Quotes About Academia

I went to college and graduate school, studying philosophy. I really did think I was going to wind up being a lecturer or professor of some sort.

It was really hard to get into graduate school at Texas. We had trouble getting grad assistants.

Everything I learned about the Great Depression was from a college textbook.

My fellow economists and academics fail to understand the economics of trade in the real world. Traditional models of academia respect free trade without considering whether it is fair trade.

If I have to read another cultural studies analysis of 'The Sopranos,' I give up. There's an awful lot of rubbish around masquerading as cultural studies.

We need people like you, Dobson," said Gina. "In academia, where I work. Man, do we ever need people like you. People who have been trained. To do the high-level work. Such as killing.

one of the many valuable recommendations in this book is that we academics should, collectively, talk to each other more about how we actually spend our time, with all the anxieties, displacements, and failures that involves, rather than presenting ourselves as the overachieving writing robots whom most systems of assessment seem designed to reward.

Slow Professors advocate deliberation over acceleration. We need time to think, and so do our students. Time for reflection and open-ended inquiry is not a luxury but is crucial to what we do.

According to the law professor Richard Sander, more than half of all African-American law students in the United States—51.6 percent—are in the bottom 10 percent of their law school class and almost three-quarters fall in the bottom 20 percent.

professors accept

And just because you have colleges and universities doesn't mean you have education.

Most Amerikans do not read books--they prefer television. Academics lock books in a tangled web of mindfuck and abstraction. The notion is that there are ideas, then art, then somewhere else, unrelated, life.

But think of this: those of us who arrive in an academy that was not shaped by or for us bring knowledges, as well as worlds, that otherwise would not be here. Think of this: how we learn about worlds when they do not accommodate us. Think of the kinds of experiences you have when you are not expected to be here. These experiences are a resource to generate knowledge.

They don't like thinking in medical school. They memorize - that's all they want you to do. You must not think.

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students.

At Reed College, I learned very quickly that I didn't know nearly enough. I learned, first, that every student there was as smart as I was, and quite a few seemed smarter.

In the post-modern academic world, truth is often alleged to be relative.

There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table.

I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today, but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.

This sounded like it would be interesting for a while, but I didn't think I would have the freedom I expected to find in academia to follow my interests wherever they led.

That had probably been written by a professor. I recognized the professor's characteristic delight at not imparting information.

No, I'm happy to go on living the life I've chosen. I'm a university teacher and I like my job.

The problem with the poor quality of an education anywhere is still minuscule in comparison to the trouble given by the people who are often given the responsibility to appoint and/or appraise the academically bright/right person.

My favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence. [Sources and Acknowledgements: Chapter 19]