Tatoos and Academics

I don’t talk about it a lot on my blog but my day job is in Higher Education. I always say I am the most unacademic-academic there is. The other day when I received my daily update from The Chronicle of Higher Education there was a great article called The Inked Academic Body. It talked about how 20% of the population has ink and that the traditional thoughts of academics with their tweed jackets and suede elbow patches were slowly losing out to having an academic with tattoos violates social expectations.

I got my first tattoo 20 years ago (yeah, I was like 5:) and now have 4 of them. If I was less of a conformist I would be fully covered but I have always been at odds with what I “should” do versus what I “want” to do. As I get older I care less and less what other people think and realize it’s how I feel about myself that’s important, not what others think of me. I have a MBA and a PhD and my tattoos don’t make those degrees any less worthy. I can be smart and edgy at the same time can’t I?

What would you do if you knew no one would judge?

Laina