My eighth grade English teacher used to drill it into our heads over and over again: brevity is a blessing. Still, it never really took. I guess that's my way of saying I don't have a short version of this debate to proffer, so I'll try to use plenty of white space between the varying thoughts instead.
Stick it out: I'm half-way there and might as well finish. Wouldn't it open up plenty of options to have a PhD even if I don't want to be a professor?
Leave: two years, while not a lifetime, isn't short either--especially given how much I stress out over reading things carefully and taking plenty of notes, whether it's a theoretical text or a student paper. This not only eats up huge chunks of time but leaves me mentally and emotionally drained when it comes to doing anything else.
Stick it out: yeah, but what else am I going to do with an MA in English and two years of a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition? If I think teaching unmotivated college students sucks I'd surely think the same, or worse, of unmotivated high school students.
Leave: sure, but this problem doesn't go away by staying in school. The most likely professorial jobs that will welcome me will have heavy teaching loads and uninterested students. And if I don't plan to become a professor, then why bother getting the PhD?
Stick it out: because staying at least provides me with stable, albeit meager, income, something not to turn one's nose up at in an economic situation like what we face in the U.S. currently.
Leave: isn't that the same kind of attitude that kept mom doing the same work she'd grown to hate, work that eventually stressed her out so much it effectively killed her? (my mom died of a cerebral hemorrhage caused by high blood pressure).
Stick it out: can I be that certain of being any less stressed or more happy doing something else though? I've bounced around between ten different fields in the last seven years and none of them were great fits.
Leave: art and helping people who actually want the help (unlike my current students) are two things that have always made me happy. Surely I can figure out some way to make money from one or both of those.
Stick it out: really, how? And once I leave, I'm highly unlikely to ever come back--what if it perpetually sticks in my mind as proof of being a failure and a quitter, a lifelong hard to remedy regret? Isn't it safer just to finish, just in case?
Leave: that's a pitiful reason to do something.
Stick it out: maybe, but that doesn't mean it lacks validity, especially in the face of any better definite plan. Plus at least the conversations about the readings with colleagues and professors are sometimes interesting. And every once in a while i get excited about the prospect of participating in academic conversation via publication. Plus what if there is the chance of getting a professorial job I'd enjoy, like at NCF or in a writing center?
Leave: Okay, the chance of a decent job is a tricky one to weigh. Right now, though, it's far more common that I feel stressed out, depressed, and unhappy.
Stick it out: that could just be because of the clinical depression.
Leave: or it could be aggravating the clinical depression.
Both: so what the hell do I do now?
before & after
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