Job Search Saga: Interview Preparation

The months-long wait was over, and I had finally received an invitation to interview. The interview request itself surpassed my expectations, because it didn't start out slowly with the phone or Skype interview, instead jumping straight to the "we will pay for you to fly out here and visit us" interview. The only catch was that they wanted me out there soon; the invitation arrived on a Friday, with suggested interview dates ranging from the coming Wednesday to the following Tuesday, just a week and a half later. That did not leave much time to prepare.

The first step of preparation was remembering what I had applied for. I deliberately kept myself removed from all my applications, letting myself learn about the colleges in depth for the day or so it took to decide to apply and customize my cover letter, and then forgetting about anything to do with the college so I would not be overly disappointed if I were not selected for a given job. So the name of the college and chair were vaguely familiar, but I did not remember the job description or anything I wrote in my application.

My excitement about the interview increased, impossible as that would seem, when I pulled up the cover letter I had written. I had applied to 18 jobs, and done my best to customize 18 cover letters, but sometimes the position announcement or the school website just doesn't present anything exciting to write about. This college had been one of the exciting ones. Oh, I was probably more enthusiastic about my applications at the time, as it was within the first half-dozen letters I wrote, but the school had contributed as well. I was excited about the January term, a not uncommon feature of liberal arts colleges, the prospect of teaching freshmen seminars, and a few unique features of the college curriculum, and I waxed enthusiastic about them in my letter.

The fun part of my preparation was doing my best to visit every page on the college website, to review all those features that had excited me and to become an expert on the college curriculum and advertising materials. I found myself wishing that I had known about liberal arts colleges, and this one in particular, when I was applying to colleges myself, which has to be a good sign in becoming a professor.

The second step of preparation was creating a job talk. I had known that I was likely to need a job talk, but been too discouraged about my chances of getting an interview to make an effort, especially as I applied to jobs in two sub-fiields, and would likely have had to adapt the talk anyway. I hadn't expected to be given only a week to prepare, and count myself as incredibly lucky that my advisor and lab were incredibly supportive. We called together a special lab meeting just so I could practice my job talk and get their advice.

The most important piece of advice was something I had heard before, but which was useful to hear again: Liberal arts colleges favor teaching, and job talks often do double-duty of showcasing both your research qualifications and your teaching ability. My job talk was all about trying to present my research in a way that would be accessible to undergraduates, and in a way that would be interesting despite being in a formal presentation - which I do my best to avoid during teaching. This included ditching all that statistics, and most of the caveats of what nitpicky questions get raised about my interpretations of my data. It also included making as many connections to other subfields in my area as possible when discussing future directions, to suggest to the faculty present that we could build some nice connections and collaborations as well. It was a tall order to accomplish in just one week.

The third and final step of preparation was general interview preparation. I knew the kinds of questions that might be asked in a regular job interview, but what would be asked of a faculty candidate? I had received the schedule of interviews, which included 45 minutes with the Provost and 30 minutes with the Faculty Interview Committee; what should I ask these administrative people or other faculty members? That topic deserves a post of its own.

Job Search Saga: The First Six Responses

By the middle of January, I had applied to 18 jobs, with "review of application begins" ranging from October 15th to January 15th. I tried to keep a positive outlook, telling myself that fully half of those applications were too early in the review process for me to even guess what I would hear, but the first five responses were far from encouraging.

The first response was neutral, but still discouraging: Search canceled because funding not approved. I didn't really need any reminder that I was on the wrong end of the supply and demand equation, competing with any number of newly minted PhDs for a very limited number of jobs.

Three other responses came in purely negative: Position has been filled. One of these letters declared that over 100 applications had been received, so I knew that my calculations of the odds had been correct, that for any application I submitted I had at best at 5% chance of getting an interview and only a 1% chance of getting the job. Still, I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with my application, that I would never make it to the top of anyone's list.

The fifth response was incredibly obscure; I couldn't decide how to interpret it. The search committee had reviewed the applications, and had decided to cancel that search and re-open it later with a modified position announcement - but the applicants were invited to respond to the new announcement. I wasn't sure how to take this. Why would I bother applying a second time when my first application apparently didn't meet their intended requirements? It was just strange.

The combination of these negative responses and the stress of my dissertation research led to a very negative outlook on the future. No matter how many times I tried to tell myself to give it another month, to give the various search committees more time to review the applications and make their initial decisions, I felt that I was not going to get a job an was not even going to graduate. It was, to say the least, a depressing start to the new year.

So when I checked my email one Friday in mid-January and saw an email referencing one of my applications, I felt not the least expectation. There was no ceremony or expectation to opening it, merely some straightforward business-as-usual in stepping through every email. And I was almost awestruck to read that the faculty was "most impressed" with my application and wanted me to come onto campus for an interview.

I was even fortunate enough to discover this email at a small local conference, that my advisor had returned from sabbatical to attend; any other day I would have to email her the news, but this one day I was able to speed-walk across the conference room to share the excitement in person. The thrill would last throughout the weekend, although after those first five minutes it was touched by a hint of stress: They wanted me to interview person, halfway across the country, within the next ten days. After three months of interminable waiting, feeling that the search committees were dragging their heels, the pace sped up exponentially.

Struggling for Motivation: Why Care What Others Think?

I find myself feeling the same toward my dissertation and ultimate defense as I did toward my black belt test several months ago. After years of training, I know exactly what I have learned, what I have accomplished; the only reason to stick around through the final strenuous test is to get an official acknowledgment of what I already know. But I can't quite bring myself to care about that official piece of paper. It'd be nice to have, but I'm not sure it's worth all the hoops I have to jump through to get it. It's just a piece of paper.

When I expressed this lack of caring to my advisor, and to a teaching advisor, the reaction was the same: You might not care about that piece of paper, but other people care! Word for word, both times - other people care. This, to me, is a ridiculous response. Sure, I care what other people think, but only to an extent. As a researcher, I care about what other researchers with expertise in my field think of the quality of my research, but only whether it is well designed, executed, and communicated, not whether it's worthwhile. As a teacher, I care about what my students think of my lessons, but only whether the lessons are effective and engaging, not whether my class is "fun" or "easy". Certainly I care about what other people think, but not enough to bend over backwards for them; not enough to subject myself to six strenuous and unpleasant months doing things I do not enjoy, sacrificing things I do enjoy, for the sake of other people's opinions.

And who are these "other people", really? A tiny, tiny percentage of the population attempts the PhD. Those who do not attempt it, those who attempt it and ultimately decide against it, they might - might- admire me for doing it, but they aren't going to think less of me for not doing something they did not do. So really, the only "other people" who care would be those who have a PhD, and think less of those who don't get one. In an administrative sense, it cuts me out of jobs that only look for the PhD itself as a marker of knowledge and skill; that cuts me out of a number of research jobs I didn't want anyway, and makes it more challenging to get a liberal arts professorship (or impossible, of "ABD considered" is only lip-service), but still leaves plenty of perfectly acceptable and interesting career opportunities open.

I do have my black belt now. So how did I motivate myself through it, and can it help with the dissertation? Well, I didn't make it through my black belt test for the prestige of having that recognized symbol of martial arts prowess. I did it as a challenge to myself, to prove to myself that I could survive the most physically demanding seven hours of my life, that I wouldn't quit when my body started cannibalizing itself for energy. Knowing what I would think of myself if I quit kept me going, except for one moment of semi-despair when the knowledge that I had carpooled to the test and would have to watch the remainder of the test kept me going.

Unfortunately, the dissertation is different than the black belt test in two critical ways. First is the time factor: putting yourself through seven hours of hell is strength, but putting yourself through three to six months of hell is masochism. Second is the criterion for success: Earning my black belt required demonstrating specific skill and convincing a single Master to promote me, but earning my dissertation requires demonstrating "a significant contribution to the literature" and convincing five academics with disparate viewpoints to promote me. I walked into my black belt test knowing that if I stuck it out and did my best I would pass; there is no such guarantee at the dissertation defense.

Winter Break Escape

My Christmas tradition is rejoicing in the academic lifestyle that sends me home for three weeks, while those around me, the ones who have "real" jobs, are hard at work. I didn't even ask my advisor if I could have time off, I simply booked a flight to the home of my ancestors (or my father, at any rate), and prepared to enjoy my warmer, snow-free surroundings. I have not analyzed data, I have not worked on my dissertation, I haven't even dealt with many emails, as my advisor is too busy dealing with her own cold and the colds of her two sons to keep up with the usual rate of requesting information she's seen before and insisting "we" should follow-up on things.

Next week I may pay for this time off, as I simultaneously attempt to put together the fourth chapter of my dissertation (on the third experiment) and devise a fourth experiment that my advisor might actually sign off on. But for now, I am luxuriating in the freedom from research. I just need to recharge enough to last one more semester.

When Advisors Shouldn't Try to Advise

Once upon a time, my advisor met weekly with her undergraduate honors thesis students. The meetings were only half the time devoted to her graduate students, but they were consistent. She helped them choose their projects, decide what to do when problems arose, analyze data, and write.

Then she realized that she had graduate students who could do this for her. The transition started gradually and ended abruptly; suddenly, she met with the graduate students, and the graduate students met with the undergrads, and never did the faculty and undergraduates see each other.

One of my thesis students has been working with me since she was a senior in high school. She picked up one of my side projects - one I would like to do if only that dissertation didn't get in the way. "Our" faculty advisor helped me brainstorm the project, but has been uninvolved since then. She has not met individually with my thesis student. She has not emailed her. She has not responded to my student's emails, beyond instructions on how those emails should be done better. She did not attend my student's lab meeting presentation at the halfway point of data collection.

And now, suddenly, out of the blue, she emailed my student asking why she didn't do *this* instead, where "this" is a plan we had specifically decided against in that lab meeting, and my advisor had implicitly condoned. If the thesis time constraints were really that important.

Which means I sent a very careful but adamant email reminding the advisor that a decision had been made at lab meeting, that if she had any problems with that decision she should have said it then, and explaining exactly how tight the constraints were.

I did not say that she had no business interfering in my mentoring relationship with my student, or butting into a project she has had nothing to do with for almost a year. But I really, really wanted to.

The Dissertation Proposal...Take 2

High on the list of things I never thought I would do a second time: Write a dissertation proposal. Not that the original experience was anywhere near as scarring as, say, my comprehensive exam, but neither was it a joyous experience I yearned to repeat.

But, Experiment 4 of my dissertation is killing me. For assorted technological and practical issues, I have given up hope on it working - and did so just as reviews came back declaring Experiment 4 to be absolutely vital for our interpretation of other dissertation findings. My advisor didn't want to let the experiment go. I told her that the experiment was toxic, and that I would sooner pursue an alternate career than get it to work. I was only slightly exaggerating when I said I was starting to think longingly of a career at McDonald's.

Our compromise: She will back me on changing the experiment, if I can restructure the dissertation so the research seems motivated but the current Experiment 4 doesn't seem so obviously necessary. I am to write her a dissertation proposal, which she will approve (or not), and which I can then send to the rest of my committee so they at least have a "heads up!" that the dissertation has changed before I plop it into their inboxes.

It is a good compromise, and it's not like I had much else I would have been doing for the next few weeks anyway. (The original plan was to write later chapters of the dissertation, but the motivation was no longer there). If I get frustrated, I can console myself with the knowledge that at least this time I only have to convince one person, not five.

Ready to Escape

I struggle with my advisor about whether I will defend by April, to graduate in May, or by July, to graduate in August. She thinks my dissertation will be better if I wait (an extra few months to get the data in). Perhaps she's right, but I want out. I dislike this project, I am frustrated by my collaborators, and I have things I want to do over the summer. I am even starting to like the alternative careers/life plans I've come up with if my committee decrees my April defense not good enough.

Dissertation Stress: How Good Does the Research Have To Be?

The first chapter of my dissertation, the introduction, is written. The next three chapters, one each for the first three experiments, are drafted - data collected, results written, and only in need of refinement. So why do I feel so stressed out, and so unsure about whether I'll be ready to defend and graduate this year?

It all comes down to the final experiment. Data collection progresses slowly, for reasons not all in my control; it will certainly extend to January, and might extend to February - giving me only a month or less to write up that experiment and the general discussion. So whenever I think about the dissertation, I focus on the question of how demanding my committee will be. Will three successful experiments, and a reasonable attempt at the fourth, be enough? Or will they insist that the fourth experiment must also be of publishable quality?

Last year, one of the students declared that she was not at all worried about her defense because she already had a post-doc offer in hand, and none of the faculty were going to hold her back. I suppose that if I don't have a job offer myself, I shouldn't care if I need an extra year to pull off the final experiment, but I can't stand the thought of failing my defense. Surely three of four successful experiments should be good enough; but do I really want to graduate as just "good enough"?

Job Search - The Personal Touch, From the Search Committee

I always hope for interviews from my job applications, because I don't know how desperate I should be. What makes me hope for an interview from a particular job, and prompts me to assign my special asterisk of interest in my job search spreadsheet, varies. Sometimes it is the department website, which reveals interesting research or a particular dedication to teaching. Sometimes it's the college, which might have a music conservatory, a special summer research program, or an intriguing mini-term like I had in high school. And in one particular case, it's the letter of acknowledgment.

I have received seven e-mail or snail-mail notifications that my application has been received and will be reviewed, occasionally mentioning that my application will be complete when all of my letters of recommendation have been received. The snail-mail letters come with real signatures, but have otherwise been form letters, occasionally with checklists of what materials have been received. Until now. The most recent letter may have started life as a template, but it shows a certain attention to detail. The search chair didn't just say that they were missing one of my letters of reference, he had read my cover letter, specifically the part where I specified who would be sending my letters, and he specified whose letter had not been received. A very small thing, but something that makes the department look good, and makes me think I would enjoy working there.

And that college has received the final letter by now, making me hope I will hear from them again, soon.

To Cancel Class, Or Not To Cancel Class

It may be one of the most hotly contested issues of classroom teaching, for all I know: Does the ill professor cancel class, risking the ire of students and the headache of getting the course back on track, or does the ill professor attend, and risk spreading infection among the students?

I'm sure some professors out there would be horrified to learn that I trekked to campus last Thursday, with a definite fever and slight congestion, and held class as usual. In the panic over swine flu, I might be seen as one of those reckless people who doesn't get vaccinated and doesn't enter deep isolation at the first symptom of illness. The decision was based on three things: I was pretty sure I'd caught whatever it was from my students in my first place (2 out of 7 have been out sick in the past few weeks), I could minimize any more contamination by keeping my distance and using hand sanitizer, and we'd missed a class just two weeks before due to a blizzard. Put together, the cost of canceling another class seemed greater than any risk of sharing the fever.

I should consider myself lucky that I have only one class, two days a week, to cause concern; I do not have a full course load, and an illness can't leave me behind in three or four different classes. On the other hand, as an adjunct, I don't have a network of fellow professors I can ask to sub for any of my classes. With any luck, the next time I get sick I will have multiple classes to keep track of - and then I can sit and work through these decisions all over again.

I'm An Adjunct: Progress Report

I haven't written much about the actual work behind my teaching a graduate seminar as an adjunct at a nearby (defined as "within two hours by public transportation") university. On the bright side, this means I haven't felt the need to anonymously vent about the course or my students.

I have seven students. One is non-traditional, taking a course just to keep her hand in the "professional development" of her field. One speaks English as a second language. Those are my greatest challenges, which is to say that the course is going wonderfully, better than I could have expected, at least from my perspective.

The seminar is two hours, two days a week. When designing my syllabus, I phrased each day's topic as a question. The first hour is led by one of the students, who provides a summary of the day's readings and leads discussion on each article and how they might fit together to answer the day's question. The second hour of class is me getting up and attempting to answer that question myself, and then providing background on the readings for the next class. This leaves me with only one hour of material to prepare each class, and more importantly, only one hour of talking.

Amazingly enough, the class has never got out more than 15 minutes early. Somehow, with only the vaguest idea of what I was doing, I put together a reading list that lets students keep each other occupied for an hour (with occasional input from me, of course). Even more amazingly, I have mastered that Professor skill, which is To Profess. I have heard this from various workshop speakers throughout the years, a comment to the tune of "I'm a professor, so I will just stand up here and speak at you for an hour if you don't stop me with questions". It turns out that I can do this, even on topics not directly related to my research. Every morning on that two-hour commute I refresh myself on the readings and put together some notes, and every afternoon I manage to talk for an hour on what the students should have got out of those readings. Some days I have no idea where this information comes from; it's just there. Surely that's a hallmark of a professor?

I could be wrong in thinking that my students are getting what they need/want out of the class, or otherwise finding it useful. There's enough "lecture" that they should not feel my complain from my own graduate seminars, which was that there was a lot of discussion and not much teaching going on. I haven't been able to bring myself to conduct a more formal survey of student opinion, partly because the course is only for 10 weeks, but mostly because of that blurry graduate student as teacher / graduate student and students line, which I'm wary of crossing. I managed to grade their first papers without problems, feeling myself fully in the role of Expert, or rather More Expert, but my inoculations against undergraduate student opinion have not transferred to graduate students.

We're on the downhill slope now, past the halfway mark for the course, and I'm almost sad. Actually I'm mostly sad, because I love teaching and probably won't do any more for the rest of the year; but only allowing myself to be almost sad, because I do need that time freed up to finish my dissertation, so I can teach more classes next year.

How Many Undergrads Can One Grad Handle?

I'm beginning to think I didn't play up my mentoring experience enough in my job applications. It certainly feels like I managing a research lab of my own at the moment. I don't have any of the administrative headaches in grant allocation and HRC approval, but I do have three - count 'em, three - of my very own undergraduate students.

Senior is conducting an honors thesis. He came on after the first experiment was designed, and handled all the data collection. Now, we've analyzed the first experiment of data, and get to spend the next two months designing a follow-up experiment, in the hopes that he'll have something meaningful, or at least two experiments of null results, in time for his defense. This leaves me juggling the careful nurturing of his own ideas and involvement, the practical matters of what I "know" to be better design, while also fretting over the ongoing headache that is research design. We certainly will be using our entire weekly meeting time for the rest of the semester.

Junior is also conducting an honors thesis, planning to defend a year early just so she could conduct her thesis with me, and not at long-distance when I am (hopefully) away at my new job next year. She first worked with me as a senior in high school, completing a special mentorship program, so we have some experience working together, but I'm starting to find myself frustrated with her lack of self-direction. She is very good at doing whatever I tell her to do in a timely manner, but not so good at figuring out for herself other things that should be done. This is part of what the senior thesis is for, of course, but suddenly it demands effort in figuring out how to teach such metaphysical skills.

Sophomore (I think sophomore, and even if not it allows for beautiful continuity) is not conducting an honors thesis, and is not even running an independent project. I am trying very hard not to mentor her at all, in fact. I requested of our lab coordinator someone who could handle data collection for my final dissertation experiment, with the understanding that this would not be a mentoring relationship, just a change in pace from the normal lab duties. Even so, there's a certain amount of training that must go on, and somehow the meetings have been weekly and hour-long this month as we deal with programming errors and I try to provide some amount of support for all her hard work.

Now that I've passed from a single student, to a pair, and finally into an actual group, it certainly seems as if I'm running my own lab. The managerial details of making sure they keep their promised lab hours may fall to our lab coordinator, but I am trying to write a dissertation here (theoretically). If anything, the size of my lab will decrease when I get a job, because there's no way I'll be able to train three new students in the mess of first-year facultydom. I'll try to keep that in mind as I pass from one student meeting to another.

Job Search: Waiting for Word

Two months after I sent in my first job application packet, the earliest posted "review of applications will begin..." date has passed. Of the 10 jobs to which I have applied, 3 are now reviewing the applications - at least, according to their job announcements they are. That means it's time to really start wondering when, or if, I'll hear anything.

I suppose I should be grateful that one of my letter writers didn't get around to writing my letters before these first deadlines. I can revert to the "they aren't reviewing my application yet" mentality, and not feel worried because the delay isn't my fault (except insofar as I should have been nagging him to write the letters). It wouldn't be bad to delay this new stress a month, until the next batch of application deadlines pass.

I do wish I had some idea when I would find out. If I don't hear within a month of the review beginning, should I decide I'm not one of their top candidates, and write the job off? Or is it two months, or even three? Will these committees even be sticking to the announced review date, or delaying somewhat, in the nature of committees - and faculty in particular - everywhere? At what point is it worthwhile following up with someone at these colleges?

Thus far, the only thing I have received is an assortment of e-mail and snail-mail letters acknowledging my application. This has accomplished two things: One, it has reinforced the frustration of relying on my letter writers to complete my applications for me in a timely manner (when the form letters tell me what I need to complete my application). Two, it has started me worrying about those colleges who haven't acknowledged my application, when I had done so well in deliberately not worrying about packets getting lost in the mail or the administrative offices.

I have promised myself I will not start freaking out about my job prospects until January. It's only a week after the first review should have begun, and already I'm wondering more than I should. It's going to be a long three months.

Prioritize The Dissertation, Failing To

I mentioned to one of the other graduate students in my lab that I had achieved my goal of applying to 10 jobs this semester, and he was suitably impressed. Not at the number - like me, he has no idea how many job applications would be reasonable - but at the fact that I was applying for jobs and finishing my dissertation at the same time. He didn't think he could do it.

I'm not really doing it. Applying for jobs, yes; making progress on my dissertation, not so much. It's not the job applications that have delayed my dissertation progress, so much, although checking the various job posting sites has become my new means of "productive" procrastination. Teaching, and mentoring my undergraduate students, and just dealing with the daily influx of emails and small requests, are taking up all my time. Even telling myself that I would dedicate one day a week to working on the dissertation has not motivated me enough; there are always things with nearer deadlines, or straightforward end-of-week burnout.

In my defense, I have written drafts of the first four chapters - my introduction, and the first three experiments. I have also been kept busy with the design and data collection of my fourth experiment, so it's not as though I've done nothing. I've just done very, very little since the semester began. I had planned to have my introduction ready for my advisor's approval by the end of the semester; that's not likely to happen.

The good news is that our department colloquium lacked a speaker last week, so it became a q&a on dissertation requirements. The one member of my committee who was present advanced his opinions on length of the dissertation, explicitly stating a preference for an introduction appropriate for a journal article, and definitely not in the style of our huge comprehensive exam. I am relieved that my procrastination does not come at as huge a cost as I thought (I'm only 20 pages behind, not 50). I might even be motivated enough to turn to that introduction and start revising. Or I might be one of those people who only gets to writing within a month of the due date. At least my job applications get out several months in advance.

A Small Conference, Remembered by the Stomach

At my first conference I was one of about 8,000 attendees; at my second, I was one of about 500. The most noticeable difference between the two was the food. At the large conference, the only food I received was at a special networking lunch I signed up for, and paid extra for. At this conference, there was food everywhere.

Each morning there was a continental breakfast. This was not "continental" in the sense of my (cheap) non-conference hotel, which was cereal, bananas, slightly stale muffins, and the opportunity to make Texas-shaped waffles; this was "continental" in the sense of coffee and danishes of plausibly European origins. More coffee would be served at the second session; no snacks, but then it was right before lunch.

Between the two afternoon sessions, tables were laid out featuring yet more coffee (obviously the caterers understood that attendees would be jet-lagged, and likely unused to waking up at 7 a.m. for several days in a row), and delicious fudgy chocolate brownies. There was an alternative to the brownies, but I ignored it.

The greatest surprise was at the poster session. These were over the dinner hour, and I expected people to be rushing through on their way to nourishment. Instead, there was an array of hors d'oeuvres, including mini kebobs, some little potato pancakes, and many triangular pieces of bread decorated with fancy flowers of butter.

Of course, there was more to the conference than just the food. There was the research, and networking (not well, but some) with other researchers, and getting the chance to present my own research. But I think the catering will be the most memorable part of the conference, and something by which future conferences will be judged. After all, I am still a graduate student, and entranced by free food.

Job Search: Relying on the Letter Writers

There must be some polite way to see someway and say, "Oh hey! I know you tend to be busy and not at all deadline-oriented, and I was just wondering if you'd written those letters of reference that are due this week, or even remembered that you agreed to write them".

There must be, but I don't know what it is. So I just stalked this particular professor at his office hours, a week after those deadlines had passed, on the pretext of asking how he would like to receive the next list of jobs to which I would be applying, in the hope that he would in some way indicate whether the earlier batch of letters had been sent. This turned into a 45-minute conversation on the benefits of microwave coking, his work with the Teamsters Union, and our mutual preference for CDs over mp3s. Buried within this array of topics was the information that he did remember the letters, and had kept the folder of supporting materials I provided in a safe place as he rearranged his office, but had not remembered the deadlines, or written anything.

In my gentle prodding way, I volunteered myself to produce stamped, addressed envelopes, with departmental letterhead, and a quick checklist of colleges and addressees first thing the next morning. I am deliberately not worrying about how an incomplete application will affect the opinion of the search committee, which only affects three jobs, two of which I wasn't excited about. I will, however, be stalking this professor at his office hours again later this week, or contriving a "coincidental" meeting in the hall where he might spontaneously update me on his progress.

I don't mind my job prospects depending on other people, in the form of the search committees that will make the employment decisions. I do mind my job prospects depending on other people, in the form of other people sticking to deadlines that really only matter to me.

Adjunct ID

I didn't need to pick up an adjuct ID card. I blend in on almost any college campus. I spend only eight hours a week there, all of which is spent in my office or my classroom. I don't even have to cross campus to get to my office; my building is on the edge, and I get there by walking down a street with campus on one side and a residential neighborhood on the other. I certainly hadn't missed the card in the first three weeks of class, so there really was no reason to detour to the ID office on Thursday.

Except: I really, really wanted one. For two reasons, two little words: Adjunct Professor. There are days I can't quite believe I'm really a professor, hired to a position in my chosen profession. I'm not going to be taking the ID out of my wallet and admiring it - I'm not quite that crazy - but I will be saving it, the tiny, official memento of my first "real" job.

Customizing Cover Letters: They Inspire Me, I Inspire Them

The advice for cover letters in academia is the same as for cover letters everywhere: Always address them to a specific person, convince the reader that you're perfect for the job in question, and do it concisely. The greatest challenge for non-academic jobs is probably being concise; at least in academia we get two pages instead of a few paragraphs. The greatest challenge for academic jobs, at least for me, is customizing the letter for different jobs.

Sometimes that little extra is easy. With the right college, or at least an informative website, those little tweaks to put at the end or beginning of a sentence are easy: I am particularly intrigued by this program you offer, which demonstrates your commitment to undergraduate research. I believe my philosophy of teaching matches your department's statement endorsing a liberal arts education. Whether it's a special summer research program, unique courses offered in a special January term, or just some quirk about the college's history, there's something worth writing about.

Other times, however, that little extra effort turns into a lot of extra effort. The advertisement was cut-and-dried in its expectations. The college had no standout philosophy or curriculum. The department pages don't even supply much unique character, just the bare bones of research topics and course descriptions. I can search and search, and find nothing that inspires a single extra sentence about my qualifications and why I match their culture.

On the bright side, this customization works both ways. The hiring committee uses it to judge whether I'm really interested in their job; I also used it to judge whether I'm really interested in their job. The little statements I add are genuine, and make me feel excited about the prospect of being hired or even getting an interview with this particular college. That unique character will make me eager to get a position, even if it's asking me to specialize in my less-favored subfield. The fact that I couldn't find anything worth writing about says as much about whether I would want a job at that college as whether they would want to hire me.

I do not feel guilt or worry about my boilerplate applications. The cookie-cutter advertisement and website convinced me that there's enough possibility of a match to send my cookie-cutter application. Perhaps I'll get an interview anyway, and discover the wonders of a college that doesn't represent itself online as well as it should. Or perhaps I'll simply save my time and effort for colleges that do move me, and find the best match possible.

Or perhaps, if I'm still writing cover letters in the Spring, I'll become desperate enough to learn how to fake those custom sentences. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

First Day of Class

Today I am a professor. Or I should be. Let's run through the becoming-a-professor checklist and see how I'm doing.

*Get hired. Well, the unofficial hiring process has been completed - I was offered the job, I gave some poor admin assistant a bit of a headache trying to arrange my class time, and the department chair confirmed as of yesterday that I am teaching the class (specifically, that the students are excited, but I'm taking that with a grain of salt). The official hiring process, on the other hand, has barely begun, thanks to a months-long delay in gathering my information for a background check (the fact that my eventual login had the wrong domain suggests the underlying cause).

*Familiarize myself with the department. Not so much, no. To date, my only trip to this department was my hiring interview, in which I learned the location of the building, water fountain, and chair's office. I think I know where the main office is, because there are only a few reasons for secretary's window in a campus building lobby. I do not know where my classroom is, I don't know where my office is, I don't even know how many floors the building has. I know adjunct professors are academic temps and don't qualify for benefits, but I was kind of hoping for some form of orientation. Hopefully the main office admin people will be forthcoming with information like how to get my syllabus photocopied.

*Review my class roster. Nope. Due to the above hiring delay, I do not have a login for any of the campus websites that might let me access my roster; but that's okay, because due to the above disorientation, I don't even know what the websites are. As of a few weeks ago, when a student asked for permission to enroll, I had six students enrolled, with another two possibles. Once again, I'm relying on the main office to help me out.

*Get campus ID. Nope. Again, this can be blamed on the slow hiring process. Fortunately, I'll blend right in to a college campus, with my trusty red-and-black swiss army backpack advertising my student status, so I'm not too worried about being stopped by campus security and asked for proof I belong.

*Prepare my class syllabus. At last, something I can check off. My syllabus is 7 pages long, with one page of course information and six pages of readings. I read or skimmed every reading, about 850 pages of scholarly work, and several dozen additional articles that were discarded as not fitting my grand plan for each class. I know when papers will be due, and even have a list of potential topics. Only one day, our final discussion, may need a little something extra, if I judge that additional readings are needed to get my students discussing for the entire two hours.

*Prepare lesson plan for the first day of class. Check. There is of course the obvious: Introducing myself to the class, having the students introduce themselves to me and each other, and reviewing the syllabus, These are all necessary, but I don't like limiting the first day of class to such administrative tasks. The first day of class sets the tone. In undergraduate courses, this means they need to break out their notebooks and preferably their minds at some point. In a graduate seminar, this means discussion of some sort. My advisor, experienced in the ways of graduate seminars, provided the topic: A discussion of discussions. Everyone knows what makes a good discussion and what makes a bad discussion, but it's helpful to spell it out that first day and come up with class tactics for halting bad discussions.

*Dress like a professor. Or perhaps not like a professor. Most professors are distinguishable from students only by age - it was in a seminar much like the one I'm teaching that I first realized that my professor and I wore the same sneakers. I am not distinguishable from my students by age, and will have to rely on wardrobe. A suit or even dress pants seems overkill, as these are typically reserved for job interviews, but jeans are certainly out. I rely on the button-down shirt and black slacks to convey the right impression.

And then it's just a matter of killing time until class starts. Preferably by, say, getting hired, finding my office, and all those minor details.

One Last Vacation Before the Storm

Next week the teaching begins, and my schedule will lose a great deal of its flexibility. The day-to-day "wake when I want, work at whatever time of day seems best" flexibility will remain, but the broader flexibility of escaping for long weekends as needed will be gone. I'll be teaching a Tuesday/Thursday class, and suddenly a short weekend is the best I can do. Cancelling class is acceptable for the conference I will be attending, but not, say, to visit family or just get away from grad school.

So Labor Day weekend became my last escape, five days to relax and recharge before the semester begins in earnest. It was a truly American vacation, consisting of sleeping until noon, staying up late watching movies with my sister and brother-in-law, and fitting in some quality bonding time with my two-month-old nephew (whose idea of bonding is finding new and interesting places to spit up on me, then smiling as evolutionary survival mechanisms kick in).

Now, of course, the post-vacation stress begins to kick in as I attempt to finalize 8 weeks of readings in just seven days, on top of all my usual dissertation and mentoring work. The replenished energy stores should last just long enough - and then I'll actually be teaching. If only they weren't graduate students, and I could convince them to call me "Prof" on a regular basis.