The days of writing the thesis (16) l University chapter - the academic dark side I have experienced part3

I thought that the story of the dark side could come to an end, but after thinking about it, it seemed that there was something to continue writing.

Factional fight between professors drags students into the water

As long as there are "people", "politics" is inevitable. Factional rivalries among professors were an open secret in my department at the time. Professors will form parties with each other, and the "parties" will exclude other "parties" from each other. I think it's enough that this kind of boring trick happens between professors, but their struggles will drag students down. For example: Professor Fang is a member of Party A. As long as the graduate students in our laboratory have close interaction with the graduate students of Party B, Professor Fang will be unhappy and even advise us not to have too many contacts with them.

Something happened to me that left me speechless. Professor Fang was an assistant professor at the time and was the object of the department head's "calling for wind and rain". Therefore, Professor Fang could only be controlled by the department head obediently and became one of the party members of the department head's party. The head of the department is a ruthless character, the kind of person who is very shrewd and knows how to manipulate others, so Professor Fang has become a pawn in her hands. At the time, the dean of the department wanted to change the name of the department and therefore wanted to consult the students of the entire department. This move seems very democratic, but just after I raised my objections in private, the graduate students of the dean heard and made a small report. In the end, I was reprimanded by Professor Fang, and then I could only keep silent on this issue.

As a student of the A-party professor, as long as I disagree with the dean of the department, I cannot implement my basic rights as a student of the department. Although this kind of political game is very common, after all, where I live is an educational place, and I am just a student, I am caught in the whirlpool of this kind of political struggle game, and I feel that I am super-decayed.

I am not allowed to share my studies in the laboratory with others on the grounds of "confidentiality"

Shortly after entering the laboratory, my senior sister often reminded me that the research carried out in the laboratory must be kept secret and cannot be shared with outsiders. My understanding at the time was that I could not publish the research data or research reports being carried out in the research laboratory, and I could not let people outside the research laboratory know the content of the research being carried out by the laboratory. That makes sense, after all, it's about intellectual property. But what makes me even more inexplicable is that I can't "use" the "theory" I learned in the research room and use it in my class report, otherwise it may also be regarded as "leakage".

In the third year, a course in research methods is required, and a group research report is submitted at the end of the course. Before that, I had heard about a study on "transsensory" conducted by my sister who was assisting Professor Fang, and I also understood the connotation of this theory. So, I shared the concept of "intersensory" that I learned with the group members, and from that concept extended the topics of interest to us. After that, my senior told me that we might need to change the research topic. If Professor Fang finds out, he will be very unhappy, because this is equivalent to me "leaving secrets". So, I had to ask the team members to change the subject.

Looking back now, it was really ridiculous. First of all, "cross-sensory" is not a concept that Professor Fang came up with. Many scholars at home and abroad have been engaged in research in this area, so when I propose this concept, it has nothing to do with confidentiality issues at all, right? Second, I did not publish Professor Fang's research content or data. After I proposed this concept, I would not set out the exact same research content as Professor Fang, and even with our strength at that time, it may not be able to produce results. Come on, it doesn't constitute a "leakage" at all! Isn't knowledge being exchanged with each other to stimulate more possibilities? But Professor Fang doesn't seem to think so. It seems that in Professor Fang's point of view, doing research must lock the door to avoid letting others know. But the actual reason is still unknown to me.

Mentoring students = staff?

When I was selected into the laboratory at the beginning, I simply thought that Professor Fang was looking at my research ability, so he wanted to pull me into the laboratory for the purpose of cultivating talents. Aside from his busy schedules after that, he hardly had time to pay attention to me. During a student guidance banquet, when I was chatting with my classmates, I mentioned the idea of not going to graduate school. Hearing such a conversation into Professor Fang's ears made him unhappy.

The senior told me afterwards that Professor Fang hopes that I can continue to study in the graduate school in the future, continue to be his graduate student, and continue to "contribute" more papers to him in the future. Of course, he couldn't hold a knife, put a knife around everyone's neck, and force everyone to stay. It's just that I feel very uncomfortable, because as his student, I gradually train to become a soldier in his hands, let him command, even squeeze, suddenly feel that I am just a student in name only, to be more accurate, I am more like him 's "employee". Although this should be the norm for graduate students, I think that such "labor-employer relations" often result in a lot of unreasonable oppression.

When these unreasonable educational models become the norm, I am very confused: Is the modern educational environment no longer a purely "educational" environment? Has "labor-employment relationship" become one of the essence of education?

The dark side I've encountered is definitely just the tip of the iceberg. Because I also heard many unreasonable academic phenomena and unspoken rules later. For example: after the oral exam, the graduate student must invite the oral committee to have a luxurious dinner; the professor asks the graduate student who has not finished the thesis oral exam, or even allows the student to graduate without completing the thesis; the professor makes various plagiarisms in order to increase the number of papers, etc. etc. phenomenon.

I gradually came to understand that behind these phenomena, in addition to some personal factors, there are also some unshakable structural factors. For example, as an assistant professor, Professor Fang, in addition to being squeezed by the dean of the department, plus the pressure of rising, etc., relies on students' papers to increase the amount of research, which seems to be understandable, and even a little sympathetic to him. But as a student, sometimes watching these powerful people get caught up in this political maze, while dragging down the rights of students, I am really disappointed with these educators.