in a bubble

I only spent three years out of the academy, but I feel a little bit shell-shocked, I must say. Perhaps it is because I spent the last three years surrounded by the most brilliant, self-aware, privilege-aware, empathetic, and social justice-oriented individuals I've ever met:

However, it startles me that some people don't seem to understand what a privilege it is to be part of this space, what a luxury it is to be able to spend the next several years of our lives completely devoted to self-betterment, self-education, and research and learning for our own benefit. We may, in our self-righteousness and mild egocentrism have dreams and hopes of using this training and research to influence the lives of others and save the world, but at the very core, the decision to come back to school for a doctoral degree is selfish, and I don't mean "selfish" in a purely negative way. 

I didn't expect to meet so many white people, white academics, mind you, who unabashedly describe things as "ghetto" without understanding the implications and the history of the word and tell me that they don't want to go to the diner on "that side of town" because the area looks sketchy (mind you, I ran through that "side of town" and there was NOTHING "sketchy" about it). I didn't expect to meet adult women who come to graduate school to start quiet catfights between themselves and other women because they fear that they have competition in securing that supposedly attractive man in their class as a mate. I didn't expect to meet so many people who don't talk about feminism with an understanding and desire to connect feminism with anti-racism and inclusion. I didn't expect to be in a space where I'd come out as bisexual to new acquaintances and suddenly regret or feel nervous that I had. I didn't expect so many people who would automatically assume that I was an international student and tell me that my English is perfect and that I don't have an accent. 

BUT

The amazing thing as that people listen. People read. People see. People (hopefully) are here to learn.

I had a PAINFUL conversation with a new acquaintance about racism, race, and wage differentials. He argued that econometric research has shown that if you hold all else constant, earnings don't differ by race. 

*clears throat* 

Two things:

1. I want you to show me that study that presents a regression model that successfully achieves an R^2 value of 1 and truly describes variation in wages so completely. 

2. Endogeneity. Tell me how that model accounts for the fact that there is a history, a legacy, a very much intact structure of racism that interacts and is woven through the labor market. There is no way that race and racism aren't connected to the levels of education attainment reached in certain communities, family circumstances, differential treatment by employers, etc., etc., etc., etc. 

The amazing thing - is that though economics is often demonized as a dismal science that oversimplifies everything and leads to faulty conclusions. But the tools are there, and I was somehow able to convince this die-hard economics-lover that there are other interpretations and life facts that must be considered before he can embrace this (ridiculous) conclusion. And so he fell silent, not in anger or in protest, but in reflection and in consideration of these points. He said, "that's a good point." 

I cannot lie and say that I didn't feel like I had won a battle, but it wasn't about that. It was about the feeling that yes, I, we, here in the academy are stuck in a bubble, but we can make that bubble permeable. We can bring in our experiences and our truths and our interpretations from our other lives and bring them in, and it is our responsibility to hold each other accountable to the world outside. 

It is a privilege, a luxury to be stuck in this bubble, and I intend to make the most of it, regardless of how bizarre of a place it truly is. 

the view from the hill

Greetings!
Welcome to "the view from the hill." I've decided to start writing in a blog because in the past, it's been a very effective way to communicate my experiences to those I love and care about, in a way that feels a little less egocentric and in-your-face than sending mass emails about my life. I want to document this experience, this adventure that I am embarking on now, in this effort to make new friends, develop new skills, and gain new knowledge that will hopefully equip me with the tools that are required to make the change I want to make in the world around me.

Why the title?

Well, academia is often described as "the ivory tower" or some other description of a secluded space protected from the rigors and circumstances that often characterize everyday life. A hill is secluded (and also suggests elevation, hinting at the egotism and self-importance that can also be found in the academy). Plus, the academic institution where I will be spending the next several years, Cornell University, is literally on a hill. A massive hill that feels like a mountain and is a rude awakening each morning when I have to walk up it to get to my class...

...but it's beautiful :)

 

Why a PhD?

I've been asked this question so many times by others and have asked myself the same question so many times now that I can answer it quite easily now. It's a fair question. A doctoral degree requires 5--8 years of foregone wages, the duration depending on life circumstances and the nature of one's field of study, it requires hundreds, thousands of hours hunched over problem sets and esoteric or insanely theoretical literature, and a level of endurance and commitment to research and academics that I believe even the most education-oriented and geeky of us will struggle to maintain.

But I want to do it and I will do it. In the three years that I spent recently as a social policy researcher, I learned a lot of things. I learned that the acronyms ACS and RFP stand for "American Community Survey" and "Request for Proposals," respectively. I learned that it's faster to code a recurring command in STATA using loops than to manually type in the code for each variable. I learned that the progressive movement is not as unified as we like to think it might be and that feminism has a long way to go before it becomes as committed to racial equity as it is to gender equity. I learned that there are lots of people out there who want to tell you how to do everything and will yell/gripe at you even if they're wrong, whether it's out of pride or sheer ignorance. But the things I learned that led me down this winding path into upstate New York were:

• Until I develop more subject matter expertise and technical analytical skills, I will not have the opportunity to answer the questions or attempt to answer the questions that I find to be the most interesting or among the most important, and
• I love mentoring and teaching. I want to teach. 

I think most people would agree that with these motivations for continued education, that the PhD is the way to go...I guess we'll see! 

My hope is to be able to better understand and help policymakers and communities to better understand the wide range of factors that affect the transitions of young adults to financial independence from their parents (the "the transition to adulthood"). In addition to the standard demographic variables such as educational attainment, gender, race, ethnicity, state of residence, health factors, family type, etc., I would argue that there are major cultural differences in how different communities and families approach the stage of "adulthood" or how they interact with the credit industry, financial institutions, educational institutions, and other agents in the infrastructure of adult responsibilities and milestones. Identification of these differences would provide a basis for making policies surrounding such things as credit reporting, mortgage-related decisions and allowances, etc., more sensitive and considerate of the varying ways in which people understand the systems. 

Please feel free to check back on this page anytime to keep abreast of the boring details of my time here in Ithaca :)