Graduate school for me has been an interesting experience. As a process and method for professionalizing young minds and bodies, a university education is pretty damn effective. If you're the type of person who is going to study for and then suffer through the admission exams; who is going to fill out the appropriate forms and turn them in before the deadlines; who felt really good in High School when they got an "A" on a test (even if they knew that grades are at best arbitrary and at worst class repression--getting that "A" felt soo great); a person who got excited when the teacher asked you a question and you knew the answer, etc., etc., etc. If any of these things are true for you, you (like me) can be, will be, professionalized should you go to Graduate school.
The question you should ask now is, "what the fuck do you mean by professionalize?" So, I'm talking about a process, not a static concept. To begin with, a professional is someone whose occupation requires training, competence in their duties, and adherence to standards within their field. In other words, a "professional" in popular parlance refers to someone who is skilled in "Best Practices" and who offers their services to the public for a fee. The noun "profession" has its roots in the neo-classical Latin professionalis meaning a public announcement of canonical obedience. This meaning was retained in British English circa 1275 whereas a "profession" was an announcement or vow of obedience to God that marked someone's entrance into a religious order. Over time of course, the religious connotations of the word have vanished, and I'll leave it to you to decide the nature of the God professionals are now obedient to. To "professionalize" someone in the modern sense is to cultivate them according to a particular set of norms and practices. In the case of graduate school, this process is designed to make students into productive academics armed with the proper methodologies for attaining truth/knowledge in their respective fields. Additionally, this process serves to teach them the proper habits in associating with one's colleagues, students and the like. At least, this is the oft told and commonsensical story.
What this professionalization process actually accomplishes is to weed out people that aren't cultivated so easily. For example, I have a friend getting a PhD in information science who dresses like a bum; I am also likely to be accused of looking like this. He doesn't shave, has long hair, wears cut-off camo pants everywhere (is probably wearing them now) and I have never once seen him wear a tie -- an admirable quality no doubt. When my friend attends academic conferences to present his work, attends various social mixers and colloquiums, he usually looks like he slept on the back of a freight train the night before. I think it's funny, his adviser and colleagues do not. In fact, warnings have been issued telling him, in effect, to clean up his appearance and look more professional. To most people, this sounds so normal it barely merits any comment. Most people accept that it just does not do to dress a certain way in certain social circumstances. Yet, this dress requirement is also a form of professionalization, a type of disciplining of the body -- a shave and a haircut (Foucault would smile). The powers that be, the status-quo, whatever you want to call them, have a stake in not only molding minds but bodies as well; even if telling someone what to wear is only a mild form of coercion, it is a form of prescriptive coercion nonetheless that seeks to further cultivate an appearance of professional status and obedience. Put another way, this bodily discipline is a part of the process of which one of the the end goals is justification of social position, and of course, part of that justification is "looking the part". Those who deviate from the established norms, in thought or appearance, are appealing to the wrong God, as it were. Appealing to the wrong God in thought, practice or appearance will cause one to be denied access to the professional order -- filtered out and discarded. So of course, should my friend wish to further his career in the academic order, he will have to change his habits because of the social pressure - it's sad really.
