You should have seen the look on the chair of my committee's face when I told him that I was going to industry.
Dr Ray Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've *worked* in the private sector. They expect results!
I've run into a few of this sort. The Brilliant Learned Doctorate who could wax poetical about his brilliance for hours... but couldn't run a simple PCR to save his soul. Or make microwave popcorn, come to think of it. But he was actually a nice guy, if doofety. His staff just had to be Johnny On The Spot in keeping him from actually
touching anything in the lab and diplomatic enough to disaude him without actually saying "No, by God! You'll ruin the whole wretched batch!"
There was one really Snob Nasty Academic I had a run in with, who pretty much hated veterans and made no bones about it... quite literally stated that veteran status should be considered just cause for barring students from even attending college so "decent people wouldn't have to be exposed to them." Kipling pretty much had her in mind when he wrote
Tommy Atkins. That one worked out all sorts of humorous when I paid a call on the More Bigger Acemickeyer Dean of her department, who neither shared nor appreciated her attitude. He told me to go to the student union for a while and come back after lunch to see him. I later heard from what a lady friend who worked in the department offices that it was a one sided discussion conducted in ringing tones, the sort where all the staff in the deparmental offices at the time just stood still and listened with their Oh, Shit Face on. The result of which was he personally re-graded all of my work and I jumped from an F to an A. (He's actually a tough grader, I usually got C's and B's when I was in his class. Her class was one of those Diploma Fluffers you take to fill a block.) For the rest of the semester she was unfailingly polite and solicitious to the point where she wouldn't have said "crap" if I left one on her desk.
But the majority of the eggheads I've met or personally worked with have been Good Eggs. I had a real gem when I was studying fine arts. His stated position was "I'm not here to teach you art. I am here to
teach you technical skills, and to possibly
advise on how to artistically express yourself as we see where your strengths and interests lie as well as what it is you actually desire to express." He understood that One Doctrine Fits All doesn't do art or artists justice. (He'd have spanked Clement Greenburg like a sassy little beyotch.)
(I've a bachelor's in business, minor in Parks and Recs of all things. I once had an interest in the whole Bed and Breakfast sort of thing. I got better. I've also got the more than ample credits for an associates, probably a bachelors in both biotech and fine arts, if I ever bothered to put them all together at the same university. And of course, I work in social services now, which has absolutely no relation to any of my academic training.)
