It's Not Easy Out Here
The Truth about the Nonacademic Job Search
By Elle Madison
Chronicle of Higher Education Careers
November 1, 2005
After an unsuccessful year on the academic job market, I decided to test the proverbial nonacademic waters for a year. I have watched colleagues struggle through years of uncertainty, low self-esteem, and pennilessness while adjuncting, and I imagined (rightly or not) that the nonacademic world had to be much better.
Upon receiving my Ph.D. in comparative literature last June, I spent the summer applying for writing and editing jobs, consulting career counselors and job-search books, and generally trying to determine which path to take. The nonacademic job, however, has not been as easy to obtain as I had fantasized in my post-dissertation stupor.
Furthermore, I found that the transition into the real world bears little resemblance to the success stories and promises of those job-search books. So I decided it was time for someone to tell the truth about the nonacademic path.
To read the rest of the article click here
posted by Liberal Arts Dude at 8:27 PM
1 Comments:
My reaction to the Chronicle piece was, surprisingly, a big "meh." As in so what else is new? The nonacademic job market IS hard. What surprised me is that the writer expressed surprise and shock to that fact. Hey lady, I wanted to tell her. I've known about this since I graduated with a BA. I know about it now to the point I just say this is how the world works and how you negotiate it.
My surprise is the tinge of betrayal and injustice I sensed in the piece -- as if the author were expecting things to be easier in the world outside of academe and was honestly surprised it wasn't. The experience of being treated like a piece of crap in the job market was so new to the author that she decided to write an expose based on her experiences which was eventually picked up by the Chronicle of Higher Education no less.
A comment in an earlier post told me to chill out. I am trying to chill out but articles like these make chiling out hard. I just want to grab the author of the piece by the neck and shake her all the while exclaiming "Holy hell, lady, what you describe is just normal, day to day life. If you think dignity, self-worth and an easy way to make a living is in short supply in the Real World, then welcome to the Real World. You actually expect the world to be a nice place? Hell, most people will recognize how dog eat dog the world actually is right after they graduate. It infuriates me to think you are so insulated from the realities of the world that your first foray into the job market after getting a PhD you decided to write a Chronicle article lamenting how tough it is out there!"
But what the hell do I know? The same experiences as a BA led me to write a blog.
5:55 PM
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