Three of us started grad school together five years ago and we used to have these amazing late-night conversations about changing the world through our research, but now we're all just trying to survive our dissertations and job market anxiety. We don't talk about why we're here anymore and I miss that sense of shared purpose, but I also don't know if bringing it up will just make everyone feel worse about how disillusioned we've become.
More people experience this than they realize.
A group that once bonded over intellectual idealism now avoids the very conversations that might reconnect them to their deeper motivations, fearing that honesty will only deepen their collective despair.
“Where Are You with Higher education and its purpose?”
If this sounds familiar, the Library can help you find the bigger picture.