People are vastly amusing; their foibles, predilections, prejudices, and joys can provide endless fodder for those around them. People is plural, individuals can be equally interesting, though as often as not they may be too close to our own position for comfort. And, when it is our own behaviour that is on display, we are wont to deny the broader experience – I am smarter, stronger, more depressed, angrier, hurt, or joyous than any other person in history.
So this is my look at a very trying day.
It is the beginning of classes for students enrolled in the SFU Masters in Urban Studies this evening. Up until half an hour ago I was scheduled to be there, enrolled in what appears to be an interesting course, taught by a competent professor, and probably sharing the room with equally intelligent students. But I had to make a decision, soon, and I decided that I was no longer going to be there this evening.
There are multiple, plausible, reasons for leaving. But I am reminded of a comment by a friend of my uncle’s, who served as a police officer in Vancouver for nearly a decade if my memory serves. When he decided to quit, and as I recall, he had damn good reason to quit, people he knew all wanted to know ‘why are you quitting?’ He was annoyed because no one asked him why he started. And my reasons for starting were at least as interesting as my reasons for quitting.
Once upon a time a Bachelor’s degree was virtually a guarantee of a ‘good’ job, one that probably included the corner office, a secretary (paid half as much, for twice as much work), and a level of cultural capital that made the effort worthwhile. All this was still true even in the early 1970s, though with the expansion of the ‘educated class,’ the writing was on the wall.
With thousands of newly minted BAs in the workforce, inflation set in, and soon enough a Masters was taking the social and workplace role once held by the baccalaureate. A perfect example of this is the level of qualification held by college instructors. When I started at Langara Community College in January 2000, I was exceptionally fortunate to have, as an instructor, Cynthia Flood. She held a BA, had started teaching sometime in the Dark Ages (probably the early or mid 1970s), and if my experience was indicative, was an excellent instructor.
Today’s new hires at Langara, who still teach the same stuff (essentially first and second year ‘transferable credits’), appear to all have PhDs. The shiny new PhDs are still teaching the same subjects, the same books, to the same students. But with so many PhDs in the job market, why hire someone who ‘only’ has an MA? Inflation hits far more in academia than mere marks.
After Humanities 101, written about elsewhere, I wanted a BA. I wanted to prove that I was not only intellectually capable, but that I could still focus on something long enough to see it to fruition, something that with depression was becoming a less, and less, familiar experience. And I did finish. Not on the ‘Dean’s List’ by any stretch, but missing the ‘first class average’ (80% if memory serves) by about one measly percent. And, unlike those students I knew who did get the ‘first class average,’ I didn’t work quite as hard as they did. I knew what I had to do to get 82% on a paper, 84% was an aberration, and in the entire 4 years only a couple papers were less than 80%. But tests! So, with lots of ‘good’ marks, tests sort of took the wind out of my sails.
And then what? You have the BA. But everyone has a BA. In at least one census tract in Ontario 35 or 36 % of residents have a BA. That is better than one in three people, which starts to make BAs look like belly-buttons, everyone has one.
And then I was broke, no job on the horizon, no money in hand. And I could always get a student loan for the Masters of my choice…
And SFU was promoting the Graduate Diploma in Urban Studies up the ladder to the Masters in Urban Studies.
And a marriage, of sorts, was born. I applied, wrote the obligatory letter explaining why I would be a good candidate for the program, had good enough marks to get in, and was accepted.
And the student loan came through.
Now, don’t think that this was a purely mercantilist move, it wasn’t then, and is only portrayed that way now for the effects of story telling. But, with money in hand, and a legitimized reason for reading every damn thing I could get my hands on about ‘urban’ stuff, I felt set.
A couple courses. People asking me ‘why’ I’m there, some inside the program, some outside the program. Unlike my BA, which one just does ‘because,’ the Masters still seems somewhat optional – especially when one hits 50 – and my answers were always a little flip, a little too ‘off the cuff.’ And I started to refer to the program as my hobby – a relatively cheap hobby in the long run, and one with some social cachet – but my hobby nonetheless.
Almost everyone else in the room had ‘really good reasons’ to be there. Their employer was paying, or they would get a significant raise once the Masters had been officially conferred, or they could get job ‘X,’ rather than the tawdry job ‘Y’ they had right now. But they all had a really good reason for being there. And I just wanted to do it because cities interest me; the way buildings are built, the way communities within cities develop (or fail), the way cities compete with one another for resources, and the way cities allow competition within themselves all intrigue me, just because I’m curious about them.
But while some of my colleagues were curious, some were not. And, while some of the courses were good, some were not.
And, repeating the pedagogical errors taught in undergraduate schools, too many of the courses place high value on ‘group projects.’ I suppose that there is some argument for learning to work together, damn, I’ve heard a few of them, and I still don’t believe most of it. I missed kindergarten, I don’t play well with others, and I don’t like being responsible not only for my problems, but theirs as well.
After a group project in a senior-level undergraduate course was done, and the course marks posted, the prof asked me how I felt about the course in general, and the project in particular. I suggested that his salary, currently received, should be his maximum salary. His actual salary should be based on the productivity of his junior faculty colleagues – his income is dependent on the work produced by people over which he has no control. His response? That was the end of that version of group projects. And, I thought, that was the end of group projects for me as well.
But SFU’s Masters in Urban Studies has too many professors who, amongst other foibles, like to base a significant percentage of my mark, on the work done by other people. Or not done, as the case may be. And, I’m not actually ready to blame others for their lack of work, I’m terrified that their mark will be lowered by my errors of omission, or commission. The terror does me in.
I have nightmares, real, live, frighteningly vivid nightmares all centered around group projects. I sweat them when I’m asleep, and I sweat them when I’m awake, and they gnaw at my guts. I hate them.
And tonight’s class? Group projects. Depending on how you count, 40 to 50% of my final mark, based on group projects. And I hate them.
The thesis, when one gets there, is supposed to be an extended, intellectual, argument that is properly developed, supported, illustrated, presented and defended. Wonderful idea. No one but me seems to notice that it is, most emphatically, not a group project. The author is supposed to develop and present a body of work essentially on their own; in light of that, the continual imposition of ‘group projects’ seems of little pedagogical import.
Although all this came to a head today, in all honesty it has been building at least since the first week of July, when course registration opened. I stalled as long as I could. I suffered through the agonies of nightmare, depression, angst hoping that if I was just positive enough, all would pass.
One would hope, and I did, that once the decision to leave the program had been made, a great mental weight would lift. Hopefully I would be freed of the weight of expectation, of anger, of fear. But that didn’t happen. Things will, I hope, lighten over the next few days.
I also hope that my ego will allow me to explain, in greater or lesser detail, to friends and acquaintances, what I’ve done, and why.
It has been a very trying day.
