Posted on by Maseteditshego

Value versus material: My academic qualifications against my material wealth

Earlier this year I obtained my Master of Arts Degree and began making arrangements for my PhD registration. I had anticipated to register during the 2021 academic year. This was before I was offered three part-time jobs in three different universities. If I took these jobs, I thought to myself, combined they would make up a salary equivalent to a full-time lecturing job, and I would finally enjoy some measure of upward economic mobility. The thought of so many job offers within a very short space of time was thrilling for me.  It made me quickly think a PhD would do so much more.

However, in accepting these job offers, I did not think about the work load, and other factors that would affect my ability to be productive. I thought only of material accumulation. This for me was the materialization of my Masters degree. I deserve it, I was convinced it is my big break after the two long and tiring years I spent working on my Masters. Ironically, in a month I barely make R15 000 and it makes me question this materialization and the need for a PhD. Although, I am cognizant of all the factors which go into part-time staff’s remunerations, when one does not see the materialization of qualifications they quickly become oblivious and indifferent to these other factors. And this is me right now.

Thus, I am now conflicted, I am at limbo. I wonder if there is a need to pursue a PhD when I am unable to afford a small car, and a proper apartment while working for 3 universities simultaneously. I am weighing the value of my education against its materialization, my education level against my buying power. If my academic qualifications do not materialize into desired upward economic mobility, does it mean my education does not have value? Can and should the value of my education be measured in terms of the material accumulation and upward economic mobility it affords me?

Does it mean that the inability of my education to materialize as I had hoped renders it ‘valueless or unimportant? I suppose my question is, how do we value or at least weigh up academic qualifications? Are they valued by the money one earns upon successfully obtaining a certain degree? Is it about the skills one acquires to improve the way things are done and to contribute significantly to society’s growth, and actively participating in the economy? Is it the accumulation of knowledge which allows one to be in the service of humanity? Or is there something else, perhaps an unknown scale which determines the value of one’s qualification.

After it is all said and done, I know getting a PhD coupled with the experience I have already obtained in the teaching and learning space of higher institutions of education will come in handy someday. But how do I fully engage myself in academics for the next three years studying towards a Doctoral degree when a masters degree I was hopeful will keep me afloat barely does.  In pursuing my masters degree, I was worried by the future, which is now, today. Now I must worry again about the future. Am I in a rat race? When will the future that I hope for come?

Posted on by Maseteditshego

Stop, take a breath and celebrate your achievements

If you think about it, people are achieving all time the time. They are just not always achieving ‘what they set their minds to’. This is so me! Go on and do this, then that, achieve! Achieve! Achieve! That is all I ever think. How about taking a second to just celebrate what I have already achieved? My greatest weakness is the inability to celebrate. When I obtained my honours degree, acing my mini-dissertation which has inspired my forthcoming journal paper, I could not celebrate. It felt like a very small achievement. I thought to myself, almost everyone has an honours degree these days, probably with a distinction too. I felt I needed to achieve more before I could pop a Champagne cork, pat myself at the back and celebrate.

I went on to register for my Master of Arts shortly after that. Get this, I aced my dissertation with a distinction. I do not want to give the impression that I cruised through the whole process, I would be lying. It was never a smooth ride. I spent sleepless nights in my supervisor’s office and the days in the library. I had moments of self-doubt, and emotional breakdowns. When I finally got my results that I had worked so hard towards, I still felt somewhat unfulfilled. I had the same feeling I got when I obtain my Honours. And I still could not celebrate.

My inability to celebrate has to do with my inability to acknowledge myself as a hard-working, persevering and determined student. Before I even graduated with my MA I got myself a job as a part-time lecturer at a university. Exciting, right? Given the state of the economy in the country currently, I should be celebrating, but oh boy, I am thinking about a permanent post. I keep telling myself that maybe my 5th journal paper, a PhD, NFR rating and a permanent job will be fulfilling and worth a celebration. Chances are when I do get all these, I will have my sights on something more. Perhaps, a professorship and being a head of a division or department at university perhaps.

The truth is I know for a fact I have achieved so much. However, because of the pictures I have created in my mind of what success is, I am unable to celebrate my actual milestone successes. Now I wonder, is that all there is to life? Is this an academic’s whole life? I can literally feel all the other aspects of my life suffering because of my inability to celebrate my successes which fuels the need to do more, cutting off the rest of my life. To do more in just one aspect – professional growth, while all the other aspects are suffering. Our lives are made up of bits and pieces, building blocks and these needs a proper balance.

I hope I do not become unfulfilled and depressed with a PhD, a permanent academic job and NRF rating. Really! I need to stop, take a deep breath, look where I came from and give myself a pat on the shoulders and, yes, a round of applause and perhaps even whisper into my own ears that, I am, as the urban youth would say “GOAT”- Greatest of All Time.