Goodbye School Year Schedule!

Posted by Naomi Rockler-Gladen Mar 18, 2007

I've been in academia way too long. Aside from one year off, I've been either a college student or a professor since 1988. Egads! I started college before the first George Bush took office, and I'm still here. (And so is Bush, Jr. He's about to make a career change too, although his is mandated by the U.S. Constitution is mine is not. But I digress.)

You know what's going to be weird about not being a professor anymore? The schedule! I'm so used to being in school that it's ingrained in my head that the year begins in September and ends in May. I keep telling people that I'm leaving academia at the end of the year, and they think I mean December. Unlike most people I know, January 1st doesn't feel like New Year's Day to me. I'm like a permanent third grader, eagerly awaiting the ringing of the final bell so that summer break can finally begin. It's going to be truly odd when September rolls around and I don't have that half-excited, half-dreading feeling about classes starting again.

Of course, the Jewish New Year begins in September as well. Maybe that's why there's so many of us Jews in academia. It fits our calendar.

Seems to me that the academic schedule issue is symbolic of how academics are encouraged to think foo themselves on a much different path than anyone else. There's a sense in academia that what we do is very different than all those 9-to-5 business folks out there, as if somehow academia is less of a "job" than working in a cubicle.

So off I go into the "real world," where the calendar starts in January and ends in December. Of course, in about three years, my daughter will be going off to kindergarten. So perhaps I'll be back in the school year mentality sooner than I think.

Wow, the semester is half over. Please join me as I continue to blog about my last semester as a professor!