Grad students tend to veer between two extremes: I know nothing and I know everything. The latter position is an over-compensatory response to fear of the former. As you gain experience you find a middle ground of calm confidence. However, at the … [Read more...] about Grad Student Grandiosity
Graduate Student Concerns
In Response to Popular Demand, More on the 5-Year Plan
This is a repost of an older post. It follows sequentially from last week's on the five-year plan. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In response to the flood of inquiries about what, exactly, a 5-Year Plan should look like, following on last week's post, … [Read more...] about In Response to Popular Demand, More on the 5-Year Plan
Why You Need a 5-Year Plan
This is a re-post of a previously published post. In the wind-down weeks of Spring, we will focus on big-picture planning for your career trajectory in the immediate and longer term. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When I trained my own Ph.D. students, I … [Read more...] about Why You Need a 5-Year Plan
Dr. Karen F**ks Up
A constant tension in my work at The Professor Is In is the awkward balance between the free content that I provide on the blog, and the fee-based services I charge money for. From the start there has been a chorus of detractors who decry the fact … [Read more...] about Dr. Karen F**ks Up
Dr Karen, Hamster Version
Click on this for the full comic (or scroll down): Thank you, marvelous reader Ainsley Seago, coleopterist and comic artist extraordinaire! … [Read more...] about Dr Karen, Hamster Version
The Rescinded Offer: Who Is In the Wrong?
I keep getting asked about the recent rescinded offer in Philosophy at Nazareth College, which originally popped up on Philosophy Smoker, (with a response from the rescindee, "W," here), went to Jezebel, then Forbes, and shows no signs of … [Read more...] about The Rescinded Offer: Who Is In the Wrong?
The 5 Top Traits of the Worst Advisors
On Twitter today I got pinged on a discussion among @ArchaeologyLisa, @DrIsis, @LexMcBride about how much publishing is necessary for the tenure track job market. The discussion was prompted by today's post on the Isis the Scientist blog, Writing At … [Read more...] about The 5 Top Traits of the Worst Advisors
Freeing the Academic Elephant – Cardozo 2
What do Foucault, Martha Beck, George Mallory, and Death Cab for Cutie have in common? An ambivalent relation to the discipline required and imposed in the pursuit of a single-minded goal. In your case: the academic career, and the ways that you've … [Read more...] about Freeing the Academic Elephant – Cardozo 2
Beyond Tenurecentrism – Cardozo 1
Karen Cardozo has worked in both academic administration (Harvard, Williams) and on the tenure track (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts). In this post she coins the term "tenurecentrism" for our collectively inability to "see" alternatives to … [Read more...] about Beyond Tenurecentrism – Cardozo 1
For Adjunct Professors, Winter is Break-ing (A re-post on Ph.D. poverty)
I encountered this story by Caprice Lawless through A New Faculty Majority Facebook page, and was so struck by it, that I contacted her to ask permission to put on the TPII blog. She graciously agreed. It is an account of adjunct poverty that is … [Read more...] about For Adjunct Professors, Winter is Break-ing (A re-post on Ph.D. poverty)