Between McCain's attacks about funding a $3 million scientific project on grizzly bears, and now attacks about funding a $3 million planetarium projector (or, as McCain would say, "overhead projector"), he's coming off as extremely anti-science and research.

I mean, for one thing, in political and academic terms, $3 million grants? Are nothing. We're giving a $700 billion bailout to banks and corporations, and he's quibbling over $3 million on research and education?

Really?

I admit. I'm biased, both in the fact that I already support Obama, and that academia and research are more important to me than to the average voter. But here's the thing: I was open to a McCain presidency. Ask my friends who knew me a few years ago, before Obama really came out as a prime candidate, around 2004 or 2005. I (though I shudder to think of it now) thought McCain was not a bad choice.

Don't get me wrong. I am thrilled that during the first presidential election in which I am allowed to vote, I am able to vote for a candidate, rather than merely against one. But it would have been nice to be only voting for a candidate, and not revile the opponent. A tall order? Perhaps. But even with with his changes to policy and beliefs to suit his campaign, it could have been in order until he chose Palin as his VP and came across, to me, as extremely anti-science and anti-education. Those things make me shudder to think of him in the White House. He sounds like he'd like to cut every piece of government grant funding that isn't directly related to something "useful" (like military or, so he claims, and I would be much happier if I believed, alternative energy*). Shudder. Shudder.


*Not that funding the latter would be bad in the slightest, in fact, emphatically to the contrary. The problem is that I don't believe him, and, further, that it is not the only thing that should be funded.

The "Real World"

A suggestion to all of my friends currently in their 4th year at UChicago (or anyone who is coming to an end of their college career):

Go straight to grad school.

Stay in academia. The "real world" is a pretty shitty place, filled with bizarre social restrictions and general unpleasantness and unfriendliness. I wish so much that I had just gone directly to grad school... I was just so hoping that Peace Corps would pan out. I still am, really. But if it looks like Peace Corps isn't going to happen... straight back to university for me. And if Peace Corps does happen, afterwards, I'm going back to university.

I'm not cut out for anything else; academia is the only place where someone like me can succeed: smart, but not a natural leader, not someone who naturally puts herself forward. You need to be aggressive and a leader to make it in the real world; all you need in academia is intelligence and some discipline.

Almost as important are the social differences of the "real world" versus university. As I said earlier, there are so many bizarre social restrictions and "rules" about how you can interact with people in the real world that I don't see how anybody can make close friends there-- and indeed it seems that generally, they don't. On the other hand, when you're in a university setting, all of those codes of conduct are relaxed, and you can just do what you want without people pigeonholing you into one specific mode of behavior. Your action is seen for what it is, not for what it's expected to be. I hadn't really appreciated the degree to which people in university are socially free in a way that the rest of the population just... aren't. (Excepting, of course, one or two specific populations that unfortunately do not have enough of a presence in Philadelphia to solve my problem. You know who you are.)

And so, after my 3 months in the real world, I can say with confidence: I am going to spend my life in that ivory tower. It's where I belong.