Lately, thanks to a professor of mine, I've been flirting with the possibility of going on the job market a year early. Just to apply for one job that happens to be near where I live now (not so rare since I live in THE STATE WITH TOO MANY PEOPLE) and happens to be in my field (quite rare). After various emails between my adviser, this professor, and myself, and after my husband, a/k/a Dr. Cuy, gave me some hard-edged reality checks, I'm realizing this is probably not such a good idea. Number one, because I will never, ever finish my dissertation if I took this job. And it's not like this dissertation is as important as my child, but I do need to have one in order to work in this field. Number two, because if they offered me this job and I decided not to take it after all, that would make both me and my adviser look very bad.
It's tempting because I'm OLD and I'm tired of being a freaking graduate student, but I just have to hang in there and finish (hell, start!) this thing if I'm going to have any chance of getting a cool job in the future. Even though I have no idea what the job market will look like next year, I have to take that risk and for the first time in my life not jump at something just because it seems like a cool idea at the time because then what if I actually get it? (hello, Foreign Service! hello, teaching high school Spanish in violent and impoverished neighborhood!).
So, it's back to the drawing board, to get my proposal polished up for the viewing and butchering by my adviser, and to continue to apply for funding that I really hope I get next year because otherwise I am going to sit down and cry for about a year. And then I really won't get any work done.
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2 comments:
Hi Grad Student! Good luck hang in there...are you doing a phd in just two years total? How so
I'm just doing the diss in two years. I've done all of my coursework so I am presently of the ABD persuasion.
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