the national media, and one even did election night coverage in prime time for a national network. And I outperformed all these individuals in graduate school. Me—I’m fortunate when I get a local radio interview. I haven’t published much beyond this blog (and we all see that this isn’t all that impressive).

To be fair to myself, I am at a teaching intensive school. When other academics hear how much time I spend on teaching, grading, and other interactions with students, they are generally stunned. Then I am expected to do a lot more “service” (read: meetings) than would be expected at other institutions.

But, that doesn’t fully excuse the fact that I haven’t published anything. I haven’t even had the courage to submit anything for publication. It isn’t that I don’t have anything. I have several things that are just about ready to go, I just can’t bring myself to pull the trigger and submit them.

Part of the problem is courage. Part of the problem is my own perfectionism. I’m not personally happy with any of my work--but I know I have higher expectations than others do. In graduate school I received an A for every paper, but I wasn’t happy with any of them. I just had to get them in by the due date. Maybe I just need to assign myself some due dates and just submit these things.

Back to School Again

Classes have started up again. It is a time for me to return to routine and some sense of normalcy. It is amazing how crazy summers can get even though you technically have far fewer responsibilities.

As classes are starting again, I am reminded of a few of the things that are leading me towards burn-out. First, I should mention that my school is somewhat atypical. We are designed to outreach to an underserved population, which, in part, means that we admit students who normally wouldn’t be admitted to a 4-year college with somewhat rigorous academics. As a result, many of the students are simply not ready for college-level work. This is not their fault—I blame it mostly on the inept public school system (which is definitely a topic for a future blog). Partly because the students are less prepared, and partly because my department creates something of a family atmosphere for them, students spend a lot of time hanging around the offices. I used to think this was a wonderful thing until I came to a startling realization: I can’t get work done when students are there. So, I was having to bring work home with me to do in the evenings.

This year I am trying something different. I am not spending as much time on campus. Basically, I am staying home (or at least out of the office) for the most part in the mornings. It is amazing how much more efficient I have been in the first week of school after starting this practice. Who knows, I might actually have time to really work on this blog…