This post was originally written in February 2021 as a follow up to Planning Your Winter Semester and was shared in the Academic Writing Studio. It has been edited and divided into a series of shorter posts for ease of reading. The general principles—habits, routines, and default responses—are explained in the first post in the […]
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Making Decisions: planning & scheduling
This post was originally written in February 2021 as a follow up to Planning Your Winter Semester and was shared in the Academic Writing Studio. It has been edited and divided into a series of shorter posts for ease of reading. The general principles—habits, routines, and default responses—are explained in the first post in the […]
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Why join the Studio in the summer?
You probably think of summer as the easiest time of year to focus on research and writing. You’ve probably been looking forward to it for months because of that. So why would you want to join the Studio? Some people who attend A Meeting With Your Writing regularly during the main part of the year, […]
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Starting your academic writing year in mid-summer
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Starting your academic year in mid-summer When do academics celebrate the new year? This is a serious question for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, where the beginning of the calendar year in January is more like the middle of the academic year. It seems like […]
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Thoughts on wrapping up your teaching for summer
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Thoughts on wrapping up teaching for the summer Academic work is cyclical. There are seasons to the work. You need to account for those cycles when you plan. Summer may feel like the research & writing part of the year. If you value teaching and being a good teacher, […]
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Managing your energy.
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Managing your energy The academic year varies in intensity. The typical structure of an academic year has 2 teaching semesters, or 3 teaching terms with shorter breaks between them and then a long break in the summer. Everyone involved needs time to recover and recharge, and to integrate knowledge. […]
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The value of intellectual engagement
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Valuing Intellectual Engagement Burnout and stress are not just about the quantity of work you have to do. Lack of control and a sense of meaninglessness are major contributors to burnout. It has become very clear that your difficulty managing your workload is not a personal failing. You are […]
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Asynchronous teaching and setting boundaries
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Asynchronous teaching and setting boundaries I’ve noticed in various conversations on Twitter that there are some issues with setting boundaries in the context of pandemic teaching conditions. In this post I address a particular issue with asynchronous teaching. Never in class and never not in class When you taught […]
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Where does teaching preparation fit in your summer plans?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Where does teaching preparation fit in your summer plans? In April I wrote about Writing and Research in the Summer of the Pandemic because I know a lot of academics look forward to summer as a time when they can make that their primary focus. My focus there was […]
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Transitioning to summer
Note: I wrote this just before the pandemic situation started to impact academic workloads in the UK, US, and Canada. I am re-publishing it now as a reminder that things would already have been in transition at this time of year. For more on the specific impacts of the pandemic response on academic life… …head […]
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What’s YOUR ideal academic job?
When you are looking for an academic job it is hard to imagine that you could get one and be unhappy, even miserable. And yet, I’ve met unhappy academics.
An academic career incorporates a wide range of activities and uses a lot of different skills. Even those who love it, and are successful, love different things about it, or excel at different aspects.
It is important to determine what is important to you. Your actual job may never match your ideal exactly, but knowing what your ideal looks like enables you to choose better compromises.
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The frustrations of being a dedicated teacher.
You are a dedicated teacher. You want your students to learn. When you take that ethical obligation seriously, and work hard to make it possible for students to learn and do well, it can be frustrating when students seem not to make the effort. It’s as if they don’t even care if they only get […]
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