So true

June 1, 2018 @ 5:51 am · Filed by under Linguistics in the comics

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My schedule is merely crowded over the next week or so, rather than insane, so I hope to be able to post a little more often.

June 1, 2018 @ 5:51 am · Filed by under Linguistics in the comics


9 Comments

  1. Victor Mair said,

    June 1, 2018 @ 7:07 am

    So true, indeed, and it really hits home with me. I'm sure that all of my colleagues feel exactly the same way.

  2. Sadid Hasan said,

    June 1, 2018 @ 8:16 am

    haha..good one!

  3. Bloix said,

    June 1, 2018 @ 1:18 pm

    It's unfortunate that academics don't consider teaching their students to be worthwhile work.

  4. Victor Mair said,

    June 1, 2018 @ 1:47 pm

    For the record, I love my students, and I love to teach. It's just that, during the regular academic year, there is precious little time to do one's own research. Keeping up with one's own research is important for maintaining one's edge as an effective teacher.

  5. whistle said,

    June 1, 2018 @ 2:17 pm

    Heh. I'm in an office job, and this comic hits home as well. Just change the title to "when the boss isn't in the office". Change the first panel caption to "what the boss thinks we do when he's not in the office" and change the second panel caption to "what we actually do when he's not in the office."

  6. Neil Dolinger said,

    June 1, 2018 @ 4:39 pm

    Bloix, it's unfortunate academic institutions don't consider teaching to be as worthwhile as conducting research. RIP Ron Walton, Penn's loss, U of Md's gain.

  7. David Marjanović said,

    June 1, 2018 @ 6:04 pm

    How old is so true, actually? Is it old enough that prescriptivists have complained how 'illogical' it is?

    academic institutions don't consider teaching to be as worthwhile as conducting research

    In the US, I'm told, it's the opposite: university teachers are only paid to teach, i.e. only get a salary at all for 10 months of the year, and have to fund all their research by writing grant proposals, each of which is about as much work to do as a paper.

    (Which is horrible. The whole point of a university is that the teachers are the very same people who do the research whose results they're teaching and don't just know it from outdated books.)

  8. Viseguy said,

    June 1, 2018 @ 11:39 pm

    The whole point of a university, as I see it, is to abolish the distinction between work and play. When you're a professor, you do your research, and teach what you learn, for the sheer love of doing those things — and thereby communicate that love to your students, who in turn pass it on. At least, that's how I approached my undergraduate education 50 years ago. What we seem to have now is an unholy, or at least unwholesome, alliance between education and vocational training, between academe and the market place. Had I tried to calculate the ROI on my double concentration in Russian studies and music, I might have majored in business instead — and would be much the poorer for it today.

    Here's wishing all professors a playful/productive summer!

  9. stephen said,

    June 4, 2018 @ 12:21 pm

    Unkind view of academic life as it perhaps once was:

    I'm an academic. I work 24/7. That is, 24 hours a week, 7 months a year.

    Depends, of course, on what you count as "work". If you mean doing things that, on the whole, you'd rather not …

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