🚀 go-pugleaf

Tim McNamara wrote:
> crashedandburnt1@hotmail.com (Crashedandburnt) writes:
> > Unfortunately, the Achilles Heel of the academia is ego. Often grad
> > students fired for ego.
> 
> Umm, a grad student can't be fired, since they're paying for the
> education they are receiving.

Actually, in a lot of cases (mine, for instance), that's not the case. 
In my experience, it's almost universal that Ph.D. students are working
with either a research assistanceship or a teaching assistanceship,
which pays for their tuition and a small stipend to live on.  Yes, it's
essentially a pittance above the cost of tuition, but it's certainly a
paying job that one could be fired from, and being fired from it would
make it pretty much financially unfeasible to continue one's studies.

That said, I happen to work in the same university as Dr. Knuth, and I
find the previous poster's comments about ego in academic institutions
to be completely insupportable by the evidence.  Certainly there are no
fewer egotistical people than anywhere else, but it doesn't lead to such
absurdities as are claimed, and it certainly is not the one major flaw
of the culture that he or she claims it to be.

Then again, I don't see a comment along the lines of, "this is as much
work as I wish to put into this thing that I gave away freely seven
years ago, and if you can't understand it, that's not my problem," to be
a sign of an ego problem, and I gather that the original poster does.

> > 5;; This preamble is not an accusation or directed to any person and
> > do not get angry. I hope replies have not been initiated before this
> > point.
> 
> It certainly reads like an accusation, and your comments were quite
> pointedly directed at Dr. Van Zandt.

It is rather remarkable how often posters to Usenet seem to believe
that, if they use the right disclaimer, they don't have to be
responsible for what they actually say.

- Brooks


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