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.

*

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.

*

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.

The post Back to School Shopping: Exploring Independent School Teaching appeared first on Broadly Textual Pub.

Read last week’s post from Staci.

I begin this blog post with the title “We’re All Smart Enough” because, as has at least been part of my experience of graduate education, there is a perception that only the best and brightest get the coveted tenure track job in higher education. But I’m here to tell you—if you’re in a PhD program, you are one of the best and the brightest. You ARE smart enough. And deciding that you do not enjoy parts of the work, or do not want to make certain lifestyle choices to try and get that tenure track job, has nothing to do with intelligence.

This was my struggle. Due to my own insecurities regarding my intelligence (hello Imposter Syndrome!) I was convinced for many years of my graduate program that my self-worth was tied to my intellect, and that my intellect was only demonstrable by publishing, graduating, AND landing a tenure track job. My sense of self-worth ebbed and flowed with my successes. Rejected from a journal? I’m an imposter. Accepted into a conference? Maybe I’m ok at this.

The cycle went on, and eventually was exacerbated by the emotional roller coaster that is the tenure track job search. Request for materials? Maybe I’m good enough! Rejected by my “dream job”? Utter failure. While a great deal of therapy, anxiety medication, helpful mentors, and the support of family and friends helped to mitigate these emotional trials, I too—like Staci wrote the last two weeks—hardly stopped to think if maybe this wasn’t the best career for me.

The constant bright spot in my education, however, was teaching. I loved walking into a classroom, meeting new students, and working with them to understand complex texts. Even on its worst days, teaching was a part of graduate school that did not cause me existential angst. I was good at it AND I enjoyed it.

Truth be told, I entered graduate school mostly because I wanted to teach college students. I had decided in 11^th grade that I would get a PhD because although I loved helping my peers and those younger than myself understand concepts in our coursework, I loathed high school; why would I condemn myself to a career where I would spend my days there?! The solution? Teach at a college!

*

I measured my worth against my publication record. In my estimation (and in that of professional standards) I was always found wanting.

But as I quickly realized, being a tenure track professor is far more than teaching. It’s research—publications, conference presentations, and research grants—that universities (i.e. university administrators) value, and it’s also these things that place you above the pack while on the job market regardless of the school that is hiring. And frankly, those were the activities that I enjoyed the least. Don’t get me wrong—I like researching and discovering new ways to interpret literature. But the angst I felt when it came time to present a published argument about those discoveries was anything but healthy. I measured my worth against my publication record. In my estimation (and in that of professional standards) I was always found wanting.

The spring before I was set to defend my dissertation, I was pregnant, coming off of another unsuccessful year on the job market, and beginning to do the IMPORTANT work that I should have done much earlier: I was beginning to ask myself whether or not a tenure track job was right for me, and if I wanted to do what was necessary to eventually get a tenure track job. By this time I had successfully published a journal article, a book chapter, and had attended many conferences and workshops, yet still felt immense anxiety and pressure surrounding my research. I was also mere months away from defending my dissertation. So why did it all still make me feel terrible?

One March day, an advertisement for a high school American Literature teacher at a local Independent School came across the graduate student listserv. The product of a rural, public education system myself, I was unaware of “Independent” schools. As I soon learned, Independent schools are those which are run independently by a board of trustees rather than, say, a church diocese or other not-for-profit company.

I did some more research on this (and other Independent) schools and I began to wonder…what if I COULD have a job where my sole focus would be students? What if I COULD compete in a job search where the strength of my teaching portfolio DID make me competitive? Could I teach high school???

Through happenstance, the Head of the Upper School at this institution had been my colleague in Syracuse’s Graduate Student Organization (like Staci wrote—networking!). I reached out to him about applying and eventually was even asked to participate in an on-campus interview—my first EVER. The energy and joy I felt while preparing for my interview was greater than I had ever experienced in three years of searching for a tenure track job in higher education. I did not get the job, but the interview process was enlightening—I had found an educational setting that truly spoke to my own strengths as a professional.

*

It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders as a new career path opened up before me. I would not have to publish or perish.

After this experience, my attitude started to shift. Maybe it wasn’t that I was not good enough or smart enough. Maybe I just did not like the pressure of publishing. Maybe I just would prefer to do other things. It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders as a new career path opened up before me. I would not have to publish or perish (a cynical but true turn of phrase among tenure-track faculty hopefuls).

I continued to mull over this new career option as I worked furiously to complete my dissertation and prepared for my daughter’s arrival. I had not yet written academia completely out of my future.

Then, a mere 4 weeks after my daughter was born, I received a phone call: my dad had been killed in an accident on our family farm in Northern Pennsylvania. He was 54. I put my defense on hold as I went to PA to bury the man I had looked up to my whole life, and the person I was most excited for my daughter to know. I grew up on a dairy farm that my family had owned since the 1800s, and in the months after his death, I watched as my amazing step mom dealt with not only incredible grief, but the trials of selling cattle and equipment.

I finished the dissertation. I defended it successfully. But I now had a completely new perspective on what I wanted to prioritize in my life—the life I now knew not to take for granted. And for me, my new priority was choosing a job that would allow me to be geographically close to my family in Pennsylvania, and that would provide me with a lifestyle that enabled me to spend more time (and enjoy that time) with those I love. In the end, it made it easy to walk away from my “dream” of a tenure track academic job, because dreams change. Life changes. That’s ok. And we’re all smart enough.

Thanks for reading! Tune in next week as I discuss what I’ve done post PhD to position myself for a search on the Independent School job market!

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.

The post We’re All Smart Enough: A Pep Talk for PhDs on the Job Market appeared first on Broadly Textual Pub.

Read last week’s post from Staci.

When asked to write a series of posts on how my PhD work prepared me for a more diverse career path, I knew that I wanted to be helpful while still acknowledging the truth behind finding any sort of employment: so much of it is about luck, not skill and worth. Yes, I have a lot of skills that have made me a good fit for my current job as a tutor manager. They are not necessarily why I was hired, though. I got the job because I was in the right place at the right time. Then, I had the aptitude that allowed me to do well in the role once there. So, to that end, I’m going to discuss two related but ultimately separate things in this week’s post: 1) how to help bolster your luck on the job market and 2) which skills helped me thrive once I had a foot in the door.

So, let’s start with this “luck” business. I am not implying that it was pure luck per se. Rather, I happened to know some people and was able to leverage those connections into a fruitful position. As I’m sure anyone who is on the academic job market knows: getting a tenure-track job is only partially about your actual knowledge and prowess. It’s also about fit, timing, and who you know. This is also true in the other markets. While a non-academic job landscape is much more robust, it’s not all rainbows. You still send out countless resumes to no avail. You still get rejected. So, my main advice for how to translate your PhD experience into a job outside of academia will sound familiar and cliché but, alas, it’s what really does the trick: network.

When I decided to pivot, I first needed to figure out what I wanted to do. While I loved tutoring, I knew it couldn’t sustain me as a full-time career. I thus researched and made a list of all of the different types of jobs one could get while still in the realm of education. I started applying for support staff roles across Bay Area colleges. These sort of jobs would allow me to impact students’ lives while still getting the work-life balance associated with a 9-5 job. I sent out dozens of cover letters and applications and received zero replies. I could not seem to get my skills to translate into an attractive application.

While I was getting very few bites, other opportunities were starting to pop up related to my tutoring side gig. My tutoring manager asked if I could help out with some administrative work. The counselor of one of my students wanted to collaborate with me. It started to become more clear to me that, like in academia, this is how you open doors for yourself. There’s only so much a resume can do. You have to immerse yourself in the field you want to enter in whatever way you can. Put yourself in the position so that you can be in the right place at the right time. Say yes to stuff. As much as possible, go to talks or events in your new desired field. Pick up side gigs (as much as your budget and energy levels can allow). Acknowledge that you are pivoting to a new (if not adjacent) career and have to do some of the grunt work you did the first year of your PhD because, while you have a very advanced pedigree now, you still have to prove yourself. I was very privileged to have a gap year in which to do this. My side gigs paid well (way better than adjuncting!) but they didn’t come with health insurance. I was lucky enough to get that through my partner. This gave me the space and freedom to collect opportunities. So, I give this advice with a grain of salt, an acknowledgement that this isn’t everyone’s situation, and gratitude for the fact that I had that space.

I kept working away at my side gigs, saying yes, and waiting. Then, just by chance, the tutoring company I was working for opened up a salaried staff position. Because I had been such a strong tutor and because I had been helping them out with admin work, they offered it to me. I was organized and hard-working and that’s what they were looking for in an admin support team member. It was ultimately as simple as that. I had been doing good work and I was in the right place at the right time.

It was only once I was in the role that I could really start showing the breadth of my skills and begin to leverage those into a more substantial position. Because of my teaching background, I was able to start helping out with more high-level tasks: interviewing new tutors, training them, and helping them create curriculum for their students. I was well-suited for these responsibilities because of different things I had done as a PhD student: designing and teaching my own courses, serving on a hiring committee for a tenure-track position, training new graduate TAs, acting as a teaching mentor, and organizing an undergraduate conference and multiple conference panels. My research and writing skills also opened up new opportunities to me. I became the company’s resident editor who gives final edits on any communication going out to a large audience. I also advise on strategy for large projects as I am able to think about their scope and the necessary pacing they require. For instance, I just finished launching our online tutoring platform. I helped research the software, trained tutors on how to use it, and advised on marketing it to parents.

Because of my initiative on projects like this and because of my ability to participate in more high-level tasks, my role quickly evolved from an administrative one to a managerial one. After a couple of months, I was promoted to the role of Tutor Services Manager and I am now in charge of hiring, training, and managing a cohort of around 150 tutors across the Bay Area and L.A. Though I do not teach students, I get to teach and mentor teachers. I get to use my aptitude for planning and organization to help them thrive and get students the assistance they need. I get to work from home and have flex time to go to the doctor when needed, which is great for pacing myself and finding the balance I need with lupus.

I don’t share my story to say that this is typical or that your path has to look exactly like this. Essentially, it just worked out. The timing happened to be right for me and, because of the skills I gained through the PhD, I was able to easily adapt to and redefine my role. I’m also very lucky to be a part of a small company that has allowed for this advancement. So, my advice for those looking for positions outside of academia would be this: figure out what you love about academia, what skills you have that would allow you to do that in some capacity elsewhere, and where that elsewhere is. Once you’ve done that, just show up as much as you can and make sure you’re showing everyone the best version of yourself and your skills. There’s only so much a resume can demonstrate about your aptitude.

As I used to tell my writing students and now tell the tutors I mentor: show, don’t tell.

Staci Stutsman holds a BA in English from Western Michigan University (2011) and a PhD in English with an emphasis in film and media studies from Syracuse University (2017). She is currently the Tutor Services Manager at Tutor Corps, a tutoring company based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, where she hires, trains, and manages a cohort of 150 tutors.

The post Show, Don’t Tell: Networking and Showing Up appeared first on Broadly Textual Pub.

My journey to an alt-ac position was a gradual one. I did not wake up one day and decide that it was time to wave goodbye to my long-held dream of securing a tenure-track job in the humanities. Rather, it was a series of small (and big) events that led me to eventually look around and decide to search for alternate employment avenues.

I entered my English PhD program right out of undergrad. I was a shiny 22-year-old with drive and energy to spare. I attacked coursework and teaching with rigor and enthusiasm. I read all the books, wrote all the seminar papers, attended all the conferences, taught all the classes. In essence, if there was a hoop, I was more than happy to leap through it. And I loved it.

When you’re a first-year PhD student, the threat of the sparse job market is a distant, fuzzy reality. Early on, you get to wrap yourself in the promise of time. There’s time to figure it out. There’s time for the market to become more robust. There’s time to do enough to prove yourself as worthy. You put your head down, you plow through your work, and hope that things will work themselves out by the time you’re ready for the job market.

Time is a tricky thing, though. When you’re in grad school, it seems like there’s never enough time. Because the knowledge of the market looms on the horizon, there is an imperative to make the most of your time every single day, week, month, break. I, for one, was not great at pacing myself. I thrived on constant productivity. A low hum of anxiety propelled me forward.

At some point, in the midst of zooming through my qualifying exams and cranking out my prospectus, I got sick. A couple of months after I began writing my first chapter, I was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus. (Yes, House fans, sometimes it’s lupus.) Soon thereafter, I was diagnosed with lupus nephritis as the lupus had begun to attack my kidneys. Lupus is a disease in which your immune system gets confused and, instead of fighting illness, decides to attack healthy cells and organs. No one really knows what causes lupus. It’s more or less the case that you have a genetic deficiency that can eventually be triggered by, among other things, extreme stress and then, voila, you forever have lupus. This is not to say that the PhD process gave me lupus. It is to say, though, that my unhealthy work habits turned my predisposition for an autoimmune disease into an actual ailment.

My diagnosis wasn’t what turned me to alt-ac, though. At least not right away. Rather, I treated my diagnosis like another problem to be solved, another task to be accomplished. The goal was to find the right treatment plan, get on the right medications, and get back to “normal” so that I could crank out work and stay on schedule. Propelled by heavy doses of steroids for the next year, I was pretty successful. I finished up my dissertation, I defended, and I graduated.

I then embarked on a gap year in which I planned to focus my energy on the job market. I was living with my partner in Oakland, California and picked up a side gig tutoring while I focused on my “real” career: jumping through the next hoop on the path to academic life. Something changed in me once I defended the dissertation, though. Once I didn’t have the institutional pressure to produce, produce, produce (and once my doctors had finally lowered my steroid dose), it was no longer clear to me why I was working around the clock without breaks.

I finally had the time to think about and come to terms with my illness. I learned that it was not something to be managed, fixed, and forgotten. Rather, lupus came with a new reality that I had to confront: stress and lack of sleep triggered flares and further damaged my body. As such, it was important to slow down and take breaks. In turn, slowing down made me realize the things which truly gave me joy: having the time to read a book for pleasure, going to the gym, and cooking meals that were good for my body. Traditional academia definitely allows for those things. I realized, though, that my personality was not suited for making space for them while still in the system. I only knew how to do academia one way: full throttle and anxiety-laden.

At the same time I was coming to this realization about academia and my illness, I was also loving my side gig. I had begun tutoring middle school and high school writing for a Bay Area tutoring company and found it incredibly fulfilling to make sustained, one-on-one connections with students and help them navigate the stressful, tricky world of secondary education. While I always vaguely knew that there were ways to engage in the educational landscape other than pursuing a tenure-track job, it was knowledge that I had to ignore for the most part in order to stay focused.

When I began to embrace the fact that there were other satisfying ways to involve myself in teaching while not hurting myself, I knew that I had to make some changes. It was for this reason that, while in the middle of submitting job applications my first year on the market, I simply…stopped. I began thinking about what other jobs I might enjoy, what skills I had to offer, and what opportunities were available to me in order to make that pivot. It was odd; I was trained in a profession that encourages and develops critical thinking skills but, somehow, while single-mindedly doing that work, I hadn’t taken the time to think critically about whether or not this was where I wanted to be. Having that gap year and the time to reflect about the hoops I was jumping through proved fundamental to removing myself from the academic fray.

While lupus forced me to take the time to think about this, I wish I would have taken a break from performing the academic dance a little earlier on in order to ask myself: What do I want to get out of this and what do I want my life to look like? I think, ultimately, the PhD did get me to where I wanted to be, though that endpoint was different than I originally envisioned. In my next post, I will discuss what my pivot from academia looked like and how I used the rest of my gap year making the skills I learned in my PhD legible to an alt-ac job market. In doing so, I will explain how I leveraged the skills gleaned from a career that was ultimately not the right fit for me.

Staci Stutsman holds a BA in English from Western Michigan University (2011) and a PhD in English with an emphasis in film and media studies from Syracuse University (2017). She is currently the Tutor Services Manager at Tutor Corps, a tutoring company based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, where she hires, trains, and manages a cohort of 150 tutors.

The post On Alt-Ac Careers and Autoimmune Conditions appeared first on Broadly Textual Pub.