Detailing my academic journey - loss of power in grad school
There are some great posts about academia from LOF like this one, but those were more general and intended for expanding audience.
I would like to provide specifics of the political environment within my department as an example, and my mistakes in graduate school due to not being politically savvy, for which I paid for dearly.
General principle
As the saying goes, "Where there is people, there is politics", academia is no different. Because of the social expectation of doing excellent scientific work, and noble social responsibilities to advocate for more justice and equality etc., academia is one of the most hypocritical areas to be in.
Workplace politics still function the same, and those who are not aware of the unwritten rules are punished post-hoc, or marginalized at best.
Because of the huge power-differential between advisors and students, as well as limited resources (monetary or otherwise), it is a battleground and things should be done as strategically and covertly as possible.
My department
My department is one of the most schizophrenic places on the entire campus because of two things:
First, it is interdepartmental - they brand it as interdisciplinary, which is sugarcoating of not having solid resources in general and having to rely on the good will of people who prioritize their primary departmental affiliations;
Second, department leadership is constructed in a way that power-protects core faculty members and staff, covers their asses while being chameleon-like adaptive of all the rules.
To illustrate point 1, students in the department have been the most underpaid and had the most unstable funding as compared to all programs on the campus. I understand that point 2 is common in all organizations, but our department is the next level - they literally changed the student manual multiple times to take out unfavorable rules to the faculty (while further eroding the power of students).
The players
There are two directors - one is a female professor who is a control freak, and plays nasty on multiple different ways with students. Basically she needs to have her own way - I've heard multiple horror stories from fellow students and decided to stay away from her. Nonetheless, she is very good at hiding behind a good face. For example, she would give useless generic advice while not helping with any specifics. My first glance into her controlling nature was that, I remember one time when there was a meeting for students to give feedback to the department, she cut in a lot trying to state her own opinion while students were raising problems. I later also learnt, those meetings are useless and would not change anything, but just as a front that they "care about the students", which is, of course, a lie.
And there is a coordinator (equivalent to secretary) who is a pawn and sycophant to her, and they two vibe on the same covert fake niceness, sometimes the cognitive dissonance from this makes me sick.
The other director is a male professor from another field, who plays a smiling mediator when she gets too aggressive, but all the same does not really advocate for students.
They are the epitome of the nature of this department - it's all about the appearances, and being Machiavellian.
My advisors and thesis progress
Because of the unstable funding, I had to work for other professors whose research interests had nothing to do with my own, and struggled to find a viable thesis topic. I was interested in a particular area and heard that one professor in another department is a known expert on it and has been working with some data for a while. I went to her and she felt it was something worth exploring so I started the process. She is my second advisor (let's call her Matilda).
Our department rules are written in a way that either the female director, or another female professor needs to be the primary advisor even if the topic area is outside of the department. It is all in the student manual. It doesn't make sense if for the sake of research - since open collaboration should be fostered.
I realized that because the department faculty needs to make quota for successfully mentoring and graduating students, so they twist it in a way to leave students with very limited options for thesis advisors. Since I heard the female director is difficult to work with, I went with the other female professor, who became my primary advisor (let's call her Penny).
Things did work well for the first year of my thesis, since both Penny and Matilda were responsive and working together. However, Matilda began to show her controlling nature - there is another member in the thesis committee who is a close colleague of her. She tried to "gatekeep" my interaction with him, saying that I should go through everything with her to be able to communicate with him. In the end, I just assume that member is dead, because he is useless in my progress. She also fought with my methodology professor, and was protective of her own ideas of analysis, which was incomprehensible to me - I often feel that I am a tool writing someone else's thoughts - perhaps hers, since she really needs things to be exactly the way she likes.
Things got bad when Matilda had some family issues and was absent for a solid half a year. Penny took over to lead the analysis with my methodology professor consulting on the side. Penny functions in a way that she is obsessed with details that are not really important - editing mistakes etc. Nonetheless I tolerated and thought I was making progress. When Matilda came back in the summer, she immediately pushed back what I had done during her absence, stating that I deviated from the original analysis. Penny immediately asked me to change what I've been writing for months, and adding more details at the same time.
So here I am, still trying to finish my last bit of writing, and my draft has been criticized multiple times for not being good enough. I started to feel that they want to get away with as little work as possible, it is a constant battle. At the same time, they want to control this so they are not letting me out "the easy way".
Matilda's comeback was a really stressful time for me. Penny already said that I should file for graduation in that semester (another covert move), and when Matilda comes back, it was all about power-protecting her while harming me. Matter of fact, she also power-protects whoever had some opinion on my draft, and asks me to respond and do additional analysis because of a single comment from anybody. She said my graduation should be delayed, and it was because I wasn't able to "turn it around" in time and things "were not finalized".
In addition, they are useless in my career development since I decided to leave academia because of all the toxic experiences. They had zero sympathy about my personal situation of having to juggle work and study, and then later fake niceness by asking how I was doing at work.
Matilda's comeback was the low-point in my life, and I made a mistake of posting some complaint (not really directing at the department, just stating difficulty) on a professional networking site, where Penny (mysteriously as she never uses it) saw my post and said "I am concerned that it would be unfavorable for your future employers" and asked me to remove it. At that point I realized she has been a nasty player all along, since she couldn't care less about my work, and it was all about covering her own ass.
The fallout
The emotional costs of being in this kind of environment are huge for me - wasted years and resources and energy, a jaded mind, and not knowing where I should go next in terms of career. Many times I doubted that something was wrong with me. As a few other students were able to graduate faster and had started their own careers much earlier.
Recently, I heard that some students a couple years behind me had taken action to go against the department because of similar experiences, as in many different ways my department is toxic. I heard that they were trying to go against the female director, and also asked the school to form a special auditing committee to examine their academic conduct, especially on mentoring.
Lessons learnt
- Vet before you invest: I wasn't really looking deeply into the metrics of the program before I entered. For example, graduation rate, where did students go for work afterwards, how long did it take them to find those jobs, what was the stipend - these could have been researched a bit better with recently graduating students or other students from the same department who left academia as a career
- Assess the character of key players: Unfortunately both of my advisors are power-hungry control freaks. There are some more suitable professors in other departments, but they could not mentor me. I did not have the best power awareness to understand what their true characters are like before it's too late. One of my classmates had great mentors and she graduated the fastest, and had been a professor herself for a couple years already because of her connections with those advisors.
- Power-align whenever you can: One mistake I made was to go outside of the department for research topics. I didn't think that I need to power-align with the department - the department needs students to do its own research work, and they will focus on graduating students who invested in doing work on their research agenda more than anything. Another classmate of mine did research with Penny for most of her graduate school and was able to graduate earlier than me.
- Make yourself visible to higher-up: There are a couple "founding fathers" type of professors in the department, who do not do much real research work than just managing and being a symbol of history. I remember one student was really "the star" because she was heavily invested in connecting with everyone, including those "founding fathers". Her thesis defense was the most well-attended and many faculty members praised her a lot. Needless to say, she had an easier start on her academic career.
Fascinating Emily. Thank you for sharing. That sharing generic useless advice is common to a lot of higher ups in private sector too. They will either tell you 101 or make motherhood statements in meetings that nobody could disagree with. E.g. we all need to work to our customer (true but water is wet too and neither help me).
Great write-up and analysis, Emily.
You learned a lot are still learning from this experience, that's the most important. I am guessing that if you had not had this experience you would not be on this forum. So this proved a great learning opportunity.
I'll talk later about costs and exit strategies.
In terms of management, as often it is the case in Academia/public sectors, there are basic mistakes that fuel this toxic situation.
First, it is interdepartmental - they brand it as interdisciplinary, which is sugarcoating of not having solid resources in general and having to rely on the good will of people who prioritize their primary departmental affiliations;
There is already a conflict of interest embedded in here. When you are at the intersection of two department, you already have a conflict of loyalty from the start. Who are you loyal to? How much are you willing to give to each?
There are two directors
This is also a basic of management: don't have 2 bosses. Same as above, there is an embedded conflict as you don't know who has final authority. This adds more confusion. I'm not blaming this on you. This is how it is organized.
Penny and Matilda
A third conflict here. Same as above. However, there it's more concrete aspects for you. The reason why it's advised not to have 2 bosses: what do you do when boss A says to paint the fence red and boss B says to paint the fence blue? Exactly. And in your case it cost you months of work. This is your life, you could have done something else with this time. This proves that these people steal your life, literally. Without any regards for you, on top of it.
So, in the end many red flacts:
- 3 conflicts of interest embedded in your project
- Highly political environment (Academia) where the work comes second after the power and the advantages
- A bunch of crazy hypocritical higher-up
I personnally would not go with an auditing comittee. I would rather build a student body where you gather and make decisions together. I would make sure it is approved by the department and would sell it as improving the graduates' training (which is part of it of course).
If you're close to the end of your thesis, you might choose not to get involved in this.
Costs
As you said, it is emotionnally draining to have negative people around us. Especially people above us as we are also influenced by their negativity (hypocrisy, lies, abuse, etc.) so it makes our life less beautiful than it could be. For instance, I'm much happier in my current rotation than in my previous. I'm in a better mood, etc.
Exit strategies
- You already know what to do: do whatever it takes to get out of there.
- Depending on your field and location, you might have different career opportunities. I would already look into them only to get hope and motivation to fuel point 1.
- I would reflect seriously if you really want to do an academic career. Personnally, I would advise against it. Only if you really love what you do and are ok with all the rest. Otherwise, I realized it's a field with many sacrifices and few rewards. It takes a lot of time from you and you could use this time to improve your life in other aspects (hobbies, travels, friendships, etc.)
So, it was rigged against you from the beginning. From the structure of the organization, to the culture and the people in it.
So basically, after finishing your thesis:
- You pursue an academic career. Now you have more experience to choose a better Professor.
- You pursue another career, in alignement with your studies
- You pursue another career, different from your thesis.
As I said earlier, this is a learning experience. You are in the driving seat. These people don't own your life and what you owe them is a thesis, nothing more, nothing less.
I did not mention it but personnally I would not give up on the thesis. You haven't talked about it but it's another option.
When people had such an experience, sometimes they want to learn about management. This is also another option.
The World is your Oyster.
Quote from John Freeman on July 12, 2022, 1:54 pmGreat write-up and analysis, Emily.
You learned a lot are still learning from this experience, that's the most important. I am guessing that if you had not had this experience you would not be on this forum. So this proved a great learning opportunity.
I'll talk later about costs and exit strategies.
In terms of management, as often it is the case in Academia/public sectors, there are basic mistakes that fuel this toxic situation.
First, it is interdepartmental - they brand it as interdisciplinary, which is sugarcoating of not having solid resources in general and having to rely on the good will of people who prioritize their primary departmental affiliations;
There is already a conflict of interest embedded in here. When you are at the intersection of two department, you already have a conflict of loyalty from the start. Who are you loyal to? How much are you willing to give to each?
There are two directors
This is also a basic of management: don't have 2 bosses. Same as above, there is an embedded conflict as you don't know who has final authority. This adds more confusion. I'm not blaming this on you. This is how it is organized.
Penny and Matilda
A third conflict here. Same as above. However, there it's more concrete aspects for you. The reason why it's advised not to have 2 bosses: what do you do when boss A says to paint the fence red and boss B says to paint the fence blue? Exactly. And in your case it cost you months of work. This is your life, you could have done something else with this time. This proves that these people steal your life, literally. Without any regards for you, on top of it.
So, in the end many red flacts:
- 3 conflicts of interest embedded in your project
- Highly political environment (Academia) where the work comes second after the power and the advantages
- A bunch of crazy hypocritical higher-up
I personnally would not go with an auditing comittee. I would rather build a student body where you gather and make decisions together. I would make sure it is approved by the department and would sell it as improving the graduates' training (which is part of it of course).
If you're close to the end of your thesis, you might choose not to get involved in this.
Costs
As you said, it is emotionnally draining to have negative people around us. Especially people above us as we are also influenced by their negativity (hypocrisy, lies, abuse, etc.) so it makes our life less beautiful than it could be. For instance, I'm much happier in my current rotation than in my previous. I'm in a better mood, etc.
Exit strategies
- You already know what to do: do whatever it takes to get out of there.
- Depending on your field and location, you might have different career opportunities. I would already look into them only to get hope and motivation to fuel point 1.
- I would reflect seriously if you really want to do an academic career. Personnally, I would advise against it. Only if you really love what you do and are ok with all the rest. Otherwise, I realized it's a field with many sacrifices and few rewards. It takes a lot of time from you and you could use this time to improve your life in other aspects (hobbies, travels, friendships, etc.)
So, it was rigged against you from the beginning. From the structure of the organization, to the culture and the people in it.
So basically, after finishing your thesis:
- You pursue an academic career. Now you have more experience to choose a better Professor.
- You pursue another career, in alignement with your studies
- You pursue another career, different from your thesis.
As I said earlier, this is a learning experience. You are in the driving seat. These people don't own your life and what you owe them is a thesis, nothing more, nothing less.
I did not mention it but personnally I would not give up on the thesis. You haven't talked about it but it's another option.
When people had such an experience, sometimes they want to learn about management. This is also another option.
The World is your Oyster.
Thank you for your kind words, John. Yes it didn't kill me, so it made me stronger.
Yeah I realized that the co-mentoring structure has conflict of interest embedded, but if people had been working with each other in good faith, it shouldn't be such a huge problem like this. What I didn't mention is that my program handbook also requires at least 5 members in the committee - not sure why that is, but in the most Machiavellian sense, it's probably for core faculty to insert as many of their allies and also themselves in this.
Yes I am past the point in progress to go against them in the auditing process, nor do I have the energy. You were right that this whole experience made me want to leave academia altogether - also I doubt if I could get any favorable recommendations from them because of what happened (they might backhandedly hurt my job hunt process, which isn't uncommon in the academic job market).
Despite what happened I am not giving up my thesis and look forward to finishing in the next few months. Fingers crossed.
I have some other experiences I can share regarding starting my career. Yes I agree that getting out of there would make me feel better and in a better state to think about next step.