LamKam Chan-Week 3 SS1

Week 3_Leaving Academia

In this week’s reading, How to Leave Academia by Rani Neutill and Opening the Box by Akiko  Takeyama had strong impression in my mind. Right now, I am unsure of which route I want to work towards since I still do not know my strong passion; however, doing a PhD and joining academia route has always been open options for me. After reading Neutill’s work, the first thing that came to my mind was if doing graduate school is really worth it, where I mean both phD or even a masters. Ideally it seems like employers appreciate candidates with higher qualifications, but Neutill’s work gave me a second perspective, where some employers felt like they are deceiving one’s ability if they give a presumably easier job to a phD candidate. The fact that “I” applied for the position, employers need to understand that “I” am aware that the job might not be the highest paying job, “I” am still willing to do it. The injustice in academia was mentioned by various other readings in week one and two hence I do not want to go too deeply in them, but the second reading that I want to mention is Opening the Box because as an international student, hopefully one day if I ever decide to go into academia, Takeyama’s experiences will be a great example to understand the racism embedded in academia to particularly Asian. I am aware that Asian women receive even more descrimination and injustice than male, but in many ways I see connections to how faculty and even students see Asian faculty members with negative connotations and drawbacks. Simply from the extra paperwork that both foreign employees and employers have to fill out and especially under the current political environment, I believe Asian candidates can hardly get a job. Takeyama mentioned the language barrier she had for her publications and the transition to knowing the “rules of the game” was a challenging journey. Hence, these two readings put in perspective the potential drawbacks and tradeoffs of doing a higher education and more importantly being an Asian in academia in America. 

Getting a PhD? So What? :(

Wei, V. W. (1995). Asian women and employment discrimination: Using intersectionality theory to address Title VII claims based on combined factors of race, gender and national origin. BCL Rev., 37, 771.