job interviews and academic anxieties

[heresluck]

I did a lot of journalling while in Philly for last week's conference/job interview gig; the whole event just seemed so wildly improbable that I had to keep writing things down to convince myself they were really happening. This post is my first attempt to process and synthesize some of that stuff.

Warning: this got pretty long.

Comments

[coffeeandink]

I just want to see the notes on Clarissa.

[heresluck]

The fact that thus far 20% of the respondents to this entry have said this? Assures me that I am hanging out with The Right People. I love it.

[coffeeandink]

I liked Clarissa. I'm not sure I ever want to read the entire thing straight through again, and I bailed on Sir Charles Grandison halfway through, but I did like Clarissa.

[heresluck]

Good lord, there's no need to read the entire thing straight through more than once. Judicious skimming of the boring parts is definitely the way to go.

I thought briefly of proposing Clarissa/Anna for yuletide, just because the idea amuses me so; but of course I don't actually want to participate in yuletide, so it couldn't happen.

[ex_truepenn]

1. You're right about the department's apathy and general loserness on the subject of teaching grad students how not to be grad students.

2. Those who come after you will love you forever if you do a "learn from my mistakes" manual.

3. You want to, and are brilliantly prepared to, teach undergraduate students about literature and writing and sex/gender/sexual-orientation politics and why all of these things matter. In the midst of all the other things you haven't done or should have done or whatever, keep ahold of that. Because I've known you long enough to know that that's the thing that grounds you. Even if you publish in PMLA and go to prestigious conferences and all the rest of it, you will never care as much about that three-ring circus as you do about your students. And I think that's a good thing.

4. Again, any way I can help, blah blah friendship-cakes.

[heresluck]

...nobody else around you is prepared either.

Absolutely true, in the local sense. But some conversations at MLA, along with some online investigation of my own, have yielded up the information that many if not most of the top-ranked English programs (and, interestingly, quite a number of the *third*-tier programs) do provide much more coherent and systematic instruction about professional (as distinct from intellectual) preparation.

Which, as you say, just reinforces the not-sucking on my part; but is tremendously annoying.

[heresluck]

Even if you publish in PMLA and go to prestigious conferences and all the rest of it, you will never care as much about that three-ring circus as you do about your students.So true

[sockkpuppett]

As I read this, I was reminded once again of what *I* think is the greatest failing of higher-higher education: Not *really* preparing the student for the outside world. I became acutely aware of this again (AGAIN) after my husband graduated summa cum laude with his MBA. And for WHAT? I'm not saying that he's floundering professionally (although he is), and I'm not saying that he was unprepared for the real world (although he was). I'm just saying that a big chunk of formal, graduate education needs not only to teach the stuff, but also how to utilize the stuff.

When I was in college, majoring in Fine Arts, I used to joke around that nobody up there was teaching me how to prostitute myself and my art. Hell! I already knew how to draw and paint before I even went to college. I needed to know how to make a living at it. I'm still curious about that, and only now have I realized how deadly serious that joke really was.

/soapbox whine-rant from the chronically underemployed

[jackiekjono]

Would you like an Amen?

I just wrote my big anti-theatre grad school rant and decided not to post it. I think I will just leave it with the Amen.

Amen.

[heresluck]

I'm just saying that a big chunk of formal, graduate education needs not only to teach the stuff, but also how to utilize the stuff.

Exactly.

One of my professors has been talking about maybe implementing exactly the sort of professional training I think my department needs; I'm hoping to sit down with him soon and talk through some of the things I think such a training course would cover: how does one get grant and fellowship money? how does one write an academic article, a book proposal, a conference proposal, a book review? how does one find out which journals need which books reviewed? what *are* the major journals and conferences in the field? and so on.

It's not that the information's not out there; it's just that the program is not currently set up to deliver that information in a uniform, systematic, structured way. And that seems absurd to me, for exactly the reasons you outline.

[sockkpuppett]

I think that's a brilliant idea whose time came about 50 years ago. sigh.

Bitter? Moi? (Thanks again to sisabet for that magnet. It's so ME.)

So, if anyone has any ideas about how to creatively utilize a BFA in Printmaking, coupled with 20+ years in design/mechanical engineering, coupled with an MBA, y'all let me know. :)

A banner with a strange device

[batwrangler]

I, too, want to see the Clarissa notes. I also want to say how glad I am for your update; I'd been contemplating adding a "how'd it go?" comment to either your last post or renenet's.

I know how frustrating it can be to look back and see clearly what you *haven't* done (I do it every year at this time) that you should have. Try not to let that get you down.

Excelsior!

[laurashapiro]

In spite of your worries about things you should have done (and taking into account the equal distribution of unhappiness on people and things that are not you), I still think it sounds like you did a remarkable job and impressed a lot of people.

Still rooting for you over here.

[heresluck]

Thank you. I like having good people in my corner.