As a grad student, I was told by a senior academic (this was in 2003), that if I was good and I gave the market a few years I would wind up with something I could live with. I was told by another in 2004 that I would have years to revise my dissertation into a book.
-
-
Näytä tämä ketju
-
I took both pieces of advice sufficiently to heart that when, after a year of adjuncting around the corner (well, around several corners) from my graduate institution, I got a TT job with a heavy teaching load...
Näytä tämä ketju -
...I actually *pulled out of the job* (after a lot of agonizing) to take a postdoc instead, convinced that Finishing My Book was the most important thing and that if I was indeed good enough another job would just... come. And, in the end, it did.
Näytä tämä ketju -
And because it worked out, that story can be told as a testament to my belief in myself and my confidence in my work. But if the *likelier* thing had happened, and no second job had materialized, it would be a story of how I screwed myself out of a career through sheer arrogance.
Näytä tämä ketju -
The salient difference between those two stories is luck. Not because I'm not qualified for the job I have, and not because my postdoc and book didn't help (they did), and not because I didn't also have a ton of support from my supervisors and letter-writers (I did)...
Näytä tämä ketju -
but because dozens of others who didn't get the job were qualified, and had committed supervisors, and books, and all the rest. And the same goes for dozens and dozens more who simply came on the market at the wrong time. This is not a meritocracy.
Näytä tämä ketju -
So when I look back on my decisions I am struck not by my confidence in myself or in the profession but by the arrogance (born of a certain privilege) that allowed me to pass on a rare opportunity expecting a better -- and the luck that seemed, in retrospect, to vindicate it.
Näytä tämä ketju -
And of course as risky as these decisions were in 2006, they would have been even more obviously foolish two or five or ten years later. Students now are not in the job market of 2004 or 2006 or 2008.
Näytä tämä ketju -
Long story short: in 2018, telling my students to follow my experience in looking for academic jobs is about as useful as telling them to have my luck.
Näytä tämä ketju
Keskustelun loppu
Uusi keskustelu -
-
-
Well said Ted.
-
Thanks!
Keskustelun loppu
Uusi keskustelu -
Lataaminen näyttää kestävän hetken.
Twitter saattaa olla ruuhkautunut tai ongelma on muuten hetkellinen. Yritä uudelleen tai käy Twitterin tilasivulla saadaksesi lisätietoja.