-We could imagine someone sympathetic to my plight in school deciding that my problem was a psychological condition called "student dysphoria"—discomfort with one's assigned social role of student. We could imagine a whole political movement to help sufferers of student dysphoria by _renaming_ everything: instead of a "student", I could be a "research associate", instead of taking "classes", I could attend "research seminars"—all while the _substance_ of my daily working conditions and social expectations remained the same.
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-I don't think this would be helping me. When I was angry about being in school, it wasn't because of _the word_ "student"—it was because I wanted more autonomy and I wanted more respect for my intellectual initiative. Changing the words without granting me the autonomy and respect I craved wouldn't be solving my _actual_ problem. It would probably make things _worse_ by sabotaging the concepts and language I needed to _articulate_ what my problem was.
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-Likewise, being a "student" would have been fine in a world where students got more autonomy—a world where there was a collective understanding that courses are a supplement or pragmatically useful guidepost to one's studies, rather than course grades being _the whole thing_. I'm happy to learn from the masters. That's what textbooks _are_. I wasn't _delusional_ about doing novel original research.