One of the great attractions of an academic career is the level of autonomy and freedom that you have. Some possible paths are clearly marked. Others are less obvious. Roadblocks are a frequent problem. Regardless of your stage of career, posts in this section help you identify the signposts and make decisions.
I read a thought provoking piece on Work-Life Balance recently. Thinking about this in relation to academic careers, I realize that the choice you face is actually more complex. And that that complexity might make it easier to address the problem (if there is one).
The issue for you might not be a work-life balance issue, it might be a work-work balance issue.
Read More »Following a link from Twitter the other day (sorry, I forget who sent me here) I found this fantastic blog post on the Scientific American website: Three things I learned at the Purdue Conference for Pre-Tenure Women: on being a radical scholar. This resonates strongly with my own views about managing your academic career. I […]
Read More »We know that to get an academic position you need to publish from your dissertation. It would be helpful to at least have a good idea of where your research program is going to go next. If you can get started on that next project, even better. Competition is stiff. Even institutions that don’t have […]
Read More »My friend and colleague Julie Clarenbach has written an excellent post on building your resumé. Think about the job you’d really love to have. Think about what skills and qualifications you would need in order to land that job. … what would your resume (not someone else’s, or your resume from a different, parallel life, […]
Read More »It’s easy to imagine that an academic career is simple. You get a tenure-track position in a department. You teach. You do research. You sit on some committees. You get promoted. It is also easy to get discouraged at the conservatism of academic cultures. To see the difficulties for interdisciplinary scholars. The struggles of humanities […]
Read More »What will you contribute to the success of the organization?
This is the primary question every person or committee who has ever hired anyone is trying to answer.
As with any other writing you do, audience matters. The people doing the hiring are the audience for your job application materials. They need to be written in such a way that they can find the information they need to answer this question.
Read More »An article on Embedded Sociologist from the American Sociological Association, inspires some thoughts on the value of organizing scholars working outside academe within scholarly associations. Links to other such groups are encouraged in the comments.
Read More »You are not behind. You haven’t wasted your time. It’s easy to think that you made a mistake somewhere along the line. Studying for a PhD was a wrong turn. Most people have their career figured out by the time they are 30. You should have learned these career research skills when you were younger. […]
Read More »You know networking is important but the thought of it makes you want to shudder. Or worse. It sounds so instrumental. And fake. And like it involves talking to people you don’t know. Out of the blue. If you’re an introvert, it’s even worse. Reassurance It shouldn’t be instrumental, even if the relationships you build […]
Read More »It’s not just that the labour market is awful right now. Higher education is changing More students. Less public funding per student. Major shifts in the balance of public and private funding, even in public institutions. Stable or declining numbers of full-time, permanent faculty positions (what gets called “tenured” and “tenure track” in North America). […]
Read More »You’d think that once you get that academic job and get through whatever process you have to go through to keep it (tenure, probation, or whatever it’s called where you live), it would be plain sailing. You have been judged by your peers to know what you are doing and be doing it well. Unfortunately, […]
Read More »Just a quick post to alert you to a must read blog post by Marissa Bracke: The Real Reason You’re Not Taking Action On Your Goals As I read it, I thought of struggling to write (the dissertation, a book, a journal article, a grant proposal), struggling with the job search, … well, pretty well […]
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