Originally Posted by roachboy

i think the opposition at the center of the op--"academic" vs "real life"---is false.
why do folk bother with such nonsense?

people think: i have passed through an education or an apprenticeship it doesn't matter and now i have knowledge or expertise. what i know, then, is an object.
maybe this thing is like a machine. a pork grinder makes strange string-like forms of pork from other forms of pork. it's automatic. it's like that. turning on a switch is a process, the way a machine operates a process, the same goes in, the same comes out, change of state so no change.
....on the basis of stupid distinctions that we know are not true other stupid distinctions can be built.
What you are talking about here is a sausage stuffer, not a meat grinder. A person with real world experience in the school of hard knocks, meat saws, and sharp knives would immediately know the difference.
Academics can sometimes be pretty ignorant of the real world.

what the op is about i think is an attempt to make some evaluative statements that involves entirely arbitrary notions like "real" or "authentic" or "hands on" as over against "abstract" or "bookish" or "ivory tower"--Any butcher would find the distinction both real and authentic, and not at all abstract. They would roll on the floor laughing as the professor tried to make sausages from a meat grinder. But to an academic, all it is is somewhat awkward metaphorically....you do what you do in the ways in which you do them. if you learn something from how other people operate--if it appeals to you, if you find it interesting--then fine. if not, then fine. why waste your time trying to figure out some way to decide which is "better"?