#not getting into the academic gatekeeping by white men who thought they were greatest gift to science or whatever

[aflamethatneverdies]

i don't like talking about my experiences with academia, but tbvh, my master's involved writing a lot of essays where I and others who were international students struggled so much more because we hadn't had the knowledge or tools to develop academic writing (a very specific skill set) the way others who had gone through the british education system had, so naturally they were much better at it. And I wanted to improve, I wanted to learn, I asked classmates to review my thesis before submission, I borrowed their thesis to study how they formatted and wrote it. I took a small class in writing essays along with all of the stuff I already had to do for my masters but, I still got lower grades compared to my peers even though I followed all the rules as best as I could figure them out.

All through my master's I blamed myself so much for having issues with being not smart enough when the others in my cohort were being so effortlessly good at this. And it was a consistent pattern too, kids from international backgrounds struggled, I saw it all the time. And we were expected to figure it all out ourselves.

I'm sorry but, i have no patience for treating academic writing and academia as this hallowed ground. fuck that actually.