You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more
“Everything in my career has led up to this. All of that hard work in undergrad, grad school, my postdoc…that has prepared me to do this job.” This is what I was thinking as I started my faculty job. I was so wrong.(1/n)
I started my faculty job thinking "this is a research job, and I know how to do research." What I didn't know is that it is also a financial management, human resources, conflict resolution, strategic analyst, and motivational speaker job...and the list goes on.(2/n)
I also didn't realize that there would be so much failure and rejection, and that in those moments, you are going to have to be the one to pick yourself up and get yourself back in the game. I didn't realize there's no playbook for when things go wrong.(3/n)
I have been fortunate to have great mentors throughout my training, and as a result, feel that I had the benefit of more preparation than many have access to. I'm also fortunate that those (and many other) mentors have helped me and continue to coach me along the way.(4/n)
Just putting this out there to ask: Anyone else feel this way? I think that social media has improved this by providing better support networks for sharing experiences and information. Is that the case? What else should we be doing to help the next generation of leaders?(5/5)
1. Paperwork. I had no idea. I could spend 20 hours per week on paperwork and I would still not be done. It never ends.
2. Not all grad students are like me. I can't expect them to have the same work ethic, motivations, quantitative abilities... I had to learn to adapt to each student - each one is different and none are like me.
This is an important message for faculty teaching undergrads. You were most likely the best student in your classes. You have to teach not yourself, but people who would have been your classmates.
I’m just finishing my first year in a faculty position and this is all 100% reality. Accounting, payroll, purchasing, travel authorization, grant routing forms, competitive bids... that’s my life right now. They don’t teach us this stuff.
I especially like being dropped into all of this with minimal / no instruction on how to do these things and then constantly getting annoyed emails from staff telling me I messed up X form as if I should have been able to intuit the correct way, cause reasons?
I worked in an office as a project manager before going for my PhD and I think that has been more useful than my undergrad degree for career preparedness.
Same here. Mentally exhausted, would be the definition of my current mood in academia...
Be sure to ask yourself if you are being yourself as an academic or if you are trying to live up to other people's models. Everyone has a different style and different passions, but too many times academics push for conformity. Differences are critical!
Working on answering that question, good point!
Management training for new (or not-so-new) faculty! Support for peer mentoring groups, career coaches, National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity.
Lately, I’ve been asking faculty candidates that come to interview, what it takes to become faculty? All mention the 1/n (in one way or another) and forget the 2/5-5/5 parts. It leads to good talks with them.
Do they mention *teaching*?
Some do, but always secondarily. Most underestimate the amount of work that it requires.
Reminds me of this article "Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time"https://www.theguardian.com/news/oliver-burkeman-s-blog/2014/may/21/everyone-is-totally-just-winging-it …
I feel EXACTLY the same way. But I felt things really changed after tenure (all sorts of new things I wasn’t really trained for popped up then).
Crap, there’s more stuff after tenure? 
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.
