Agonizing

[sanpaku_backup]

So I called up my grad school advisors. Predictably, they split over whether or not the words "high school" were a black mark on the C.V. The younger advisor, who I think is a little more cognizant of the job market, told me that the fellowship status would make it worthwhile. My main advisor, on the other hand, said it was really Not a Good Thing.

It was a somewhat uncomfortable conversation because I had to also explain that I have gotten just about nada this year academic job-wise. The implication is that I was not well prepared for the jobs that were actually out there. Also, from the perspective of the reasons schools fund a graduate training, it is kind of like I was a "waste" of their resources. My advisor told me not to give up, but on some level this is depressing for everyone involved. Of course, to not take the fellowship because I imagine myself getting an academic job implies that I'm not giving up, but that is the most feeble of actions.

Jeevus, this is uncomfortable.

Comments

[flw.livejournal.com]

Ehhh ... take it! If there going to be such little Prigs about you taking a job then fuck'em ... did any of your advisors say that? Truth be told, you'll be dealing with a lot of High School issues when you are in college. By the time you get a Collegiate position (say in 2 years), academic standards will have slipped down to about current High School level anyway, right?

If anyone actually says, "Well, Mr. Sanpaku, we were really interested, then we saw that you were involved with a secondary school level educational institution and we don't cotton to folks with that kind of history roun' these parts." then you can say, "Ahhh, shove it up your ass goober." Then you'll get into a karate fight and kick the whole boards ass and they'll have to give you a job ... because you kicked their asses.

Well, Mr. Sanpaku in view of your devastating Tiger Claw technique and powerful Drunken Monkey moves we are forcd to make you head of the academy.

See? It all worked out.

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately the most common way to indicate displeasure with something on the CV is to throw it into a Memory Hole. So I'd have to get the rejection, THEN kick their ass, which is more difficult.

Not that I don't want to say fuck 'em, but I didn't write the rules, and I am having a hard enough time getting any academic job at all at the moment.

Re: Holes and Boles

[flw.livejournal.com]

What is this CV? What is a Memory Hole?

Re: Holes and Boles

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

"Curriculum Vitae." Fancy-talk for an academic resume. Has stuff like papers written, conferences attended, classes taught, etc.

"Memory Hole." Don't you remember, Winston? You put your trash in the Memory Hole, unless Big Brother wants to see it.

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Also, as for collegiate/high school issues, I would give my eye teeth to have some of my former high school students in this class right about now. They wrote better and they paid more attention.

Hmmm

[(Anonymous)]

If you are wasting their 'resources,' they are wasting your time. Why aren't they helping you get a job? Why aren't they hooking you up, man? Why are you left sending out applications randomly for jobs? Sounds to me like they are sneering at the notion of teaching High School, yet they won't lift a finger to help a colleague! If this is really the case (and you doing something self-defeating like writing the applications in crayon) perhaps you should write them off and take the job.

-Mr. Steen

Re: Hmmm

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

The problem really is that academia is not a closed environment when it comes to hiring. In other words, they can't "get me a job" by calling the right person. They might hear about a job from a friend, and they might write a letter or call on my behalf, and that might help me get my application a hearing.

But because, by definition, my advisor would not be in their department, she would have no particular "pull" with the hiring process somewhere else. All these hiring decisions are made by committees, not just one person. So there is some articulated sense of the "needs of the department" and all kinds of horse trading and backbiting around the decision. What I'm saying is that it's not in any one person's hands.

If she fell down with anything -- and I think she does feel like this -- it's in encouraging me to produce a dissertation in a topic that no one is interested in hiring someone to teach right now. It's like I was trained to be a master craftsman at repairing electric Smith-Corona typewriters in 1985: no matter how good you are, there's just no interest in what you're doing. And there's a lot of other typewriter repairmen who want jobs and did it a lot longer than you did, for the one or two jobs that are left.

As far as her advice, yeah, she's a little removed from the desperation of earning a living, and has fulfilled her function of an academic advisor, which is: Always act in the interest of your academic career. She can't tell me to go the high school if she knows it will hurt me in some people's eyes -- as far as an academic career. If I decide to forego the academic career, that's my decision, but I didn't ask her for advice on that.

Not that I don't spend a lot of time agreeing with everything that you're saying -- removed from the particular issue of the advisor, "the academy" is sneering at the high school, and "the academy" is also keeping me from getting a job, so one wants to say "fuck them!" The problem is really that I don't know where the high school thing leads either. Also, if I say "fuck them" I am giving up the only career that I am trained for, no matter how unlikely it is that that career would turn out anyway... so it is a hard decision.