Sometimes it’s a hard-knock life for GAs and TAs. Aside from learning to juggle fifty concerns at once, there doesn’t always appear to be much love or respect for the student teacher or researcher. Constantly taking the brunt of grading concerns and being reminded about “how much harder things are in the real world” can take their toll.

That’s why it’s nice to find the odd, optimistic piece on higher education from an otherwise cynical forum. It may be tough love, but Luke McKinney’s semi-recent Cracked article on the 6 Important Things Nobody Tells You About Grad School has some good points to make about staying the course and embracing what we do. For those of you who may be struggling to see the value in teaching, McKinney offers the following:

We’re overturning the stereotype of scientists as shy communication misfires, but it became a stereotype for a reason. It’s still true of some students. And they still need to learn how to deal with people. It doesn’t matter if you’re studying artificial intelligence in drone bodies: Until you get those researchobots finished, people who can communicate with others will still do better in every field. And when you do get them finished, charismatic public speakers will become even more important, standing with one foot on a burning drone to urge the human resistance to seize the time machine.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-important-things-nobody-tells-you-about-grad-school_p2/#ixzz2fg4ANTyh