Life without Academia
BY CÜNEYT YILMAZ (ECON/IV)
cuneyt_y@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Did John Lennon actually say that? Well, if not, then Cün Lennon just did.
A few minutes ago, I was occupying myself with Draw Something, a draw and guess game on iPhone, while also trying to get the hang of a website called Pinterest. Now, the applicability of the above quotation to my frame of mind at the time would seem to concern the poor performance of my opponent, which cost me three coins (I'm talking about you, Andregur, with your very peculiar drawing skills, which couldn't beat those of a second grader - not to mention your lousy guessing performance), or the said website's turning out to be a complete disaster. The answer is, however, neither.
While I was busy struggling with Andregur's lousiness, one of my dearest friends from last year sent me a message on Facebook to break the scandalous news about her decision to not do a PhD. Given what a brilliant student she is/has been, which is obvious in view of the master's program she was admitted to, I was shocked. Once one of my idols, she now was telling me how difficult grad school was and how insufficient it made her feel. Besides the regret I felt for her (as well as for academia and what it was losing due to her decision), that message also made me realize that there's a teeny weeny possibility of me not succeeding -- on the extremely pretentious assumption that I'll be admitted to a university in the first place.
Coincidentally, last week, a teaching assistant whose office hours helped us survive our econometrics midterm had also told me about her hesitancy in pursuing a doctorate. This and my friend's message have together dragged me to the conclusion that I should have a Plan B, just in case things don't work out as it is pretentiously assumed above that they will. I've already decided to forward Adele's "Someone Like You" to the universities that reject me, but what else should I do?
Unfortunately, there aren't many places where I can practice my economics knowledge, since its basic premise that people are rational fails to coincide with reality. After being rejected by academia, I suppose I could go try my luck at a think tank. This isn't, however, something I'm willing to do before actually gaining expertise in economics. The undergraduate economics curriculum is far from sufficient in terms of providing you with the necessary skills to do independent research -- and I don't blame my department for that, because it's the basics of supply and demand that are operating here. And yet, this very insufficiency is what would prevent me from looking for a job at a think tank.
As for the private sector, well, do you remember the analogy I made between a mortgage and working for a company? Or am I taking this columnist-reader relationship too seriously? Either way, the analogy went like this: "When you come to think of it, working for a company is like a mortgage loan functioning in the opposite direction. I mean, for all practical purposes, you sell yourself to a company and let them suck up your soul in exchange for a monthly payment, which they call a salary." I still maintain my views on this matter and will, as I stated at the very end of the same piece, "think twice before selling myself to a company for a few thousand liras, for I know that life is but a collection of moments, and the sad ones have a minus sign before them."
The most plausible option, then, seems to be going for a government post. In that case, you're not going to be sucked dry of your soul, but even if you are, you know that it's for the greater good, not that of some Richie Rich who once had to beg for your class notes to study for a macroeconomics midterm. Still, it would take a whole lot to convince me to apply for such a position -- not that I despise it, but because I want to make practical use of my economics knowledge, which I don't think would be the case in a government post.
So what do I do? Should I look for every single job that's out there in the market and apply for all of them, just to make sure that I don't end up a penniless smarty-pants in two months? Well, I really don't think so. If the quotation about life being what happens to you while you're busy making other plans -- be it said by John Lennon or Cün Lennon -- is to be taken seriously, then I think I should stick with what I want to do the most. And, if I ever end up in a situation other than the one I'm planning on -- i.e., if I fail to complete my master's -- I should simply be able to live with that.
On second thought, though, I somehow don't think my parents would be able to live with that.