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Some common questions I've fielded regarding Sellout.
History and Motives
- How long has this site been around?
- Since 1997.
- Why did you call the site Sellout?
- Because the title is ironic.
The incongruity between unexamined ivory tower conceptions of careers
outside the university and reality is also comical. The site title
reminds us that a sense of humor is the handmaiden of a successful
life and career.
Finally, Sellout has more marketing snap than "Adapt, Expand, Embrace"—which
is what we must do to thrive in a society that prefers funding Halliburton
and jail wardens over libraries and professors.
- Why did you create this site?
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- Many PhD students have little sense that their skills are worthy
outside the university.
- Rather than answering individual e-mail requests about my transition,
I send people here.
- I enjoy designing and building Web sites.
Feedback
- How's response to the site?
- Most feedback is positive.
Negative responses are usually from readers who take issue with the site's
name. Representative reactions follow:
Leaving the rarefied, insular world of English Depts still makes me nervous
(and on occasion, ashamed). Your web site has relieved much of my anxiety
and been a good companion to my desire to get on with my life.
-UC Berkeley English PhD
For someone who is making quite a successful career of publishing articles
about getting out of the academy in academic journals, you've chosen an
odd (if humorous) name for your web site. "Sellout" has such negative connotations—it
undermines your whole project of validating nonacademic choices! I'm glad
to see someone committed to letting people know there are options, though.
-UCLA English PhD
What I most appreciate is your response to the question of PhD bitterness;
I have become so bitter. Bitterness has pervaded every aspect of my
life and distorted my sense of what I have to offer. You reminded me
why I took this path in the first place. I had completely forgotten
how precious this time and pursuit have been for me these last six years.
Now, without the bitterness, I may be able to get through the next few
months and finish.
-California ABD
My only complaint, if it is one, is that you're somewhat more sanguine about
your grad-school experience than I. I really feel that my department let
me down. If it had done everything in its power, yet failed to help me find
a teaching job, I would say, "Well, we've all tried as hard as we could.
Now I'll move on to something else." But that was not the case.
-University of Washington PhD
I'm embarking on the tech writer thing myself and your sentiments are reassuring.
-Writer from New York City
I love the site. It makes me wish I had pursued a PhD. I called it quits
after my MA.
I almost wish you did not bind the site so tightly to PhDs, as I can
relate a great deal to the content of the site. I know many of undergraduate
students in the Communication Dept. could as well.
-UC San Diego teacher
It's well organized and pleasant to look at. I'll share it with my oppressed
grad student friends.
-Chronicle of Higher Education reader
This is a terrific site, Mark. It's been something I've been thinking about
doing, and now I don't have to. My PhD in English came in 1995, and I've
been at Microsoft since 1997. I seize every opportunity to bring other survivors
of academe over to the industry. We need them very badly, and it's a great
feeling to watch their satisfaction and sense of worth grow daily. Mine
certainly did.
-Bedoctored Microsoft employee
You write
that in software it's important to "Work smoothly with others....If
you have hang-ups about working with people who are different than you...you
are inefficient. Companies strive to make money as efficiently as possible,
so they want worker bees that produce without cultural friction. The coldness
of capitalism is, in this case, the ally of the multicultural idealist."
Well said. I can relate. (I'm a 47 year-old student. I worked steady
for the last 30 years.) Thanks for sharing your insights.
--Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student
I think almost every day about alternative careers and environments, and
I wanted to thank you for building the site, collecting the helpful links,
and providing a great resource. It's especially refreshing to hear a perspective
that identifies marketable, exportable skills in academia. I was beginning
to wonder if there was anyone other than my husband (who has an MBA) who
recognized that grad school takes talent as well as determination.
-UCLA English ABD
I'm about to return to school to finish my last year of my BA. I really
like what you said about graduate work not being a vocational insurance
policy. Having read it on your page really makes me happy that I have studied
what I have and ready to separate (if necessary) the work needed to study
theory and the work needed to get a job. I forgot that that there is a passion
beneath my academic work that can be tapped into in other areas of my life
even if I do not teach or stay in the academy.
-UC Santa Cruz student
I would like to address a concern about the continuously surfacing subject
and terminology,"sellout."
If we are training people to think, to apply learned knowledge to life
including business, we need to form partnerships between the academe and
business. The reason that humanities is not well funded is that we have
not humanities as an APPLIED study. My experience with university people
is that this doesn't happen because they don't understand the business
mentality, yet look upon it with disdain. Rather than continue to build
a wall for PhDs to jump over, we need to work toward integration. Labor
unions crop up in the Internet conversations. Yet, to business people,
labor is blue collar and I don't believe that's the allegiance that PhDs
should be courting. Union people are victims in revolt. We need to approach
masters programs in the humanities aimed at business leaders bringing
them into the fold. That will breed understanding and ultimately money
for the university.
-Wisconsin advertising agency owner and MA student
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We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which
we call our principles.
-Mark Twain |
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