Your Shadow Advisor

Thanks again for listening in to
Your Shadow Advisor, a weekly

program about navigating higher
education from a first

generation person of color
perspective. I'm your host,

Professor Darrel Wanzer-Serrano.
It's been a week. So I'm back

with another micro episode
teasing themes that I'll tackle

on the show. This week, I want
to talk briefly about who

becomes professors and why that
matters. About a month before

you're hearing this, the
Washington Post published a data

focused story about socio
economic diversity in the field

of economics. The TLDR of that
piece is that economics

specifically, but academia
generally tends to be dominated

by people with generational
knowledge about higher

education, and the financial
affordances, like generational

wealth to take a fulfilling job
that's not as lucrative as

others that are available. In
other words, professors tend to

come from families with
professors or parents with

advanced degrees. They also tend
to come from families with a

financial resources and
generational wealth, where it

doesn't really matter if they
can work a different job making

25% more, because they don't
need that cash. If you're a nerd

like me, and I know that you
are, you'll want to click

through to the working paper by
Boar and Lashkari, called

"occupational choice and the
intergenerational mobility of

welfare," where they show their
work to come to that conclusion.

Links for the WashPo story and
those studies are in the

shownotes. If also like me, you
come from a working class

background and seek to join the
professoriate, then you're

really defying the odds, you're
having to contend with a host of

economic pressures that would
almost inherently steer you away

from joining academia, not to
mention all the other pressures

related to the hidden curriculum
that further stack the deck

against you. Is it worth it?
Honestly, I don't know. And

there definitely isn't one
answer for everyone. But that's

why I'm here as Your Shadow
Advisor. So that's it for today.

The official first episode will
air on August 24. In the

meantime, if you have a
question, send it to questions

at your shadow advisor.com or
head to the website to submit an

audio question that I might air
on the show. Until then, please,

please, please subscribe to the
podcasts on Apple podcasts,

Spotify, or whatever app you
use. And if you're feeling up to

it, share this with your friends
and give me a five star rating.

Thanks again for listening in.
I'll be back with another quick

message next week.