This month, Broadly Textual is proud to welcome back two outstanding graduates from the English Graduate program at Syracuse University (and previous contributors to the blog), Dr. Staci Stutsman and Dr. Melissa Welshans. Each week in March, our returning contributors will discuss their experiences within their PhD program, the skills they gained during their studies, and how they utilize those skills in their current careers outside of the traditional tenure-track professorship track.
Read last week’s post from Melissa.
Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we? I had graduated with my PhD in English but had realized that a tenure track academic job was not for me. What does one do, then, to prepare oneself for a new career path? Again, I must echo what Staci emphasized—reach out to your networks.
As I mentioned, the head of the high school to which I had applied was a colleague of mine from graduate school (we had met through Syracuse University’s graduate student organization). After the dust settled from my daughter’s birth and my dad’s death, I reached out to this colleague to see what steps he would recommend to prepare myself as a candidate for independent school jobs. He suggested that I do whatever I could to gain experience working with older adolescents, as well as applying to be a client with the most well-known independent school placement agency: Carney Sandoe & Associates. With this advice in mind, I reached out to CS&A and, luckily, they accepted me as a client.
Working with CS&A, I crafted and collected my job materials (a statement of purpose that explained my shift in educational focus, my transcripts, resume, and letters of recommendation), posted them on their website, and waited for CS&A to send my materials out to independent schools who had hired the firm to help fill vacant positions. Like academic hiring, there are key points in the year when jobs are posted. For independent schools, it is the winter and early spring for a start date in August. I also sent out applications to jobs advertised on the National Association for Independent Schools website. I was teaching three classes at Syracuse at the time and only had daycare three days a week, so between that and job applications, I just could not find the time in my schedule to add on an activity that put me directly in contact with high schoolers. Nevertheless, I still received more possible interest from employers than I ever had on the tenure-track job market. But no campus interviews or job offers.
By the end of my first real independent school hiring season, however, I felt heartened by the fact that despite my lack of experience working with high school-aged students, I was still clearly an appealing candidate. Again, I reached out to my social network. Through my previous Weight Watchers (now WW) group, I had befriended a local high school social studies teacher. I reached out to her to see what she would suggest in terms of how I might begin building my resume experience, and she enthusiastically offered many suggestions, including substitute teaching. I was still teaching two classes at Syracuse, but luckily I was able to place my daughter in full time care and reserve my days off of campus for substitute teaching. I signed up with 4 local districts—two public (including the district in which my friend was employed), one private, and one a newly created charter school—to give myself as much and as varied teaching experience as possible.
And what an experience it has been! Occasionally it is very boring—teachers often design lessons for substitutes that involve little of their own input as one cannot guarantee their sub will be familiar with the material. Yet I have found that I truly enjoy meeting new students and learning new things as I engage with them and their materials. It is very rewarding to return to a school and see students with whom I have previously interacted. And, as my reputation has grown as a competent substitute, I have had the opportunity to return to the same classrooms and work with the same students.
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My years as a teacher have taught me that regardless of the age of one’s students, a classroom runs best when students feel respected, supported, and appreciated as individuals.
And despite the difference in age between students one encounters in college and those in middle and high school, my training as a college professor has done quite a bit to prepare me to teach in this setting. Working with students from a variety of age ranges, disciplines, and intellectual needs at the college level, I have learned to navigate a diverse classroom setting. Teaching dense, theoretical material to undergraduates has taught me how to convey complex ideas in a manner that is comprehensible to non-specialists. And perhaps most importantly, my years as a teacher have taught me that regardless of the age of one’s students, a classroom runs best when students feel respected, supported, and appreciated as individuals.
I won’t lie: being a substitute teacher is at times frustrating. As school districts are often short on substitute teachers, they are willing to hire people at all levels of competence and expertise. Because of this, then, it is often assumed that I will not know what I am doing and have no experience. It’s an odd feeling—to be surrounded by people and students who have quite low expectations. I am often met with a slight look of confusion when I say I have a PhD: a look that says “why are you here then?” But when I explain, faculty and students are often very interested and kind. And throughout the past 6 months I have met many encouraging educators—two of which were generous enough to write me letters of recommendation.
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I have already learned the lesson that one can find meaningful employment outside of academia.
We are in the middle of the 2019 hiring season and I have yet to hear from any potentially interested employers. This again has given me pause—what if this is not the career for me? Yet the beauty of being off the tenure track is that I now feel like I have the freedom to pivot and/or change course. I have already learned the lesson that one can find meaningful employment outside of academia. Who knows—I might even find something outside of direct classroom instruction. I am no longer tethered to a path with one, appropriate end. So, while I can’t leave you with a success story where I change course and land the perfect job, I can leave you with this lesson: no perfect job exists. There are jobs that suit you better than others at different times in your life, and if you’re lucky you find one that suits you for quite a while. I know I’ll find one eventually, and you will too. I do not regret earning a PhD—it has made me a stronger writer and thinker, has introduced me to wonderful people, and affirmed for me something I always knew: that I deeply enjoy and excel at cultivating meaningful relationships with others. I’ll find something, and you will too. And a PhD can be but one pathway for getting there.
Thanks everyone! Best of luck on your journeys—whatever they may be and wherever they may take you.
Melissa Welshans has a BA in English with Honors from George Mason University (2007) and a PhD in English with an emphasis on Renaissance literature from Syracuse University (2017). She is currently a Part Time Instructor at Syracuse University and a substitute teacher for a variety of school districts in the Syracuse area.