Academia: Staying Afloat

Thursday's Child Keeps Going, Whether the Shore Is Far or Near

I have in the past two years had conversations with students and alumni about their future plans for study and training, about the careers they hope to pursue, about the skills they have developed and plan to hone further.

Often, there comes a moment. Quietly, the other person asks, “Is there any point to what I’m planning to do? Are these jobs going to be eliminated completely? Will I be able to do anything with these skills? Does it matter if I can write well, if I can analyze statistical data, if I can make models of complex processes, advise a client about their legal options, research new drug treatments for illnesses, study how to mitigate climate change, make beautiful art?”

Sometimes we’re talking about AI. Sometimes we’re talking about the way that private equity has eviscerated professional services and the general labor market. Sometimes we are talking about what Trump and his associates might do, are doing. Sometimes it is just the dread of all the compounded uncertainties of this time in human history.

Yes, I answer. It matters. You are the right person to be studying those things and honing those skills. We need you to do it.

I am not being a pollyanna when we come to this turn in the conversation.

I am not promising that short-sighted people who are vomiting up generative AI slop into everything will not for a while badly damage how we think, talk, write, research, and make beauty for one another. I am not predicting that private equity will be stopped from buying all the local hospitals and destroying them. I am not assuring that Trump and his associates and supporters will not for a time banish expertise and experience from our government and close up most of our public institutions.

Yes, I answer. You are the right person to do what you do, know what you know, study what you’re going to study. You do it.

You are a lifeboat.

You are not the passenger being rescued from a shipwreck. You are the rescuer. Your skills, your knowledge, your experience reside in you. You have pulled them from the cold ocean where cruel and careless captains have set them adrift.

You are a lifeboat. It is your job to keep those skills, that knowledge, this understanding alive. To feed and water your passengers, to look after their needs. To be sure they remember where they came from and to remind them of how it’s going to be when you reach the further shore.

You are bringing your passengers to the inevitable harbor that awaits their arrival, on the other side of the wreck. When the tide of slop recedes, when our governments refuse to let our vital institutions be torn apart just to top off a bulging hoard with a few more dollars, when the men who want to wreck everything are stopped before they can finish. Maybe they can succeed for a short time by sinking the vast ship that all those skills and work sailed upon before, but those destroyers will fail in the end if you succeed.

Keep on going. Bring your skills, your knowledge, your insight, your experience home to us. Keep adding passengers, keep learning, keep practicing. We will need all of what you can learn and do.

You are a lifeboat.

Image credit: Patent model of a lifeboat, Joseph Francis, 1858. https://www.si.edu/object/patent-model-life-boat:nmah_844264