Deer, meet headlights

[a_t_rain]

So my department had its "What you need to know if you're preparing to go on the job market" meeting today.

I want to hide under something and not ever come out.

Comments

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

Heh. We had a talk like that a couple of weeks ago at the department orientation which emphasized how VERY VERY IMPORTANT the first years of graduate school are on making you look like a particularly good candidate.

I'm starting my fourth year.

Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, there was no conveniently-located hole into which I could crawl and die...

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Right. I'm starting my eighth, and I've come to the conclusion that I've totally screwed up my first seven. Like, no-publications, just-had-my-first-ever-conference-paper-accepted screwed up. (I've done a couple of presentations that could probably pass for scholarly, but they were at my own university and pretty much useless for networking purposes.)

I feel like I'm an idiot for trying this at all, but I've got to have some sort of job now that I'm running low on teaching sections, so what can you do?

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

JOB MARKET?!?!?

*hides*

I'm still at the point where I don't really believe that there is anything beyond grad school. Since I only have about another year to go, that's probably not a wise place to be.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

This probably won't help with the hiding thing, but I like your icon.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Oh God. I'm living in the real world right now, and my only advice to you is: Stay away! It's scary here! I want out!

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. That's what I was afraid of.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Work makes me want to do grad school when I finish my undergrad degree.

Hell, I haven't even started it yet.


------>failure, me.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Are you worrying too much? Anyone who doesn't feel like that when trying to take on the market for jobs they really want is pretty pathological in my opinion. Or has something to hide.

The thing is, the jobs are out there, and you just have to go for it. The application process can be nasty, and most people make a daft mistake or two - but there are jobs, and eventually you're going to convince someone to give you one.

[dolabellae.livejournal.com]

Oh god...

::runs back to bed and jumps back under the covers, shaking from head to foot::

[inkpenpaper.livejournal.com]

What's grad school? Is it an American thing?

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Grad school is where you get your master's degree or doctorate. What do they call it in Australia?

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Erm, just postgrad, I think. Which to me makes more sense.

[inkpenpaper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm fairly sure that's it. Unis offer two types of degrees - undergraduate, and postgraduate. But the term 'grad school' isn't used. (Or if it is, I haven't heard it.)

[moriaravenswood.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I HATE meetings like that. I had the same sort of reaction to 'how to apply to college' and 'how to apply for workstudy.' Before that, I had the same sort of reaction to 'what it will be like in high school.' And if my preschool had tried to provide that sort of helpful advice, I would have been dreading kindergarten.

I always leave those things thinking 'oh my God, I'm a completely incompetent loser who has nothing to show for her first nineteen years of life.' Yet somehow, loser though I am, I'm now enrolled in a good college. They even gave me some 'merit-based' scholarship money.

There are undoubtedly people out there who are obnoxiously talented and practical, who don't waste their time writing stories that they can't sell (or, for that matter, that they can), who do things to get where they want to go rather than because they want to do them. But I don't think there are very many, and I wouldn't want to be one.

The thing to remember is that most people really DON'T do everything they're supposed to. You're not competing with people who have done all the things they recommend, you're competing with fellow human beings who also have lives, interests, failings, etc.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

...What's wrong with doing things to get where you want to go? Isn't that why people eat vegetables? (Wait, most people enjoy more vegetables than I do. That's why I try to eat more vegetables.)

But I do remember my high school teachers telling us darkly that they should really be giving us two hours of homework for every hour of class because that was how it worked in college, and that you didn't even get to use it to keep your grades up because everything depended on one or two or maybe three highly unpredictable, cumulative exams for which you had to know EVERYTHING. (None of them mentioned that this hypothetical two hours of homework per class period went with, say, 15-18 hours of class per week rather than 30-35. And most of my professors made homework part of the grade after all.)

I also remember people going on and on about how you have to be well-rounded to attract a college instead of just having excellent grades, which always gave me the impression that one was supposed to have done sports and some sort of performing art and community service... and ideally pretty much at least one extracurricular related to every subject. Evidently they're still doing it to people. One girl who's currently starting college was frantic because various things had forced her to drop soccer and science bowl, or something like that.

It was incredibly freeing when somebody finally admitted (possibly in the course of instructing me on how to apply for graduate fellowships, actually) that yes, good grades and test scores DID count for something, and being well-rounded didn't mean you had to do everything. (Okay, I'd figured out the first part already.)

[moriaravenswood.livejournal.com]

The problem isn't doing things to get where you want to go. The problem is living your life for your goals, things in the future that you somehow believe will make you perfectly happy. Obviously, not living with some consideration for the future is irresponsible. But I'm talking about the sort of people who do community service because it will look good on their college applications, rather than, say, because they care about what they're doing. Or people who put their career ahead of their family. It's one thing if you're doing it because you need to, or if it's something you love doing, but if you just want to make sure you get into HARVARD, because a lousy little state school could never provide you the slightest satisfaction... well, I just think it's an unwise gamble.

Did that make sense?

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Mmm. To a certain extent, I agree -- thinking along the lines of "I will be happy after I have accomplished X, Y, or Z; that will make everything right" is a bad idea (though marginally better than "I will be happy and everything will be right once X, Y, or Z happens to me"), because A. in most cases reaching any given goal is not going to mean every aspect of your life is suddenly great, and B. in most of the cases where it can, this is probably a hint that your life is a little too focused.

Still, to me, concentrating on one goal to the neglect of... well... the rest of your life is a very different thing from deciding that you care about a goal enough to do some things en route to it that you otherwise wouldn't want to, that you don't enjoy, or that you don't necessarily care about for their own sakes. It sounded to me at first as if you were saying the latter was a bad idea or possibly a character flaw, which is why I balked -- as you said just now, living without any consideration for the future is irresponsible.

[ilirien.livejournal.com]

*hides under the cover and cries*

See, all I really want right now is a paycheck. But if someone wants to fund my return to college so I can get real work someday, I'd be forever grateful. Besides, college is safe....

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

Oh, God. I have to find a post doc and I want to hide under my desk. I know what you feel, At_the_Rain.
But I think the people who have commented before me are right, you know. Mostly those meetings are organized by mean people who want to feel important and think the best way to achieve this is to depress and scare people who are younger than them (I stopped attending the meetings about "what to do after your PhD". My whole lab always comes back from them needing chocolate and a hug).

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Mostly those meetings are organized by mean people who want to feel important and think the best way to achieve this is to depress and scare people who are younger than them.

Not in this case; I think they were quite realistic, and even tried to be as encouraging as possible. The trouble is that it's a long, grueling, and intensely competitive process any way you look at it, and frankly, I don't have the track record of publications and conference presentations that you're expected to have. (I just want to teach, dammit, but I want it to be somewhere I can have a living wage and health insurance.)

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Come and teach in Australia. I have the suspicion that you don't even need a qualification here, they'll hire any old jerk.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Your immigration laws are stricter than you'd think. Trust me, I looked after both of the last two elections.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

But you're American! Johnny Howard loves Americans! He's your 'Man of Steel'!