Home for Thanksgiving

HippieHusband and I returned from our Thanksgiving trip back to BigCity, Canada. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We got to renew friendships (best of times) and HippieHusband met with his PhD supervisor to discuss the status of his thesis (not the best of times). Although HippieHusband has started a postdoc at SmallUniversity, he is finishing off his PhD. It's actually really really close. But his supervisor, PompousandArrogantControlFreak (PACF), is well, to be frank, an asshole.

Our trip back to BigCityinCanada got me thinking about how you really do have to "go away" to appreciate where you are. Despite my rants about the system, I had some really positive experiences at LargeUniversityInCanada. Here are some of the things that were just fabulous about LUC:

1. The Social Environment. It was so much fun to see all my friends again - I think this is what I miss the most about LargeUniversityinCanada - friends. I could live without water (not the drinking kind) and mountains, but not friends.

Because it was a big university, there were people from all over the world and from different backgrounds. At some level, because they came to a big university in a big city, they shared an open mind about politics, morality, etc. This made it easier to connect with like-minded people and so I made some really close relationships, like BestFriend. (BestFriend, I really miss you.) Most importantly, it's where I met HippieHusband.


(I know it takes time to make friends, but I think when there are more people there are more opportunities to socialize.)


2. The Intellectual Environment. I found that faculty, postdocs, and students were above average in their understanding and love of science. There was a tendency for a fair number of these people to completely dedicate their lives to science. This was the reason, in part, why the environment was so rich. If all you do is science, then you're going to be pretty darn good at it.

Part of the great intellectual environment was the diversity and breadth of different departments across the university. At one point during my PhD, the TeachingAssistants went on strike. It was really strange but the one place where I felt I experienced the true meaning of a university community was on the picket line. There I had incredible discussions with grad students from History, Philosophy, Political Science and Medieval Studies. I remember looking forward to standing out in the freezing rain because of those conversations.


3. Excellent Science. As a result of the high calibre of individuals at LUC, the science was creative, cutting edge, thorough, elegant and just darn cool. I think this in combination with the intellectual environment has made me a better scientist. As a result of being surrounded by excellence science, I was pushed to be that much better.

4. Physical Location. You can't beat the excitement and culture of a big city. I miss access to my yoga studio and the arts community outside of the university. In addition, the surroundings were incredible - there was plenty of opportunity to go camping, hiking, skiing etc.

5. Access To Resources. At LUC, I had lots of resources - it meant the questions I asked were not constrained by the need to think about the cost of equipment, lab supplies, field gear. The sky really was the limit, at least in the lab that I did my PhD.

The other aspect of resources was the library - both online access to journals and diversity of books.


6. Diversity Of Courses. Arguably this could be considered part of the intellectual environment, but I feel it deserves its own point. At the start of my PhD there wasn't a whole of grad courses to choose from, but things got much better, especially with the last three faculty hires in the last three years of my PhD. The diversity of undergraduate courses is really quite good. At SmallUniversity, there really isn't much choice for incoming graduate students. In fact, one undergrad I knew from LUC, who is currently a grad student at SmallUniversity, LizardLover, covered a lot of the "grad" courses in her undergrad at LUC. She has to try and find courses to take, but is really struggling.

7. Reality Of Academia. I think when I started grad school I was pretty naive about what it meant to be an academic. "Growing up" at LUC, made me realize that science was NOT so much about the search for knowledge and understanding of nature, but more about the publications. Or as HippieHusband rants, "It's about self-aggrandizement, self-promotion, self delusion and not neccessarily in that order." The strength of this particular opinion is a consequence of the fact that HippieHusband is still finishing up his PhD thesis and his supervisor, PACF, is making his last few months in the PhD hell.

8. The Health Care System. Need I say more.

9. The Weather. I know I can't believe I'm saying this - I don't miss the rain, but I do miss the warmish weather. At least in BigCityinCanada, I could run and ride my bike all year round. Even though the sun shines all day here, it's so bloody cold I swear I'm getting frostbite when I walk to and from school.

10. Sushi. Sushi. Sushi.

It's kinda funny on our way home, we ended up taking a detour. No that's not actually correct, it was more like an eternal navigationally challenged loop. And really, this was not my fault. We tried to get out of BigCityFullofHighways in the US, but despite our best attempts we kept returning to it. BCFH is pretty close to the Canada-US border. Perhaps, something in us really just wanted to go back.