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My first semester in graduate school, one of my professors told us a little story. This was from his own days in graduate school, at UCLA. A classmate had failed his orals. Now he was trying again; if he failed a second time, he’d be out of the program. My professor ran into him on his way out of the building after the exam. The guy had a big smile on his face.

“How did you do?” my professor asked.

“I failed!” he said.

“Then why are you smiling?” my professor asked.

“I’m going to the beach!”

He was done. They couldn’t touch him anymore. He was going to the beach.

William Deresiewicz, in yesterday’s Daily Scholar on the topic of politics in academia. Read.
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  • 4 months ago
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The American Scholar is the venerable and lively quarterly magazine of public affairs, literature, science, history, and culture published by the Phi Beta Kappa Society since 1932. In recent years the magazine has won four National Magazine Awards, the industry’s highest honor, and many of its essays and articles have been selected for the yearly Best American anthologies.

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Moderated by Paolo Balboa

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