Zooze the Horse roams around the pasture near Lamar State College. Zooze thinks about problems in academia. Zhe wants proffies to submit posts (blog posts, not fence posts).
Exactly twenty years? That would be the fall of my senior year of college. Hoo boy.
1) Being a good teacher is way, way harder than it looks, and it will take you a long time to get there. HOWEVER, the reason why your boyfriend keeps telling you that you will be a terrible teacher is that he doesn't want you to go to grad school because it means you will be Leaving Him, so he's trying to undermine your confidence. This is called emotional abuse. It can happen to you even if you're smart, maybe especially if you're smart and nerdy and socially awkward. It isn't normal. Run.
2) It will turn out all right. Maybe not in the specific way you are envisioning, but your instincts about your career choice and how to get there are decent, and you will meet nice people who will help you, and you will land on your feet.
To feel very fortunate to be a position to earn tenure. For soon afterwards, the school started hiring what the president then said were "temporary colleagues" who will "fill in gaps for a year or two." It was the first time I had ever heard of an adjunct.
Hmm. . .I'd probably need at least 30 years to make a real difference (while I'm not quite as old as Cal, I'm still old). That's when I was entering grad school, with far too little information about the real likelihood of getting a tenure-track job at the end of the process. It would also have been useful to know about the fault lines in the particular department I was joining (for that, 31 years would be handy). I'm still not sure whether I would have made different decisions, though. I was young, and had some reason to think that I'd be the exception to the general rule of difficulty getting jobs, and probably would have overestimated my ability to weather the departmental meltdown as well. I could, however, offer my younger self some advice for weathering it better (mostly, to be more proactive -- somehow. I'm still not quite sure exactly how, but somehow. Almost anything better than what I did -- laying low/feeling paralyzed/thinking I should be able to figure it all out on my own -- would have been an improvement.)
25 years ago, it would have been helpful to have some confirmation that I really was seeing what I at least unconsciously knew I was seeing: that the advice I was receiving to finish the diss quickly and go on the job market and everything would work out didn't match the facts on the ground (a number of people with recently and not-so-recently-defended dissertations still living in town, heading back on the market for the 3rd or 4th or greater time). I'm not sure exactly what I would have done with that information, either, but even taking away the stress of dealing with the cognitive dissonance would have helped.
Ditto the cognitive dissonance of trying to figure out changes in family dynamics as my widowed father began a new relationship (and being told that any perceived estrangement was either all in my head or my fault for "ruining the atmosphere" by pointing out changing interactions). I would definitely have been better off knowing that I was correct in perceiving a growing estrangement, *and* that there wasn't much I could do about it except get on with my own life, working on the assumption that the current pattern would continue.
And 20 years ago? Well, all of the above, plus that taking a temporary/visiting position with "foot in the door" possibilities over a longer-term contingent position with no such illusory possibilities attached was not a good idea (fortunately, I landed in the more-secure continuing continent position a few years later anyway). Some information about the crazy ride both the real estate and stock markets were about to take (not to mention further family-dynamics developments) would also have been useful.
Uggy's got the right advice, I think, but, at least by 20 years ago, I was pretty aware of the value of having a plan B (and so on). What I hadn't quite figured out was just how many of the factors involved in my planning could change at once. I'm still learning the art of planning given the knowledge that pretty much nothing in life is certain, but some things are more likely than others.
I wish I'd known that publishing in journals was so lucrative :)
ReplyDeleteExactly twenty years? That would be the fall of my senior year of college. Hoo boy.
ReplyDelete1) Being a good teacher is way, way harder than it looks, and it will take you a long time to get there. HOWEVER, the reason why your boyfriend keeps telling you that you will be a terrible teacher is that he doesn't want you to go to grad school because it means you will be Leaving Him, so he's trying to undermine your confidence. This is called emotional abuse. It can happen to you even if you're smart, maybe especially if you're smart and nerdy and socially awkward. It isn't normal. Run.
2) It will turn out all right. Maybe not in the specific way you are envisioning, but your instincts about your career choice and how to get there are decent, and you will meet nice people who will help you, and you will land on your feet.
To feel very fortunate to be a position to earn tenure. For soon afterwards, the school started hiring what the president then said were "temporary colleagues" who will "fill in gaps for a year or two." It was the first time I had ever heard of an adjunct.
ReplyDeleteWhat it was like to be a proffie...really.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm a bad sport.
20 years ag I already knew. I should know better by now.
DeleteBe flexible. If plan A doesn’t work out, try plan B or plan C or plan D. One of those may even turn out to be more satisfying than plan A.
ReplyDeleteHmm. . .I'd probably need at least 30 years to make a real difference (while I'm not quite as old as Cal, I'm still old). That's when I was entering grad school, with far too little information about the real likelihood of getting a tenure-track job at the end of the process. It would also have been useful to know about the fault lines in the particular department I was joining (for that, 31 years would be handy). I'm still not sure whether I would have made different decisions, though. I was young, and had some reason to think that I'd be the exception to the general rule of difficulty getting jobs, and probably would have overestimated my ability to weather the departmental meltdown as well. I could, however, offer my younger self some advice for weathering it better (mostly, to be more proactive -- somehow. I'm still not quite sure exactly how, but somehow. Almost anything better than what I did -- laying low/feeling paralyzed/thinking I should be able to figure it all out on my own -- would have been an improvement.)
ReplyDelete25 years ago, it would have been helpful to have some confirmation that I really was seeing what I at least unconsciously knew I was seeing: that the advice I was receiving to finish the diss quickly and go on the job market and everything would work out didn't match the facts on the ground (a number of people with recently and not-so-recently-defended dissertations still living in town, heading back on the market for the 3rd or 4th or greater time). I'm not sure exactly what I would have done with that information, either, but even taking away the stress of dealing with the cognitive dissonance would have helped.
Ditto the cognitive dissonance of trying to figure out changes in family dynamics as my widowed father began a new relationship (and being told that any perceived estrangement was either all in my head or my fault for "ruining the atmosphere" by pointing out changing interactions). I would definitely have been better off knowing that I was correct in perceiving a growing estrangement, *and* that there wasn't much I could do about it except get on with my own life, working on the assumption that the current pattern would continue.
And 20 years ago? Well, all of the above, plus that taking a temporary/visiting position with "foot in the door" possibilities over a longer-term contingent position with no such illusory possibilities attached was not a good idea (fortunately, I landed in the more-secure continuing continent position a few years later anyway). Some information about the crazy ride both the real estate and stock markets were about to take (not to mention further family-dynamics developments) would also have been useful.
Uggy's got the right advice, I think, but, at least by 20 years ago, I was pretty aware of the value of having a plan B (and so on). What I hadn't quite figured out was just how many of the factors involved in my planning could change at once. I'm still learning the art of planning given the knowledge that pretty much nothing in life is certain, but some things are more likely than others.