It’s said that time and tide wait for none. This hit me hard as 2024 dawned with new optimism and for me with also the realisation that soon I’ll be retiring from university services. Can’t believe how over 33 years of structured life will come to an abrupt end. In 1990, when I started out, 2024 seemed so far off, that to me it wasn’t even visible on the horizon!
The workplace has always been sacrosanct, the journey, though smooth has been long and often tiring. Come rain or shine, it involved waking up to an alarm clock (invariably slapping down the snooze button) and rushing through the routine. Paradoxically, these hectic and hurried mornings will be missed and so will driving through torrential rain or manoeuvring my way through thick fog to reach office in time every single day.
I had entered the university when I was 18 and have been a part of the academic landscape first as a student and later as faculty. I love being on a university campus. I like the energy of students, particularly a fresh batch of ignited young minds entering each year. I like to interact with them as it gives an opportunity to have my finger on the pulse of the youth. And I have seen aspirations becoming loftier with each passing decade.
I like teaching and I enjoy the research so can’t imagine having opted for some other career. To an outsider, the career path of a university professor is smooth and stable. Outsiders don’t realise the intellectual challenges we face. Additionally, there is a time table to adhere to and deadlines to meet. Often, the much touted work-life balance, goes in for a toss as we, being in agricultural university, need to plan our work day according to the season and growth stage of our experimental crop. With so much technology, teaching, particularly post-graduate and doctorate students, is a challenging job. In order to stay one up over your students, you need to read extensively and regularly and be aware of challenges such as AI tools in recent years.
{{/usCountry}}I like teaching and I enjoy the research so can’t imagine having opted for some other career. To an outsider, the career path of a university professor is smooth and stable. Outsiders don’t realise the intellectual challenges we face. Additionally, there is a time table to adhere to and deadlines to meet. Often, the much touted work-life balance, goes in for a toss as we, being in agricultural university, need to plan our work day according to the season and growth stage of our experimental crop. With so much technology, teaching, particularly post-graduate and doctorate students, is a challenging job. In order to stay one up over your students, you need to read extensively and regularly and be aware of challenges such as AI tools in recent years.
{{/usCountry}}Lectures, conducting examinations, evaluations, supervising and guiding research of post-graduate and doctoral students are all parts of routine. Seminars, viva voce examinations, invited lectures, trainings (as a trainee and later as resource person), and conferences will all be missed. Then there are annual activities such as athletic meets, youth festivals, kisan melas (an activity unique to our university), convocations, alumni meets, nothing can replace the verve of these. Those administrative meetings where you make important academic decisions, sitting down at the end of each academic year to submit annual progress reports, going through appraisal interviews for each promotion, annual review of research work, all are a part of the career trajectory.
Getting research grants, publishing research papers in journals of repute, peer recognition as awards or appreciation letters and watching your students get that coveted job placement are the cherished moments that will be greatly missed.
It is indeed difficult to say goodbye to a career that gives you an opportunity to spend life among bright, curious and articulate young people. But it is the law of nature that time catches up with us all. Eventually, careers conclude. But we must realise that often there are far better things ahead than any we leave behind and it has been wisely said, when you think you are at the end of something, you are actually at the beginning of something else. sbedipau@yahoo.com
The writer is a professor at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana