Yeah, that’s how life works. Every Dept and University has a different culture and you have no idea what you are getting into before you’re already committed. They all sell you the same lies, but for sure some people have ‘golden tickets’ in terms of who where they went and who they studied with and they will never understand the experiences of those who didn’t get those tickets.

And human biases will make them think it was their own superior efforts, because most of us are totally blind to the personal and institutional privileges around us, and they rationalize their hypocrisies.

My issue was I went to a stellar undergraduate institution that lived up to all my academic ideals, and a not-so stellar graduate program that destroyed my ideals. And I was never going to get into a stellar graduate program because I didn’t study with the ‘right’ people at my undergrad institution, but I realize that until I was already halfway done with my PhD, and that ‘mistake’ would basically mean my job prospect would be non-existent, and at my grad program I kept getting punished for it. That’s all politics.