The following is a guest post from Sarah S. If you would like to contribute your own post about leaving academia, finding new employment, or any other topic, please contact us!
A current trend in career advice is to build your “brand” in order to better “sell” yourself to prospective employers and control your career trajectory.(*) In this digital age, the thinking goes, employers can find out all about people online and it behooves the jobseeker/career builder to stand out from the crowd with focused, personalized branding. I mean, if it works for soda and tennis shoes and software companies, why not you?
Transitioning academics likewise receive this branding advice. In fact, the difficulty of translating academic experience to employers in the “real world” makes concise, coherent branding particularly attractive. It can also supposedly demonstrate a post-academic’s business acumen as well, her awareness of market realities outside the Ivory Tower. I get these arguments. They make sense to me. So why am I so unable to discover and package my brand?
The Academy, at least in the Humanities, traditionally eschews this kind of corporate speak. And yet I was never so well branded as at the end of my PhD in English. In fact, I’d spent ten years honing and narrowing myself into an incredibly specific area and then spent hours perfecting my “elevator speech,” as well as articulating my philosophy of teaching (student-focused!) and area of expertise (British and American modernism, with an emphasis on the novel, trauma, and war!). I even had multiple distillations of my dissertation argument. First, the formal: “The Great War was so unprecedented it disrupted traditional mourning rituals, with their attendant resolution, leading to a traumatizing state of irresolvable mourning that I call ‘traumatic grief.’ This state caused post-war novelists from Britain and the US to represent the war as causing a widespread sterility, an inability or unwillingness to procreate, that manifests in characters, themes, and narrative itself.” And then this version, honed over beers and tator-tots, “World War I was major and it made people feel bad on their insides and then broke their baby makers.” By the end of the PhD I was this scholar-teacher—squished, narrowed, and branded within an inch of my life.
As we know, all the branding in the world can’t fix academia’s job issues and so after a fruitless year “on the market” I embraced my decision to stop applying for tenure track jobs and become post-ac, alt-ac, what-have-you. But one cannot transform on openness alone and magically transition from what she was to what she will become.
I tried the branding thing. I really did. I researched various careers. I participated in online communities. I did informational interviews. I wrote and rewrote (and rewrote and rewrote) my resume and cover letters. And I discovered a couple of things. First, getting a job is hard, ya’ll, even outside the Academy. Second, after the corseting I experienced by the end of my PhD, I didn’t want to “brand” myself, to limit myself to a single identity. Sure, I attempted to market my experience and goals for a handful of different career paths. Yet whenever I seemed to encounter a point where I really ought to buckle down and choose something, I balked.
I think there were several reasons for this. On some level, I was (I still am) gun shy; I put all my eggs in the academic basket and I remained wary of making the same mistake again with a new career path. I was also still connected to my identity as a scholar and teacher, and even though I was rationally comfortable with my decision to leave academia, the emotional and personal effects could not be wished away. When you spend years becoming a thing you cannot simply cease being it. Surely, as the soldier finds civilian clothes a little too constrictive and the transformed princess still wants to flap her goose wings so too the no-longer-academic forgets that she is not, anymore, a scholar, teacher, researcher, and so forth.
On the other hand, I pushed back against “branding” because I was also tired of being constrained. For so many years, I had been this very specific thing and now I wanted to take this new ephemerality out for a spin. Sometimes this flexibility involved uncovering things I’d always been, such as “writer.” I’d relinquished the right to call myself a writer after my MA when I chose the PhD path rather than, as did many of my peers, the MFA. They were writers, and I was this other thing called an “academic.” But as soon as I stripped off the title of academic, “writer” was underneath, like a worn undershirt. Other things I’ve come to realize as essential parts of me include “mentor” and “critical thinker” but also “story-lover” and “rock climber” and “political news junky”—none of which cohere nicely into logo form.
Apart from uncovering these bedrock components of myself, I also felt an expansiveness in self-definition, at times exhilarating and at others, I must admit, discombobulating and horrible. And yet even in the darkest times of uncertainty and seeming dissolution, I could not seize on a new thing: This is me. This is who I am. This is my brand! Would this experience have been different if I had been quickly hired into a job with a viable career path? Possibly. But I wasn’t and however I tried I found that, post-PhD, I encompassed far more than an elevator speech—for good and for ill.
I don’t write this post as a tirade against “branding” or to discourage anyone from taking the ubiquitous branding advice because it probably is good advice, or at least practical. I write merely to note that, at least so far, this approach has not worked for me. And so I embrace Walt Whitman’s declaration, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself.” Despite the rigidity of academia, many of us loved it because of the endless possibility. Imagination alone limits one’s potential for reading and thinking and writing and teaching. I submit that the same holds true outside academia’s hallowed halls. Those who triumph with this approach are those wildly successful, entrepreneurial types who switch careers every three years and go base jumping. Meanwhile, the world also holds the rest of us, who may wish for greater specificity but will not relinquish our multivocality.
I thus prefer the approach of storytelling rather than “branding.” (I am a literature person, after all). Chris Humphrey has two excellent posts on this subject, one on overcoming the post-academic “failure” narrative and the other on telling a great story about your transition out of academia. Stories allow for so much more dynamism than a brand. Stories can develop and grow. Stories also honor the complexity that makes up a life’s journey, pulling together the splatters of experience, synthesizing the shared and highlighting the unique. And stories emphasize that I, that you, are so much more than a “brand.” In the end, practical or not, I’d rather be represented by a narrative than a catchphrase.
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(*Here are a few examples of the type of "branding advice" that is referenced in this post.)
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Monday, March 3, 2014
The Post-Academic Privilege Divide: Troubling Trends in a Growing Movement
How to Leave Academia founders JC, Kathleen “Currer Bell,” and Lauren collaborated to write this piece after a conversation concerning recent trends and themes we believe are developing in the “post-academic” movement, which we find troubling. In this post, we describe some of the assumptions that we see undergirding recent themes in the “postac community” -- the network of bloggers, writers, and publications that focus on leaving the ivory tower and finding outside employment -- and connect them to a “privilege divide” that we believe exists in today’s visible postacademic movement.
In short: we believe that the most visible and vocal part of today’s post-academic movement is serving primarily (or only) the most privileged post-academics - those who can pay for professional services or who are seeking careers in a specific range of entrepreneurial/writing fields after leaving academia. We would like to call attention to this troubling trend, as we believe that it leaves less privileged post-academics in the lurch when they go looking for advice. We understand that many of our fellow post-acs are currently embarking on entrepreneurial careers related to offering advice to or writing about folks who are leaving academia, and we would like to be clear that we support those ambitions and projects wholeheartedly. However, we strongly believe that the postacademic world at large needs to offer free, open-source advice for all post-academics in all situations, so we would like to stake a claim for our website as a resource for people who may desperately need income/assistance after leaving, or for those who may not want to seek a career related to writing or research or other pseudo-academic fields.
While all post-academics - privileged and nonprivileged - deserve support and advice as they transition out of academia, we believe that less privileged academic leavers need particular, unique types of support that are not being offered by many postac voices today - but that we at HTLA are specifically and deliberately offering with our site. We end this “manifesto” by noting our vision for the post-academic movement and how it (and we) can best serve all post-academics - not just those who can pay or those who will transition into careers that are very close to academia (policy research, curriculum writing, university administration, etc.).
Introduction
Nearly two years ago, JC wrote several posts about privilege in graduate school. She argued that differences in pre-existing privilege between graduate students (who later become adjuncts and faculty) leads to major inequalities in financial and emotional well-being among academics. Her basic thesis was that grad school exacerbates existing class inequalities: that grad school is set up to benefit people who already have financial resources and support, so that privileged grad students have an easier time doing the types of things that make progress and success in the academic world possible (living on meager fellowship money, attending expensive conferences, etc.). Those things that mainly privileged grad students can do, in turn, become the defining criteria by which academic success is identified, so that ultimately the students who are given the most support and have the best job market records after graduation are often those from more privileged backgrounds (since their resumes are full of fellowships, independent research projects, and conferences rather than teaching positions and scut work done for other academics in order to earn extra money to pay their bills).
Unfortunately, we believe that we are now seeing these privilege divides replicating themselves in the post-academic world, whereby post-academics who are more privileged (who can afford to take time off after quitting, or who can pay for new training programs or survive on freelance or part-time work until they land their “dream jobs”) are the targets of much postacademic advice being handed out publicly today. In turn, post-acs who have to take any job they can find out of financial necessity have been are telling the three of us (via emails and blog comments and posts of their own) that they feel somewhat ashamed or even marginalized by the larger postac movement for not having landed the “perfect” postacademic job, or for not working a job that is considered prestigious enough for their education level.
This worries us, since we firmly believe that no one should feel bad about the type of post-academic job they get (see recent posts that touch on this sentiment at all three of our blogs). But perhaps more importantly, we are deeply concerned that the post-academic movement and community may be on its way to marginalizing and even ignoring the financial/emotional crises that many post-academics face after leaving, and the social justice issues therein.
A lot of today’s post-ac advice talks about networking, consulting, freelancing, etc. - activities that a lot of visible post-academics are involved in themselves. And of course, it is easiest to give advice about things that you have firsthand knowledge about - we understand that! But engaging in these activities without another source of income (or a family or partner who can support you) requires a certain level of privilege in order to make it work. And unfortunately, there are many people who want or need to leave academia who do not have that level of privilege. Their first focus must be on paying rent and feeding their kids, and they cannot survive on freelancing work alone, nor can they take some time off to network or to hold out for the “perfect” nonacademic job.
We are beginning to worry that the most visible parts of the post-academic movement are focusing too strongly on the first (more privileged) group of post-academics, and are leaving the less privileged groups out to pasture without advice or support for their particular situations (how to deal with student loans, how to make ends meet, how to deal with emotional fallout in ways other than writing publicly).
When JC first left academia in early 2011, her biggest inspirations in the post-academic blogosphere were Recent PhD of the (apparently shuttered) blog After Academe and the writer of the blog Postacademic in NYC. Both of these early postac bloggers left academia after finishing their Ph.Ds and worked as a secretary and a white-collar temp worker, respectively, before moving onto different positions. JC - who left academia knowing that she needed a full-time job to pay the bills but being unsure of exactly what she wanted to do with her life (because she had never planned for anything but an academic career!) - found both of their stories incredibly inspiring. Their jobs weren’t ideal, but they were still happy, and were utterly convinced that leaving academia was the best choice for them. They gave JC the courage to quit.
In the current post-academic universe, we fear that stories like this are missing, to the detriment of those who are leaving. Of course, we would love nothing more than for every academic leaver (including ourselves!) to be able to move immediately into their dream postacademic job. But the reality for many post-academics looks much different, and we are sad to no longer see stories like RecentPhD’s or PAINYC’s out there, positioned prominently in the post-academic world.
The post-academic movement simply cannot talk about “what academic leavers should do” (during or after their time in grad school) without talking about the wide range of experiences people have in academia, the effects of which they carry with them when they leave. Not everyone networked or thought about postac careers while they were in grad school. Not everyone can afford to take time off after leaving (or even to adjunct or freelance) while they figure out what they want to do next and take a year or so to start earning a real income.
Many post-academics need to find a steady paycheck with benefits before they can think about next steps or long-term career goals. Many will have student loan collectors or credit card companies breathing down their necks after they leave, and will need to formulate a plan for dealing with those issues before they can think about what their ideal postacademic career would be and sacrifice to prepare for it. Yet other people may not even want to seek out a new career immediately after leaving, but may be content to just find an administrative, paper-pushing job that will allow them to spend time with their families and to enjoy their lives away from academia, without the stress of freelancing or entrepreneurship or other such endeavors.
All of those life situations and choices are perfectly valid, and all of those groups of people deserve to be helped by the postacademic movement. Unfortunately, the focus of the public post-academic movement in recent months has noticeably shifted toward the more privileged or ambitious groups, and is leaving the rest of the post-academics without much visible help.
In 2011 and 2012, there were no national news articles about the plight of the post-academic or the adjunct. There were few conversations about these issues on Twitter or Facebook. There were simply a few post-academic bloggers, writing entries in the evenings after their office jobs or during their frantic post-academic job searches. Bloggers sitting on the couch on the weekends, answering emails and responding to comments, offering whatever tiny pieces of advice we could think of to the desperate people who wanted to leave but couldn’t find any help or support outside of our little blogs.
Today, however, post-academia has exploded. We are getting national attention from journalists, Twitter conversations fly fast and furious, and there is a whole industry developing around helping academic leavers negotiate the transition out of academia and onto something new.
That “something new,” however, far too often involves a narrow range of career choices like freelancing, coaching, or working in alt-ac positions in universities. And the new post-academic industry too often reserves its advice for those who can pay, while ignoring the more ad-hoc, casual, unstructured requests for help. Twice in recent memory, editors of this blog have noticed tweets in which potential post-acs asked for general advice about leaving or career guidance from any of the post-acs who are active on Twitter….only to see those tweets go unanswered until one of us from HTLA answered, sometimes hours later.
Meanwhile, post-academic blogs seem to have fallen by the wayside, to a large extent. There are articles in national magazines and websites offering up services for hire to people who want to leave academia...but the old stories of “how I left academia and how you can, too!” are all but missing today. We find this pattern problematic. Post-academia, in our opinion, should be about helping all leavers get through that tough time.
We are not asking all post-academics to pay attention to all groups of academic leavers, or for everyone to offer advice ranging from how to become a freelancer down to how to become a secretary.
However, we would like to directly call out this shift in the public movement and identify it as problematic, and we would like to clearly and directly stake a claim for our space in the post-academic universe. And we are asking the most public and active post-academics to remember that there are other types of (less privileged or less confident) academic leavers out there, and that there are resources out here for them as well.
What How To Leave Academia (HTLA) Offers to the Post-Ac Movement
At How to Leave Academia, we have traced the history of the post-ac movement in some detail, and note that while the movement actually started several decades ago, the past few years have seen exponentially more voices entering the scene (with, surely, more to come). More and more grad students, adjuncts, and full-time faculty are quitting, and we are proud to be significant contributors to the resources available to those who are on their way out of the ivory tower.
But one aspect of How to Leave Academia that is at least somewhat unique is that we are a free, collaborative, peer-to-peer resource, created by post-academics, that offers not just career support, but life support. We are, to our knowledge, the only post-academic clearinghouse that targets struggling post-academics who have to rebuild their lives from the ground up after departing. This was our explicit goal when we started HTLA: from day one, our site has focused primarily on issues of debt, desperation, and hard choices for post-academics who are leaving academia with no safety net to catch them and no idea of how to progress in this new life.
This focus arose from the fact that none of the founders of HTLA were able to financially endure a prolonged period of unemployment (or marginal employment) after leaving, and that all of our post-academic life choices have proceeded from that point. We’ve applied for unemployment; we know what it’s like to feel as though our loans are a life sentence of punishment for graduate school; we struggle to create savings, let alone retirement funds; and, out of necessity, we work jobs we are indifferent to or even hate. Dropping out of grad school or refusing adjunct work was an important step for us, it’s true: but in our cases that step needed to be immediately followed up quickly with something. Putting thought into long-term career plans and into what our skills and strengths are was definitely something we did and continue to do, but by necessity those steps had to come after the steps of “consolidating and starting to pay on our student loans” and “finding a job - any job - that pays actual money so that we can buy food.”
It seems that this reality - that many academic leavers can’t survive a year of adjunct/freelance pay or marginal employment while they figure out what comes next - is being ignored by many in the postacademic movement. Many post-acs who exit grad school or adjuncthood in financial ruin and emotional turmoil are suffering from the consequences of the academic house of cards, yet they are given little to no support (as compared to the attention paid to the “success stories” who leave academia for a prestigious position elsewhere). And further, we worry that the glorification of the success stories (as opposed to the folks who left and are happily working as secretaries) can alienate some people who want to leave, but worry that they will be “doing it wrong” if they don’t find an awesome, Ph.D-level job right away.
Because of our experiences, we all believe that new post-academics need more than platitudes about “unlocking career potential” or “beginning new learning journeys,” and they need more than rousing rants about the corruption of academia or advice about how to find an industry research job. Those things are certainly important in the postacademic journey … but “not becoming homeless” is also important. And for many less-privileged academics, adjuncts, and grad students, “becoming homeless” is a very real fear. And getting yourself gainfully employed after you leave - no matter what job you take - is a goal that the postacademic movement needs to highlight and champion.
Rants and mental exercises and virtual support sessions for launching a freelance career are great, but post-academics also need practical, compassionate advice about entering the world of “9-5 employment,” if that’s what they have to do to survive. Historically, websites and articles have touched on this, but today’s public postacademic movement is absolutely not focused on those mundane, “how to survive in an office job while you get back on your feet” types of things. We at HTLA want to stake our claim for that audience of post-acs, and want to state - loudly and clearly - that that type of life choice is a good and valid one that should be applauded.
The fact that this is not currently happening - that twitter calls for people to “network” get more attention than any acknowledgement that some people need to find “any job” after leaving, and that coaching businesses are booming while publicly-accessible postacademic blogs are falling by the wayside - has led us to conclude something that is hard and sad for the three of us to come to terms with.
Yes, Virginia: there is a privilege divide in the post-academic movement.
A Way Forward
We neither demand nor expect that everyone agree with our critiques about today’s postacademic movement or with our stance on the future of post-academia, but we are hoping that more folks will share our vision. So what are our hopes for the postac movement, and our personal goals going forward?
We want career advice for post-academics to be broad, and take into account the variation in privilege, positionality, and resources of post-academics.
We want open-source stories, advice, and information to be available. Those who want to pay for access are welcome to do so, but that should not be the only way for post-acs to receive information and help. Because not everyone can pay.
We want a shift from ranting to genuine, purposeful critique; support; and a sense of community responsibility to advocate for others in the same position, or positions different from our own.
The lone genius in the ivory tower, the cutthroat competition within subfields of subfields of study, the ruthless job market, the inherent privilege bias on the ladder to success: post-academia is dangerously close to replicating these structural disasters that we all recognize in academia. Is this what we really want to reproduce - the prestige-based and unequal structure that we all fled academic to escape? What if the post-academic movement was instead about collaborative creation, mutual support, and social justice and was available to everyone, regardless of ability to pay?
For our part, we hope to live out these values in the collaborative space of How to Leave Academia, where the advice will always be free and written by post-academics on a volunteer basis, where ads will always be free, and where we will soon have a free, open forum for postacademics to seek help and advice. Our e-book, Moving On: Essays on the Aftermath of Leaving Academia, is value-priced so it is affordable for anyone who wants it, and its proceeds will go towards maintaining and expanding the site for the postac community. And we will continue to rattle our swords for structural reform to higher education (since we have no skin in the game other than a volunteer-staffed website), and will continue to offer advice for all post-academics, not just those who can pay.
We hope that other post-academics will follow suit, or will at least pay attention to different (less privileged) groups of academic leavers … and point them to the free resources that are out there. After all, we are all in this together. And if you remember how scared you were when you left and how grateful you were for the support that you received from those of us who were already out here … you should realize how important it is for those resources to be out here for everyone.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
How to Get a Post-Ac Job?
Cross-posted from Kathleen "Currer Bell"'s blog.
Whew! The first two weeks of [my new job at an online university] are kicking my ass! Adjusting to the new gig, along with continued health problems, has left me feeling pretty wiped out most evenings and disinclined to sign on and blog. Yet I had an email recently from a reader that inspired me to pop on here and share a few thoughts.
A reader who had found the piece "I Hate My Post-Ac Job" on How to Leave Academia asked me how I got my post-ac job(s). Like many of us, he earned a PhD and is having a difficult time securing employment. Or, scratch that, he has managed to secure employment, but it's at a job that doesn't take advantage of his talents/abilities/education level and pays a ridiculously low wage. Plus, the hours are crap and he doesn't like the work.
Sound familiar?
In this new age of "post-ac advice giving," (seriously, I feel like I can't sign onto Twitter without some new person advertising their post-ac help business) part of me wanted to be able to confidently reply to his email, "Have no fear--here are 10 easy steps to get your post-ac job." We've all read this type of post--network, hire someone to change your CV into a resume, work through your post-ac emotional stuff with the help of a life coach, take my 5 session webinar on the Post-Ac Job Search--sometimes it seems like the post-ac community has shifted to a post-ac "help" industry.
Instead, I replied with what I see as the (messier) truth. The type of advice he can easily find if he wants it (network, resume building, webinars) is fine. There's nothing inherently wrong with it and it probably can't hurt if he has the time and money to devote to it. Heck, I hired a coach to help me with my post-ac transition and it was helpful. And I've helped others through their transitions as a coach.
However, my hunch is that as an intelligent person with the skillz necessary to earn a PhD (research, reading, writing, critical thinking) he probably already knows how to write a pretty decent resume without hiring a professional. He may not think he knows. He may not have the confidence to strike out on his own. But he probably can handle writing his own resume. And if he can't handle the task at the present moment, a library is never far away with a book that'll show him resume templates and verbiage that he can imitate to draft his own resume.
The nuts and bolts of the (post-ac) job search are really a small part of the problem for most post-acs.
The bigger problem?
The fact that there is no easy answer. The fact that employers do shy away from degrees they don't understand. The fact that not everyone has money to hire professionals to help them. The fact that not everyone has the luxury of taking more courses, doing an unpaid internship, etc. The fact that as much as we'd like to say there are guarantees and simple, clear solutions to the post-ac job problem, there are not.
How did I get my post-ac jobs? Time. Persistence. Crying. Feeling like a failure. Networking. Not networking. Building a LinkedIn profile. Taking down my LinkedIn profile. Hiring a life coach. Taking classes for a new career path, but not getting certified. Taking any post-ac job because we needed to pay our bills. Refusing to take a post-ac job just because we had to pay our bills. Starting and then not starting a new career path. Applying to go back to school and then withdrawing my candidacy. Starting to open and then pushing pause on my own business. Giving up. Trying again. Luck. Dumb luck. The dumbest luckiest luck.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
You Are Human First: Reframing Identity, Success, and Failure
This guest post was written by post-academic Christine Slocum, who blogs at Seattleite from Syracuse.
Remember, you are human first.
Academia and graduate school are greedy institutions, demanding a large portion of time and life. When this portion has been carved out, cultivated, and lived for a long time, one’s identity can be colored by it. Worse, one’s identity can be outlined, folded, and shaded by academia if you spend a long enough time in the socialization process. Perhaps once this was welcomed, but I suspect that it may not be now if you are at this web site. That is OK.
Marx thought human’s species-being and the meaning in their life is tied to what they do. Therefore, the means of production is the key to both human oppression and liberation. Not owning the fruits of one’s labor and being able to exercise their creativity was to be alienated from their self. While socialism is hardly a common feature of American thought, identifying one’s self with their work is common in American culture. One is a journalist. One is a mother. One is a professor. All of these definitions involve specific activities. Rarely does one describe their self simply as being instead of the dominant features of their doing.
I would argue that “being” is a good place to center yourself in the midst of a transition.
Leaving graduate school has three steps: deciding it’s not working, leaving, and doing something new. This is far easier if your doing and being are distinct entities. Otherwise, how do you determine what that third step will be? If your self was your activity, your sense of self evaporates when your activity does. You are not just imagining a new path, you may be imagining a new you. How daunting.
Remember, you are human first.
Many facets of identity are relational, as though it was not enough to simply exist. I am going to say that you are alright just as you are. You have inherent worth and dignity, independent of how you have spent your days and how others treated you as you did so. Beyond your dissertation or thesis, beyond your papers, conferences, and students, you are human first. When you wake up in the morning, you are a living, breathing person. You need to eat. You need sleep. You need shelter from the elements. You need companionship and relationships. Eventually you will die. These needs are independent of graduate school and academia.
Humans are animals, if social and smart ones who are quick to construct complicated worlds around ourselves. We aspire to the privileged worlds that take for granted the dirty basics of human life. The purpose of the life of the mind is to elevate it above the body. Perhaps you are inclined as an intellectual, but I guarantee you are a corporeal being. Your mind is located in your body, separated from the broader world. Your experiences are possessions, they are not ways to define you. You may identify as a former graduate student, but I say think of yourself as a person who chose something different.
Academia is not the ocean or mountains. Academia is a social institution. It only exists because it was invented to by human beings. Academia could be viewed through the lens of a social fact, in that it is beyond and outside individuals and subjects them to constraints. Of course, it is also comprised of individuals who could form and change it (except they feel powerless to do so and thus buy in). Often the values surrounding Americans are the capitalistic ones of materials and profit. The ones in academia are of reputation, prestige, and elitism. Nonetheless currency, if it’s not the monetary sort. The goal in both places is to accumulate the most currency. If you spend enough time in the academic world, you are bound to relate to those as laudable goals. Maybe your identity was tied into richness as an academic: being a scholar, being a published researcher, or the aspiration thereof. Perhaps you spent your sunny days inside, your holidays away, and your weekends at the keyboard being this goal. Perhaps leaving has the taste of a businessperson closing their shop: failure, inviting a sort of poverty from an opportunity unsuccessfully capitalized upon.
Remember, you are human first.
The first step for me to leave graduate school was to treat it like a job. This is a common strategy suggested to create a work-life balance and to keep yourself on track. I have had many jobs, and the feature I tended to value most was the time in-between. Jobs were things I did, not things I were. This inoculated me from becoming too much of a graduate student and kept my focus on doing graduate school.
Once graduate school became something I did, my struggles and failures became easier to accept (even if I was, overall, pretty good at playing the role of graduate student), because failing did not reflect on me, it reflected on what I did. My sense of self was distinct. Success or failure became a possession, not a feature of my identity. When I started viewing myself with the same care and concern I would give to others, it was easier to disentangle graduate school from my life.
Remember, you are human first. The odds you would have conceived are slim, but here you are. You are lucky. You are valuable no matter what you do; you have inherent worth and dignity as a human being. Academia may have failed, but something else won’t. It may take awhile to find out what that something else is. That’s OK. Struggle is OK. You will be fine, just remember to take care of yourself.
Mary Oliver asks, “What is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” in “The Summer Day.” Before all things, you are a living, breathing person with a gift of time in front of you. If you are living then you are not failing; you are doing alright. Move into your chosen direction, be it staying or leaving, and accept your living self unconditionally. You are human first, and what a success you are.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Academic Advising as a Post-Ac or Alt-Ac Career: Info and Advice
This post originally appeared on my personal blog, Mama Nervosa.
It’s been awhile since I rapped at ya about alt-ac life and my work as an academic advisor. Last year, when I started my position as an undergraduate advisor at an R1 school, I wrote extensively about what it was like, how it felt, etc etc. I haven’t written about it since then because, well, it’s work, and eventually it stops being that novel and compelling and just becomes your day job. Nevertheless, I get regular queries from friends and readers who want to know what the work is like and how it’s going, so I wanted to give you an update at just under 1 year of work as an advisor. Obviously, this reflects my personal experience and doesn't speak for all advisors in every context (although a colleague in my office with 20 years' experience read this and said it was pretty representative of our gig, at our school). YMMV.
What is Advising Like? Who Is Cut Out For It?
Overall, I like advising. I work with students almost all day, every day, and feel satisfied that I make a difference in their college experience. Although the relationships aren’t as in depth as teaching, I do get to know my 200-odd students well. If you enjoy teaching at the college level, and like freshmen and their quirks and personal issues, then you’ll probably like advising.
Advising keeps me on my toes. There’s always something new happening, and the way advising is set up at my U means that I work with students across a variety of disciplines, which is cool. If you are behind the whole liberal arts mission and enjoy hearing about and learning about stuff happening in different departments, you’ll probably like advising. On the other hand, if you like a lot of consistency, advising can be challenging. Rules, requirements, and policy change all the time. Just when you get something figured out, it will change on you.
Advising can be stressful, but there is really no such thing as an academic emergency. I think that people who can avoid taking on their students problems, emotions, or decisions will find advising less stressful than people who will fret over a student’s schedule or whatever. I can lament a student’s choice or look at something and say “uh oh,” but at the end of the day all I can do is what my job title says: advise. The rest is on the student.
A lot of advising stress comes from the feast-or-famine intensity of it. Some weeks, we are working very hard from the minute we hit the door to the minute we leave. We’re dealing with last minute crises, making phone calls, seeing a dozen students. The next month, we may see two or three students total. We may have nothing on our calendar, and few responsibilities, meetings, or tasks. It’s extremes with few periods of regularity. I kind of enjoy that, because I know the intense periods end, and I don't struggle to find something to do during down time, although I often struggle with boredom. But for some people, the unpredictability is really challenging.
The things I enjoy least about my job are things most people don’t enjoy about jobs. Being here for 40 hours can be a drag, especially if I’ve wrapped up my work early. Meetings are… meetings
. Sometimes productive, sometimes frustrating. Advising focuses quite a lot on broad, institution-wide, bureaucratic stuff. There’s a TON of policy and procedure talk. We can be at the mercy of administration at times. This is higher ed, after all!
I tell you what, though, I love getting paid. I enjoy my weekends and evenings free from grading, prepping, or student emails. I like coming to work, having a special place where I do my work, and then leaving it all behind when I depart at the end of the day. I like the social nature of the work, and have great colleagues. I think there’s far too much ignorant poo-pooing of working life among grad students. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.
My situation is unique to my school, its advising structure, and the (frankly) amazing group of people I work with. And to me and my preferences. I never got super hung up on research or fell deeply in love with my discipline in grad school. I like students, and I can get into just about anything. Every school has a different way of doing advising, but in my opinion, it’s a great career option for teaching-oriented grad students. I hope someday I can get back into teaching, but in general, this is a good place to land if you care about students and like academics.
So how can you get into advising?
As always, your mileage may vary, caveat, etc etc. But here’s what I think:
Work closely with college freshmen. TA, tutor, etc. Teaching experience at the college level is a huge factor in the hiring done at my center. Work with different populations of students — high achieving, low achieving, first gen, transfer, international, whatever. You’ll need lots of stories and strategies to work with different students towards their goals.
Do some research about the school you’re applying to so you can speak to their specific population, resources, challenges, etc. Being knowledgeable about the school makes you stand out. A metropolitan campus with a largely commuter population will have very different issues in advising than a flagship state school in an agricultural town in the middle of nowhere. If you have time, do some light research in advising websites and journals about advising any special groups that that school serves (NACADA is the place to start). Does this school have a large Native American population? Learn a little about advising them. Is the position for a special subset of student, such as Honors? Learn about it. If you have institutional access, you should be able to read journals and such. But don't get carried away -- this isn't grad school!
Learn about the advising structure of that school beforehand if possible. Is it a large center or small? Will you be in a department, or an office that acts only as an advising center? Is advising mandatory or optional? Will you work with one major or multiple? This is good in terms of preparing for an interview, but also in terms of understanding if you want this gig. I work at a large advising center that serves mostly first- and second-year students, and advising is mandatory. I like this setup because I don’t have to deal with faculty meetings and my students are compelled to come sit in my office, which is better for both of us.
Look at the backgrounds of advisors at that school, if possible. It seems that some schools are very open to, or even actively seek, former academics to staff their advising. Other schools may lean more heavily towards people with backgrounds in higher ed admin or student services. This may help you suss out your likelihood as a candidate. Again, there is a huge variance across schools as to how advising is structured, staffed, and managed.
Lastly, think about what you can contribute as a colleague. This is kind of different from how grad students typically think of work life, because teaching and research are largely independent activities. But advising is often a team thing, and people will want to know what it will be like to work with you. If you can speak to experience team-teaching, collaborating, etc, that will probably be good. Sound competent and fun.
You may want to do an informational interview or ask to do some job shadowing at an advising center. Although I’ve never heard of that happening at my center, I can’t imagine we’d have a problem with it, although you may not get to sit in on student meetings due to privacy concerns. The more you can speak to the actual work of advising, versus the fantasy or hypothetical, the better your candidacy is. In my humble, novice, non-hiring committee opinion.
So there you have it: my final say on advising as an alt-ac career for quittas and post-PhD leavers. Feel free to ask questions!
It’s been awhile since I rapped at ya about alt-ac life and my work as an academic advisor. Last year, when I started my position as an undergraduate advisor at an R1 school, I wrote extensively about what it was like, how it felt, etc etc. I haven’t written about it since then because, well, it’s work, and eventually it stops being that novel and compelling and just becomes your day job. Nevertheless, I get regular queries from friends and readers who want to know what the work is like and how it’s going, so I wanted to give you an update at just under 1 year of work as an advisor. Obviously, this reflects my personal experience and doesn't speak for all advisors in every context (although a colleague in my office with 20 years' experience read this and said it was pretty representative of our gig, at our school). YMMV.
What is Advising Like? Who Is Cut Out For It?
Overall, I like advising. I work with students almost all day, every day, and feel satisfied that I make a difference in their college experience. Although the relationships aren’t as in depth as teaching, I do get to know my 200-odd students well. If you enjoy teaching at the college level, and like freshmen and their quirks and personal issues, then you’ll probably like advising.
Advising keeps me on my toes. There’s always something new happening, and the way advising is set up at my U means that I work with students across a variety of disciplines, which is cool. If you are behind the whole liberal arts mission and enjoy hearing about and learning about stuff happening in different departments, you’ll probably like advising. On the other hand, if you like a lot of consistency, advising can be challenging. Rules, requirements, and policy change all the time. Just when you get something figured out, it will change on you.
Advising can be stressful, but there is really no such thing as an academic emergency. I think that people who can avoid taking on their students problems, emotions, or decisions will find advising less stressful than people who will fret over a student’s schedule or whatever. I can lament a student’s choice or look at something and say “uh oh,” but at the end of the day all I can do is what my job title says: advise. The rest is on the student.
A lot of advising stress comes from the feast-or-famine intensity of it. Some weeks, we are working very hard from the minute we hit the door to the minute we leave. We’re dealing with last minute crises, making phone calls, seeing a dozen students. The next month, we may see two or three students total. We may have nothing on our calendar, and few responsibilities, meetings, or tasks. It’s extremes with few periods of regularity. I kind of enjoy that, because I know the intense periods end, and I don't struggle to find something to do during down time, although I often struggle with boredom. But for some people, the unpredictability is really challenging.
The things I enjoy least about my job are things most people don’t enjoy about jobs. Being here for 40 hours can be a drag, especially if I’ve wrapped up my work early. Meetings are… meetings
. Sometimes productive, sometimes frustrating. Advising focuses quite a lot on broad, institution-wide, bureaucratic stuff. There’s a TON of policy and procedure talk. We can be at the mercy of administration at times. This is higher ed, after all!I tell you what, though, I love getting paid. I enjoy my weekends and evenings free from grading, prepping, or student emails. I like coming to work, having a special place where I do my work, and then leaving it all behind when I depart at the end of the day. I like the social nature of the work, and have great colleagues. I think there’s far too much ignorant poo-pooing of working life among grad students. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.
My situation is unique to my school, its advising structure, and the (frankly) amazing group of people I work with. And to me and my preferences. I never got super hung up on research or fell deeply in love with my discipline in grad school. I like students, and I can get into just about anything. Every school has a different way of doing advising, but in my opinion, it’s a great career option for teaching-oriented grad students. I hope someday I can get back into teaching, but in general, this is a good place to land if you care about students and like academics.
So how can you get into advising?
As always, your mileage may vary, caveat, etc etc. But here’s what I think:
Work closely with college freshmen. TA, tutor, etc. Teaching experience at the college level is a huge factor in the hiring done at my center. Work with different populations of students — high achieving, low achieving, first gen, transfer, international, whatever. You’ll need lots of stories and strategies to work with different students towards their goals.
Do some research about the school you’re applying to so you can speak to their specific population, resources, challenges, etc. Being knowledgeable about the school makes you stand out. A metropolitan campus with a largely commuter population will have very different issues in advising than a flagship state school in an agricultural town in the middle of nowhere. If you have time, do some light research in advising websites and journals about advising any special groups that that school serves (NACADA is the place to start). Does this school have a large Native American population? Learn a little about advising them. Is the position for a special subset of student, such as Honors? Learn about it. If you have institutional access, you should be able to read journals and such. But don't get carried away -- this isn't grad school!
Learn about the advising structure of that school beforehand if possible. Is it a large center or small? Will you be in a department, or an office that acts only as an advising center? Is advising mandatory or optional? Will you work with one major or multiple? This is good in terms of preparing for an interview, but also in terms of understanding if you want this gig. I work at a large advising center that serves mostly first- and second-year students, and advising is mandatory. I like this setup because I don’t have to deal with faculty meetings and my students are compelled to come sit in my office, which is better for both of us.
Look at the backgrounds of advisors at that school, if possible. It seems that some schools are very open to, or even actively seek, former academics to staff their advising. Other schools may lean more heavily towards people with backgrounds in higher ed admin or student services. This may help you suss out your likelihood as a candidate. Again, there is a huge variance across schools as to how advising is structured, staffed, and managed.
Lastly, think about what you can contribute as a colleague. This is kind of different from how grad students typically think of work life, because teaching and research are largely independent activities. But advising is often a team thing, and people will want to know what it will be like to work with you. If you can speak to experience team-teaching, collaborating, etc, that will probably be good. Sound competent and fun.
You may want to do an informational interview or ask to do some job shadowing at an advising center. Although I’ve never heard of that happening at my center, I can’t imagine we’d have a problem with it, although you may not get to sit in on student meetings due to privacy concerns. The more you can speak to the actual work of advising, versus the fantasy or hypothetical, the better your candidacy is. In my humble, novice, non-hiring committee opinion.
So there you have it: my final say on advising as an alt-ac career for quittas and post-PhD leavers. Feel free to ask questions!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Finding Health Insurance as a PostAcademic: The Basics
Soooooo ... health insurance. The thing that few people understand, everyone hates, and no one wants to have to buy. Let's talk about it!! :)
When you leave academia, you will unfortunately be leaving your university-provided health insurance behind. And unless you're one of the lucky people who lands a job with health benefits before you officially separate from your university, you will probably be facing a period of time where you won't have any health insurance coverage ... unless, of course, you take the time to find and buy some on your own.
You could always try to just take your chances by remaining uninsured ... but I really don't recommend it. Even a crappy insurance plan will save you money compared to what someone without insurance would pay if you developed a significant medical problem.
Now, finding and buying health insurance can be super-scary and intimidating ... but it's manageable. You are smart and accomplished, and you can tackle this problem like any other that you've faced in your academic life. In fact, what you need to do is to do some research about what kind of health insurance coverage is available to you. And you DO know how to do research, don't you???? :)
If you're planning to leave academia, you'll want to start doing this research as soon as possible. Even if you don't need to buy a policy for a few months or more, it will make things easier if you find out ahead of time (1) what you can qualify for and (2) how much it is likely to cost you. Then, when it's time to actually pull the trigger and buy some, you will be prepared.
So here's a starter guide to finding health insurance after you leave academia. As you read, please feel free to leave a comment or email me at leavingacademia(at)gmail(dot)com if anything is unclear or if you have any questions.
First things first - once you know you are officially leaving, you should check with your university to see if you will be able to keep your current coverage for a set period of time under the federally-mandated COBRA provisions.
The COBRA legislation allows people who are losing their group health insurance (which is what you have through a university) to keep their coverage for a set period of time if they pay their premiums on their own. When I initially left my graduate program in 2011, I was able to keep my health insurance for six months under COBRA before I had to buy an individual health plan.
On one hand, your university benefits are quite possibly better than anything you will be able to buy on your own ... so you might want to take the opportunity to keep them a little longer. On the other hand, though, the premiums may be too expensive for you. But you won't know unless you check, so contact your insurance company or someone in the university benefits office to check.
Once your COBRA benefits run out - or if you decide not to take advantage of them - it's time to find brand new health insurance, unrelated to what you had in academia.
This is where things can get a little rough. This may very well be the first time you've had to seek out and buy a plan on your own, rather than having one provided for you by your parents or the university. So let's talk about how health insurance works and how you can go about finding yourself a plan.
In the U.S. today, there are four primary ways that you can get health insurance coverage if you are not eligible for Medicare. You can (a) get group coverage through your or a family member’s employer, (b) purchase a regular individual health plan for yourself or your family, (c) purchase one of the “preexisting condition health plans” that are now offered under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (or “Obamacare), or (d) see if you or your family qualifies for Medicaid coverage.
If you fall into the first category described above – (a) people who have access to a group health plan through a new job or a partner's or (if you’re under age 26) parent’s employer, then great! Chances are good that whatever coverage you will be able to get this way will be better (and possibly cheaper) than anything you will get through the other three categories. You should immediately touch base with HR and figure out when and how to enroll yourself on the plan.
Unfortunately, however, many of you who will be leaving academia will not have immediate access to a new group health plan and will need to find other coverage. That’s where the other three categories of coverage come in.
If you don’t have access to a group health plan but you’re reasonably healthy and have enough money to pay a premium every month, you can try (b) applying for individual health coverage in your state. In this post (ed. Note: linked post forthcoming), you can find a list of the 2-3 largest providers of individual health coverage in your state, with links to the application pages for each.
If you apply for individual health coverage, you will need to answer a lengthy questionnaire about your recent health history, doctors that you’ve seen, medications you take, etc. It can feel invasive and stressful, but unfortunately, it’s what you need to do to buy individual coverage.
Once you fill out the application, you will hear back from the insurance company in about a week or so with a response to your application. They will either offer you coverage (invariably for a higher premium than what you are originally quoted on the website), or deny you coverage if they deem that you have a preexisting condition.*
If they offer you coverage, you can either accept their offer or call to speak with someone about other plan options that they might be willing to sell you, which might be more affordable (for example, you may be able to find a plan with a cheaper premium but higher deductible). But it’s important to understand that once they offer you coverage, it is not in effect until you pay your first premium. You can always decline the coverage they offer, or change to a different plan, or look elsewhere. But don’t be scared to fill out the application – you’re not buying anything at that point.
If you’re going this route, I would recommend filling out applications for more than one insurance company. The plans and premiums will vary between companies, and it certainly can’t hurt to check out a few different options from different companies.
Now, if you do find that you’re declined coverage because of a preexisting health condition, you do have options. Under the Affordable Care Act, each state must now offer (c) coverage to people with preexisting conditions under either a state or federal plan. You (the policyholder) will pay the premium, but they cannot deny you coverage for health reasons.
In my experience researching these plans, both the premiums and coverages are pretty solid. If you can qualify for these policies, don’t hesitate to apply.
The one important catch with these plans, however – and it’s a big one - is that you must be uninsured for six months before you can buy into them.
Is this ideal? No, of course not. But if you have health problems, this may be your only option for coverage … so make sure to have your application and premium check ready to go after six months. A state-by-state list of where to go to apply for the state preexisting condition plans can be found in this post.
And finally … if none of these options work for you or your family, you can go here to find a state-by-state list of (d) eligibility requirements for Medicaid. Medicaid is government-run health coverage, funded primarily at the state level, which provides coverage for low-income Americans.
It is far easier for people under age 18 and pregnant women to qualify for coverage than healthy adults, but the eligibility requirements vary by state. So if you think you might qualify, spend a few minutes checking out the eligibility requirements.
And if you have children under 18 who don’t otherwise have coverage, make sure to check out the eligibility requirements for kids. Like I said above - it's far easier to get coverage for children than adults. Even if you can't find coverage for yourself, you can probably find some for your minor children.
So, start here to look for coverage. You may also want to look into whether you might have access to health care discounts through groups or organizations that you belong to. Some discipline-specific academic organizations offer discounts on health coverage to their members without institutional affiliations, and people with military or union connections can sometimes have access to health insurance coverage through those groups.
But if all else fails, this post will give you a place to start to find some health insurance coverage.
Now that you know what kind of coverage you can qualify for and where to go to apply, you’re done with Step 1 in this process. Step 2 will involve figuring out what the best policy you can afford will be, in terms of the benefits that each plan offers.
Stay tuned … we’ll have a post up soon that will help with that.
-------------------------------------------------------------
(*Preexisting condition denials should be rendered obsolete in 2014 through the Affordable Care Act. However, right now they can still occur, so you should be prepared for the possibility that they'll be an issue for you.)
When you leave academia, you will unfortunately be leaving your university-provided health insurance behind. And unless you're one of the lucky people who lands a job with health benefits before you officially separate from your university, you will probably be facing a period of time where you won't have any health insurance coverage ... unless, of course, you take the time to find and buy some on your own.
You could always try to just take your chances by remaining uninsured ... but I really don't recommend it. Even a crappy insurance plan will save you money compared to what someone without insurance would pay if you developed a significant medical problem.
Now, finding and buying health insurance can be super-scary and intimidating ... but it's manageable. You are smart and accomplished, and you can tackle this problem like any other that you've faced in your academic life. In fact, what you need to do is to do some research about what kind of health insurance coverage is available to you. And you DO know how to do research, don't you???? :)
If you're planning to leave academia, you'll want to start doing this research as soon as possible. Even if you don't need to buy a policy for a few months or more, it will make things easier if you find out ahead of time (1) what you can qualify for and (2) how much it is likely to cost you. Then, when it's time to actually pull the trigger and buy some, you will be prepared.
So here's a starter guide to finding health insurance after you leave academia. As you read, please feel free to leave a comment or email me at leavingacademia(at)gmail(dot)com if anything is unclear or if you have any questions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First things first - once you know you are officially leaving, you should check with your university to see if you will be able to keep your current coverage for a set period of time under the federally-mandated COBRA provisions.
The COBRA legislation allows people who are losing their group health insurance (which is what you have through a university) to keep their coverage for a set period of time if they pay their premiums on their own. When I initially left my graduate program in 2011, I was able to keep my health insurance for six months under COBRA before I had to buy an individual health plan.
On one hand, your university benefits are quite possibly better than anything you will be able to buy on your own ... so you might want to take the opportunity to keep them a little longer. On the other hand, though, the premiums may be too expensive for you. But you won't know unless you check, so contact your insurance company or someone in the university benefits office to check.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once your COBRA benefits run out - or if you decide not to take advantage of them - it's time to find brand new health insurance, unrelated to what you had in academia.
This is where things can get a little rough. This may very well be the first time you've had to seek out and buy a plan on your own, rather than having one provided for you by your parents or the university. So let's talk about how health insurance works and how you can go about finding yourself a plan.
In the U.S. today, there are four primary ways that you can get health insurance coverage if you are not eligible for Medicare. You can (a) get group coverage through your or a family member’s employer, (b) purchase a regular individual health plan for yourself or your family, (c) purchase one of the “preexisting condition health plans” that are now offered under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (or “Obamacare), or (d) see if you or your family qualifies for Medicaid coverage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you fall into the first category described above – (a) people who have access to a group health plan through a new job or a partner's or (if you’re under age 26) parent’s employer, then great! Chances are good that whatever coverage you will be able to get this way will be better (and possibly cheaper) than anything you will get through the other three categories. You should immediately touch base with HR and figure out when and how to enroll yourself on the plan.
Unfortunately, however, many of you who will be leaving academia will not have immediate access to a new group health plan and will need to find other coverage. That’s where the other three categories of coverage come in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you don’t have access to a group health plan but you’re reasonably healthy and have enough money to pay a premium every month, you can try (b) applying for individual health coverage in your state. In this post (ed. Note: linked post forthcoming), you can find a list of the 2-3 largest providers of individual health coverage in your state, with links to the application pages for each.
If you apply for individual health coverage, you will need to answer a lengthy questionnaire about your recent health history, doctors that you’ve seen, medications you take, etc. It can feel invasive and stressful, but unfortunately, it’s what you need to do to buy individual coverage.
Once you fill out the application, you will hear back from the insurance company in about a week or so with a response to your application. They will either offer you coverage (invariably for a higher premium than what you are originally quoted on the website), or deny you coverage if they deem that you have a preexisting condition.*
If they offer you coverage, you can either accept their offer or call to speak with someone about other plan options that they might be willing to sell you, which might be more affordable (for example, you may be able to find a plan with a cheaper premium but higher deductible). But it’s important to understand that once they offer you coverage, it is not in effect until you pay your first premium. You can always decline the coverage they offer, or change to a different plan, or look elsewhere. But don’t be scared to fill out the application – you’re not buying anything at that point.
If you’re going this route, I would recommend filling out applications for more than one insurance company. The plans and premiums will vary between companies, and it certainly can’t hurt to check out a few different options from different companies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, if you do find that you’re declined coverage because of a preexisting health condition, you do have options. Under the Affordable Care Act, each state must now offer (c) coverage to people with preexisting conditions under either a state or federal plan. You (the policyholder) will pay the premium, but they cannot deny you coverage for health reasons.
In my experience researching these plans, both the premiums and coverages are pretty solid. If you can qualify for these policies, don’t hesitate to apply.
The one important catch with these plans, however – and it’s a big one - is that you must be uninsured for six months before you can buy into them.
Is this ideal? No, of course not. But if you have health problems, this may be your only option for coverage … so make sure to have your application and premium check ready to go after six months. A state-by-state list of where to go to apply for the state preexisting condition plans can be found in this post.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And finally … if none of these options work for you or your family, you can go here to find a state-by-state list of (d) eligibility requirements for Medicaid. Medicaid is government-run health coverage, funded primarily at the state level, which provides coverage for low-income Americans.
It is far easier for people under age 18 and pregnant women to qualify for coverage than healthy adults, but the eligibility requirements vary by state. So if you think you might qualify, spend a few minutes checking out the eligibility requirements.
And if you have children under 18 who don’t otherwise have coverage, make sure to check out the eligibility requirements for kids. Like I said above - it's far easier to get coverage for children than adults. Even if you can't find coverage for yourself, you can probably find some for your minor children.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, start here to look for coverage. You may also want to look into whether you might have access to health care discounts through groups or organizations that you belong to. Some discipline-specific academic organizations offer discounts on health coverage to their members without institutional affiliations, and people with military or union connections can sometimes have access to health insurance coverage through those groups.
But if all else fails, this post will give you a place to start to find some health insurance coverage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now that you know what kind of coverage you can qualify for and where to go to apply, you’re done with Step 1 in this process. Step 2 will involve figuring out what the best policy you can afford will be, in terms of the benefits that each plan offers.
Stay tuned … we’ll have a post up soon that will help with that.
-------------------------------------------------------------
(*Preexisting condition denials should be rendered obsolete in 2014 through the Affordable Care Act. However, right now they can still occur, so you should be prepared for the possibility that they'll be an issue for you.)
Friday, January 11, 2013
UK Careers Resource for Post-Academics
If you’ve come across How To Leave Academia and are a post-academic from the UK you’ll find this information about the UK organisation 'Vitae' helpful.
the Italian voice via Compfight
When I was a postgrad in the arts and humanities in the UK, I was fortunate enough to secure finding through the Arts and Humanities Research Council. At application stage I was warned that by no means should I expect to get my PhD funded as it was such a competitive area. In fact, I told myself at that point that if I didn’t get the funding I would rethink the whole prospect and do something else. At that point I had no idea what that something else would have been, but I felt strongly about committing myself to a self-funded position. When I was awarded the scholarship I was so grateful that I was recognised for my academic achievements and potential that I realised I had to take it forward and try my best. Of course, the other, less confident side of me also felt that they had just made a mistake: quite often at times throughout the study I felt guilty to have bene awarded the money when there were other self-funded PhD students out there who seemed so much more capable. I struggled with feelings like this for some time.
In the second year of the funding I was encouraged by the AHRC to attend a four day workshop that was organised through what was then called the UK GRAD School. This UK organisation is now called Vitae. They provide things like professional and career development workshops and resources for postgraduate doctoral student researchers, University researcher staff and those in ‘research institutions’. Well, I did attend the workshop along with a diverse group of other funded students from other UK institutions. Some of these students didn’t have any choice as their funding body required them to attend. The days were planned so that small groups of us would work together on various tasks or team-building exercises that were facilitated by a mentor. We also had activities planned like CV/resume preparation, mock job interviews and role play to help us think about how we might work in various situations and contexts. The aims of much of the week were for participants to think about the value of their transferable skills and how we might be able to recognise our potential in career directions that we may not have imagined at that point in time. We were advised to visit our Careers offices at the university and to get as much out of them while we were there.
At the time I agreed to attend, I believed I went with an open mind and willingness. Upon reflection and after meeting a couple of others who were a bit like me, I realised that I saw myself as a PhD student who felt clear about the fact that I was going to pursue an academic career and in this respect I knew what I had to do to achieve that. My advisor would play in important role in this plan – I would work with her on my CV planning and personal statement writing and job applications. She would advise about conference abstracts, papers, etc., and I would take up contract lecturing in the right areas and follow the usual path. Several others there had this in mind and expressed a bit of boredom at being forced to think outside the box. They were academics on the road to teaching and research. They were confident in their scholarly abilities and didn’t need role play to reassure them. As an older PhD student and one who had experienced previous career choices (there was one woman there who may have been close to my age but I was the only attendant with children), I felt that I certainly could manage an interview and presentation brief. I could sell myself easily after all of my work experience, but yes, wasn’t it nice to be given a bit of a refresher course, so to speak.
Now that some years have passed I’ve had the reality check that actually managing a successful career in academia is a lot more challenging than I ever imagined at that time. I wish I had taken the workshop a bit more seriously, or at least taken their advice and seen the Careers office nearer to my completion of studies.
When I was coming close to deciding to transition out of academia I did in fact make an appointment with the Careers office, as a ‘free’ advice visit was still on offer for up to two years after graduation for Alumnis. I was intrigued that my appointment would be with a woman there who had a doctorate (Dr. so and so), and there was some comfort in the knowledge that she would know what PhD study and later career choices were like. I hadn’t quite planned to release all of the emotional turmoil I had been feeling at that point, but it was within minutes after her asking me why I wanted to leave academia that I found myself suddenly very tearful – at one point I had to stop to catch my breath and contain myself. While she didn’t claim to give me any final answers to questions like what would I be good at doing – what kind of career can I have now, she did offer some clear and helpful advice.
The first place she directed me to was www.vitae.ac.uk. and she reminded me that it was once called UK GRAD School. I found it interesting that while my previous funding body would periodically send me information or survey links asking me what I was doing now after graduation, they never offered any post-graduation career development advice and I never remember hearing anything about the new change to Vitae. When she first showed me the webpage it appeared as though it was focused only on developing research students and other research staff for success in academia. But as she moved further into other paths in the website I saw that there was much on offer for those who were looking for alternative prospects. In some cases, there were case studies of academics who left and found research careers in commercial or other institutions. Others found careers in training or in management/administration in academia. But others found career potential in completely different areas. The advisor showed me links to numerous examples of academics who restructured their CVs from an academic focus to a ‘skills-based’ CV. There were other links to the site Beyond The PhD which had audio-recorded and transcribed interviews with people who completed PhDs and who had left academia for various reasons. I suddenly felt there was some hope for me. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to just find something else and the process of revealing to my academic colleagues and friends that I was thinking of opting out else was going to present its own challenges that would not be resolved quickly via a revamped CV. But discovering the Vitae resource opened my eyes to so many possibilities I hadn’t considered before then and gave me the confidence to move forward rather than just feel stuck.
If you haven’t discovered or utilised the Vitae site before now then have a look and spend some time exploring it. On first glance, the site appears to just focus on researchers’ careers. But if you look under the Careers tab you will find a variety of resources that will point you in other directions. The link for ‘What do researchers do? provides access to Vitae’s own publications about career profiles and destinations for people who have had doctoral research training. This one, ‘What do researchers do? Career paths of doctoral graduates (2011) ' offers great evidence from a study showing ‘that doctoral research training is a good foundation for a wide variety of occupations and demonstrates the flexibility of researchers who take advantage of a diversity of employment opportunities’.
The report ‘Straight Talking’ offers a great resource from a study, drawing on a survey and interviews, of post-PhDs and researchers on how they might access their networks more effectively to enhance their career potential.
See this link for more information about Careers outside of higher education.
You are bound to find some shared experiences through the useful Vitae database of career stories. Vitae encourages readers to upload their own stories. There are some stories from academics charting their career journeys but they are amongst many other alternative ones. Worth having a look while working your way through other links such as Career Planning.
I hope you will find Vitae as fruitful as I have. Enjoy!
the Italian voice via CompfightWhen I was a postgrad in the arts and humanities in the UK, I was fortunate enough to secure finding through the Arts and Humanities Research Council. At application stage I was warned that by no means should I expect to get my PhD funded as it was such a competitive area. In fact, I told myself at that point that if I didn’t get the funding I would rethink the whole prospect and do something else. At that point I had no idea what that something else would have been, but I felt strongly about committing myself to a self-funded position. When I was awarded the scholarship I was so grateful that I was recognised for my academic achievements and potential that I realised I had to take it forward and try my best. Of course, the other, less confident side of me also felt that they had just made a mistake: quite often at times throughout the study I felt guilty to have bene awarded the money when there were other self-funded PhD students out there who seemed so much more capable. I struggled with feelings like this for some time.
In the second year of the funding I was encouraged by the AHRC to attend a four day workshop that was organised through what was then called the UK GRAD School. This UK organisation is now called Vitae. They provide things like professional and career development workshops and resources for postgraduate doctoral student researchers, University researcher staff and those in ‘research institutions’. Well, I did attend the workshop along with a diverse group of other funded students from other UK institutions. Some of these students didn’t have any choice as their funding body required them to attend. The days were planned so that small groups of us would work together on various tasks or team-building exercises that were facilitated by a mentor. We also had activities planned like CV/resume preparation, mock job interviews and role play to help us think about how we might work in various situations and contexts. The aims of much of the week were for participants to think about the value of their transferable skills and how we might be able to recognise our potential in career directions that we may not have imagined at that point in time. We were advised to visit our Careers offices at the university and to get as much out of them while we were there.
At the time I agreed to attend, I believed I went with an open mind and willingness. Upon reflection and after meeting a couple of others who were a bit like me, I realised that I saw myself as a PhD student who felt clear about the fact that I was going to pursue an academic career and in this respect I knew what I had to do to achieve that. My advisor would play in important role in this plan – I would work with her on my CV planning and personal statement writing and job applications. She would advise about conference abstracts, papers, etc., and I would take up contract lecturing in the right areas and follow the usual path. Several others there had this in mind and expressed a bit of boredom at being forced to think outside the box. They were academics on the road to teaching and research. They were confident in their scholarly abilities and didn’t need role play to reassure them. As an older PhD student and one who had experienced previous career choices (there was one woman there who may have been close to my age but I was the only attendant with children), I felt that I certainly could manage an interview and presentation brief. I could sell myself easily after all of my work experience, but yes, wasn’t it nice to be given a bit of a refresher course, so to speak.
Now that some years have passed I’ve had the reality check that actually managing a successful career in academia is a lot more challenging than I ever imagined at that time. I wish I had taken the workshop a bit more seriously, or at least taken their advice and seen the Careers office nearer to my completion of studies.
When I was coming close to deciding to transition out of academia I did in fact make an appointment with the Careers office, as a ‘free’ advice visit was still on offer for up to two years after graduation for Alumnis. I was intrigued that my appointment would be with a woman there who had a doctorate (Dr. so and so), and there was some comfort in the knowledge that she would know what PhD study and later career choices were like. I hadn’t quite planned to release all of the emotional turmoil I had been feeling at that point, but it was within minutes after her asking me why I wanted to leave academia that I found myself suddenly very tearful – at one point I had to stop to catch my breath and contain myself. While she didn’t claim to give me any final answers to questions like what would I be good at doing – what kind of career can I have now, she did offer some clear and helpful advice.
The first place she directed me to was www.vitae.ac.uk. and she reminded me that it was once called UK GRAD School. I found it interesting that while my previous funding body would periodically send me information or survey links asking me what I was doing now after graduation, they never offered any post-graduation career development advice and I never remember hearing anything about the new change to Vitae. When she first showed me the webpage it appeared as though it was focused only on developing research students and other research staff for success in academia. But as she moved further into other paths in the website I saw that there was much on offer for those who were looking for alternative prospects. In some cases, there were case studies of academics who left and found research careers in commercial or other institutions. Others found careers in training or in management/administration in academia. But others found career potential in completely different areas. The advisor showed me links to numerous examples of academics who restructured their CVs from an academic focus to a ‘skills-based’ CV. There were other links to the site Beyond The PhD which had audio-recorded and transcribed interviews with people who completed PhDs and who had left academia for various reasons. I suddenly felt there was some hope for me. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to just find something else and the process of revealing to my academic colleagues and friends that I was thinking of opting out else was going to present its own challenges that would not be resolved quickly via a revamped CV. But discovering the Vitae resource opened my eyes to so many possibilities I hadn’t considered before then and gave me the confidence to move forward rather than just feel stuck.
If you haven’t discovered or utilised the Vitae site before now then have a look and spend some time exploring it. On first glance, the site appears to just focus on researchers’ careers. But if you look under the Careers tab you will find a variety of resources that will point you in other directions. The link for ‘What do researchers do? provides access to Vitae’s own publications about career profiles and destinations for people who have had doctoral research training. This one, ‘What do researchers do? Career paths of doctoral graduates (2011) ' offers great evidence from a study showing ‘that doctoral research training is a good foundation for a wide variety of occupations and demonstrates the flexibility of researchers who take advantage of a diversity of employment opportunities’.
The report ‘Straight Talking’ offers a great resource from a study, drawing on a survey and interviews, of post-PhDs and researchers on how they might access their networks more effectively to enhance their career potential.
See this link for more information about Careers outside of higher education.
You are bound to find some shared experiences through the useful Vitae database of career stories. Vitae encourages readers to upload their own stories. There are some stories from academics charting their career journeys but they are amongst many other alternative ones. Worth having a look while working your way through other links such as Career Planning.
I hope you will find Vitae as fruitful as I have. Enjoy!
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Making the Most of LinkedIn®: A Guide for Beginners
This is a guest post written by Cicely Rude, a post-academic turned language consultant and coach. See her website here. Thanks for the awesome advice, Cicely!
LinkedIn® has become a powerful professional networking, job search, and career development tool with multilingual capabilities. Building a solid network of contacts is an important and ongoing part of career development. For that reason, I've created the following introduction to some of the ways that you can optimize your LinkedIn® profile, build your professional network, find your next job, and advance your career. It is written with multilingual as well as monolingual job seekers in mind. For more information read 13 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Find a Great Job.
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn® is a professional networking website. As of June 2012, LinkedIn® reports more than 175 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia.
How can I make the most of LinkedIn®?
How about employers and recruiters?
Things to keep in mind when building a LinkedIn® profile:
©2013
Cicely Rude
English Language, Culture and Curriculum Consultant
www.cicelyrude.com
LinkedIn® has become a powerful professional networking, job search, and career development tool with multilingual capabilities. Building a solid network of contacts is an important and ongoing part of career development. For that reason, I've created the following introduction to some of the ways that you can optimize your LinkedIn® profile, build your professional network, find your next job, and advance your career. It is written with multilingual as well as monolingual job seekers in mind. For more information read 13 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Find a Great Job.
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn® is a professional networking website. As of June 2012, LinkedIn® reports more than 175 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia.
How can I make the most of LinkedIn®?
- Create professional profiles and invite others to become connections, thus building a network of professional contacts.
- Create parallel profiles in multiple languages.
- Build a network of first, second, and third-degree contacts.
- Request introductions through the contact network.
- Find targeted jobs, companies, people, and business opportunities.
- Upload an online profile that showcases experience, projects, and skills.
- Gather recommendations for professional or academic work.
- Review the profiles of hiring managers and find contacts who can introduce them to you.
- Follow companies and receive notifications of new job postings.
How about employers and recruiters?
- Employers list jobs and search for potential candidates.
- Recruiters search for people who match the requirements for particular jobs, then contact those people through LinkedIn®, so make sure your profile is fabulous, succinct, and current.
Things to keep in mind when building a LinkedIn® profile:
- Build a complete profile.
- Add names of schools you attended and companies you worked for, so the system can find possible connections.
- Include the dates during which you worked each job or attended each academic institution.
- Add the languages in which you are proficient, projects you have worked on, etc.
- Keep your profile current, even when not job-hunting.
©2013
Cicely Rude
English Language, Culture and Curriculum Consultant
www.cicelyrude.com
13 Tips for Using LinkedIn® to Find a Great Job
This is a guest post written by Cicely Rude, a post-academic turned language consultant and coach. See her website here. Thanks for the awesome advice, Cicely!
©2013
Cicely Rude
English Language, Culture and Curriculum Consultant
www.cicelyrude.com
- Build your network before you need it. Click the “Add Connections” button and look for people that you may know, have known, or have worked, studied, socialized, and collaborated with in the past.
- Think in terms of reciprocal relationships. Instead of asking yourself only, “What can this person do for me?” when requesting connections, ask yourself “What can I do for this person?”
- Personalize your connection requests for better results. Add a personal note to the generic "I'd like to add you to my professional network" line. Giving an indication of where you met (e.g., at a conference) will help them to remember you and increase your rate of accepted link invitations.
- Spread the word about your job hunt. Use the update feature to tell everyone in your network that you are looking for a job and ask for leads and introductions. Announce what type of job you are looking for and be as specific as possible. Don’t be ashamed. Everyone has been on a job search and most will be again…and again.
- Customize your headline. The text beneath your name at the top of your profile page is called your headline. LinkedIn® will insert default text that matches your current job title, if you have one. However, that text can be easily changed to reflect what you want contacts and recruiters to see first. For example, one of my clients adopted the headline, “Executive Assistant, Actively Seeking New Opportunities” and saw an increase in interview offers.
- If you are bilingual, build a bilingual profile. If you are proficient in a second language and want to capitalize on that skill set in the job market, you can build a second version of your profile in your second language.
- Optimize your profile for searches. Use LinkedIn®'s suggested key words and phrases to attract recruiters who are looking for what you have to offer. Use consistent word choices, tenses, and adhere to industry standards. Check your grammar and spelling meticulously.
- Exchange recommendations and endorsements. Invite people with whom you have worked or studied to post a positive review on your profile, or to endorse your skills. Positively recommend and endorse others.
- Join groups that match your interests. There are many networking groups on LinkedIn®. You can search by topic yourself, but after you have built a profile the system will suggest some for you. Groups can keep you apprised of new developments, discussions, and jobs in your industry or profession. You may also let a group know that you are searching for a new position. Set your e-mail notification frequency to suit your preferences.
- Follow companies where you may be interested in working. Searching for companies in your geographic area and professional field will enable you to follow them and receive notifications of new job openings.
- Actively look for job postings and find useful connections. Browse the “Jobs” tab in LinkedIn® for positions that might interest you. Check for second or third-degree connections between yourself and the company– a personal introduction from a first or second degree contact within a company might not automatically get you a job, but can help you get an interview.
- View your own profile page regularly. Many people overlook this strategy, but it's useful because LinkedIn® will constantly suggest people you might know, companies you might want to follow, groups you might want to join, jobs you might be interested in, and new ways to improve your profile.
- Remember that LinkedIn is a professional network. Don't confuse LinkedIn® with social networks or social bookmarking. Keep your content professional and relevant.
©2013
Cicely Rude
English Language, Culture and Curriculum Consultant
www.cicelyrude.com
Monday, January 7, 2013
Should I Quit? Definitive answers here!
Just kidding. Sorry. We can't tell you if you should quit. We truly wish we could be an Academic Magic 8-ball and give you that confirmation you're looking for.
Reframe your concepts of "leaving," "quitting" and failure with our article here. There are tons of great reads that will stoke the fire of your indignance and make you feel like less of a chump (you are not a chump, but you probably feel like a chump).
JC has written an entire series called "Reasons I'm Leaving." She also did a more academic, less personal, series called "A Sociologist's View on Leaving" that's worth reading as well.
Julie Clarenbach has a lot of suggestions for weighing this important decision in "How can you tell if you should leave academia?"
(Dropping the "shoulds" was huge for me.)
Grad school made Caroline Roberts puke. No, really. Stress is no joke: it really can destroy your body and make you crazy. It doesn't really matter if you "should" be stressed out. You just are. It's not weakness. Caroline also has some amusing and very helpful reactions to a bunch of advice columns that focused on grad students here.
Bottom line: only you can know if it's time to go. From my personal perspective, I think any reason is a good reason to quit. I don't think you need to hit some magical threshold to have a "good enough" reason to quit. It seems like a lot of folks consider quitting for a long time, and then there's a "straw that broke the camel's back" that pushes them into actually quitting -- a missed deadline, a rejection letter, a disappointing interview, a conversation, a revelation. I could say "I quit grad school because I had a disagreement with my advisor," but it was really so much more than that: years of accumulated stress, debt, fatigue, and frustration. If you want to quit, you can quit. Really. You don't have to justify it to anyone except yourself.If you're considering quitting, and are stressing out over should I, should I, I challenge you to flip the script: ask yourself why you should stay. What's keeping you here? What are you getting out of academia? What's the reward? You might be surprised how short that list, how flimsy.
The collaborators of this website have gone in circles over how to answer this question. Should you quit? We all grappled with it in different ways, for different reasons.
Below, we'll link to dozens of articles and essays that ask the questions should you quit, why should you quit, what are good reasons to quit, etc. Then Lauren wraps it up with a few thoughts.
* * *
Reframe your concepts of "leaving," "quitting" and failure with our article here. There are tons of great reads that will stoke the fire of your indignance and make you feel like less of a chump (you are not a chump, but you probably feel like a chump).
This May 2012 article from The Guardian discusses reasons that Chemistry PhDs -- especially women -- decide to leave academia:
The participants in the study identify many characteristics of academic careers that they find unappealing: the constant hunt for funding for research projects is a significant impediment for both men and women. But women in greater numbers than men see academic careers as all-consuming, solitary and as unnecessarily competitive. Both men and women PhD candidates come to realise that a string of post-docs is part of a career path, and they see that this can require frequent moves and a lack of security about future employment... Women more than men see great sacrifice as a prerequisite for success in academia.
Karen Kelsky @ The Professor Is In assures us that "IT'S OK TO QUIT":
What starts out as an inspired quest for new knowledge and social impact can devolve into endless days in an airless room, broke, in debt, staring at a computer, exploited by departments, dismissed by professors, ignored by colleagues, disrespected by students. It is ok to decide that’s not what you want. It is ok to make another choice. There is life outside of academia.
JC has written an entire series called "Reasons I'm Leaving." She also did a more academic, less personal, series called "A Sociologist's View on Leaving" that's worth reading as well.
Julie Clarenbach has a lot of suggestions for weighing this important decision in "How can you tell if you should leave academia?"
Get rid of the shoulds. If you take a break from telling yourself what you “should” do, what do you WANT to do? Does anything on your to-do list sound fun? We spend so much time learning by watching in this career that it can be hard to notice what we need to make this work for us. Maybe your colleague can grade four papers a day and get them all done efficiently, while you really just need to set aside five hours in front of Glee reruns. If that’s your way, having “grade 4 papers” on your to-do list every bleeping day will likely make you want to stab your eyes out. And that will affect everything else.
You “should” serve on committees, you “should” contribute, you “should” teach a certain way, you “should” write a certain kind of essay — what happens if you drop the stories?
(Dropping the "shoulds" was huge for me.)
Grad school made Caroline Roberts puke. No, really. Stress is no joke: it really can destroy your body and make you crazy. It doesn't really matter if you "should" be stressed out. You just are. It's not weakness. Caroline also has some amusing and very helpful reactions to a bunch of advice columns that focused on grad students here.
Bottom line: only you can know if it's time to go. From my personal perspective, I think any reason is a good reason to quit. I don't think you need to hit some magical threshold to have a "good enough" reason to quit. It seems like a lot of folks consider quitting for a long time, and then there's a "straw that broke the camel's back" that pushes them into actually quitting -- a missed deadline, a rejection letter, a disappointing interview, a conversation, a revelation. I could say "I quit grad school because I had a disagreement with my advisor," but it was really so much more than that: years of accumulated stress, debt, fatigue, and frustration. If you want to quit, you can quit. Really. You don't have to justify it to anyone except yourself.If you're considering quitting, and are stressing out over should I, should I, I challenge you to flip the script: ask yourself why you should stay. What's keeping you here? What are you getting out of academia? What's the reward? You might be surprised how short that list, how flimsy.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Before You Leave ... Take Advantage of Your University Benefits
If you know that you're planning to leave your grad program or faculty job in the near future, one thing that I'd recommend you do is to think about any good benefits that you get through your position at the university ... and go take advantage of them for the last time (or for the first time!).
Unlike people in the nonacademic world who put in their two weeks' notice at a job (or worse: are fired or laid off without notice), you will most likely have a few months or more where you will know you're leaving but where you haven't officially "left" yet. Therefore, you will still be able to take advantage of any good benefits or perks you get through your academic position.
And I think that - now that you know you're leaving and you aren't working on academic stuff 24/7 anymore - you should take full advantage of as many of the perks of university life that you possibly can.
Unlike people in the nonacademic world who put in their two weeks' notice at a job (or worse: are fired or laid off without notice), you will most likely have a few months or more where you will know you're leaving but where you haven't officially "left" yet. Therefore, you will still be able to take advantage of any good benefits or perks you get through your academic position.
And I think that - now that you know you're leaving and you aren't working on academic stuff 24/7 anymore - you should take full advantage of as many of the perks of university life that you possibly can.
Now, of course, we can't tell you exactly what "things" you should take advantage of. Every university and department is different, and the perks of being a tenured faculty member as opposed to a grad student or an adjunct are vastly different. And you obviously shouldn't do anything unethical or that might get you into trouble. Don't download the entire archives of The American Journal of Basketweaving to post on the internet, and don't ask your department to fund your trip to a conference in six months if you haven't told them you're leaving in three.
But while you're moving through the odd in-between period where you know you're going to be leaving but you aren't gone yet, you should take stock of the various things you have access to as part of the university, and see if there are any that you should take advantage of while you still can.
- Maybe you've met the deductible on your health insurance. It might not be a bad idea to squeeze in a couple of doctor visits or a few extra prescription refills before you switch to a brand new plan with a new deductible (or, gulp -- no insurance at all. See our other articles on covering these necessities here.).
- Maybe your university offers discounted computer software or upgrades to faculty and students (that can be taken with you when you leave). If so, maybe it's time to take a quick look at what's available to you.
- Many schools subscribe to e-learning services like Lynda or Skillsoft, which are a great way to learn technical skills (website design, Excel, Photoshop, javascript, social media marketing, etc). A subscription to Lynda costs an individual $250 but might be free to you as a student -- spend your time learning skills you might actually use at a job.
- If you get free dental cleanings or psychotherapy visits through the university, you might want to get one more before you go. If you've been meaning to download that document that has your great-grandfather's signature on it from Ancestry.com through your university's subscription, now's your chance.
- Has your spouse been wanting to take a class at your university using your tuition discount? Do you keep forgetting to print out a copy of your last publication, just so you have it? Have you been wanting to check out that free kickboxing class at the university gym? Have you always meant to use your student/faculty discount to go to the opera or theater or sporting event or whatever other university events you've always been interested in? Now's the time for season tickets to women's basketball! Have some fun -- really!
- Don't forget about your institution's Career Services office. They can help you practice interviews, polish your resume, and likely have some inventories and career search resources available for free or at a discount. Check those out now!
Well, now you know you're leaving ... you're not feverishly working toward the next step in your academic career anymore. So now's the time to do that stuff.
Think about the things you have access to, the benefits that are going to be worse at your next job, or the things you've always meant to take advantage of but never did ... and while you're waiting to move onto your next step, do them. Save yourself a little money and/or have a little fun. You deserve it.
A great career advice podcast with Julie Clarenbach
A post-ac blogger, Unemployed Philosopher, has a nea-to post-ac podcast and recently interviewed post-academic career coach Julie Clarenbach. Julie left a tenure track job in technical writing to become a post-ac career coach. She works at Escape the Ivory Tower (she calls post-acs "escape artists"). This covers so many of those initial concerns we have about moving into "real world" careers: networking, emotions, next steps, cover letters, etc. It's a great listen! Add it to your podcast and listen to it after the Freakonomics podcast on Quitting and you'll be fired up and ready to go!
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Setting Up Your New Life - An Introduction
So if you’ve been hanging around the postacademic corner of the internet for awhile and have moseyed all the way over to this corner of the site, it seems like you might really be getting ready to quit academia.
If so, then let me echo my co-authors by offering you a hearty congratulations!! Deciding to leave academia is not something to be ashamed of ... it’s something to be proud of. You have decided what will make you happy and secure in your adult life, and you are going out and making it happen for yourself. So congratulations to you!!
You should feel happy and proud of yourself, and excited for what comes next. Unfortunately, however, you’re probably going to be navigating a lot of this transition on your own. Your friends and family might not be as supportive as you’d like. Your department isn’t going to help you find health insurance after you graduate, and your advisor probably won’t help you write a nonacademic resume. You may very well be starting from scratch on those things … and that’s where we come in.
Do we have all of the answers and a perfect roadmap for setting up your new life? No way. But we can offer some advice.
Elsewhere on this site, you can find advice about how to “officially” notify your advisors and leave your department, and about how to deal with your emotions and about looking for a new career.
This section, however, is a little different. In this section, we’ll be offering resources that will help you deal with some of the “other stuff” that you will need to pay attention to when you’re transitioning out of academia. The concrete decisions you need to make and steps you need to take on the way to setting up a postacademic life for yourself and your family. Things like:
These are all things that academic quitters will need to think about and investigate … but they are also things that you may not know how to deal with.
After all, many academics have spent many (if not all) of their post-college years in a university setting. We’re used to having health insurance readily available through the university (even if we have to purchase it with our own money), and we’re used to having those student loans just sort of hang out, waiting for our eventual graduation. We’re used to thinking of our future locales as “wherever the one university that will hire me will be located,” rather than “where I’d actually like to live.” And we’re used to trying to find “the one [tenure-track] job that I’ll hope to keep forever” rather than “a decent job that will help me pay the bills until I figure out what I want to do next.”
All of these former realities are going to disappear when you leave. Your health insurance won’t auto-renew anymore. You might get a notice from the student loan company that your loans are coming due. You can take a job without fearing that you’ll be stuck doing it forever and ever. And you can go live anywhere you want!
These can be scary things, but they are also totally manageable and (in a couple of cases) actually pretty exciting! I mean, think about it … if you’ve always wanted to move to the big city, now might be your chance! If your long-term goal is to run a goat farm in rural Nebraska? You don’t have to wait for an academic job to open up outside of Omaha anymore … you can just go!
So in this section, we’re here to help you figure out what you need to do to set up a postacademic adult life … and to get it all taken care of. Dealing with finances, and geography, and keeping your family safe and secure while you make this transition … we have advice for you about all of these things.
And if it seems too daunting, never fear … we all did it. You can too!
If so, then let me echo my co-authors by offering you a hearty congratulations!! Deciding to leave academia is not something to be ashamed of ... it’s something to be proud of. You have decided what will make you happy and secure in your adult life, and you are going out and making it happen for yourself. So congratulations to you!!
You should feel happy and proud of yourself, and excited for what comes next. Unfortunately, however, you’re probably going to be navigating a lot of this transition on your own. Your friends and family might not be as supportive as you’d like. Your department isn’t going to help you find health insurance after you graduate, and your advisor probably won’t help you write a nonacademic resume. You may very well be starting from scratch on those things … and that’s where we come in.
Do we have all of the answers and a perfect roadmap for setting up your new life? No way. But we can offer some advice.
Elsewhere on this site, you can find advice about how to “officially” notify your advisors and leave your department, and about how to deal with your emotions and about looking for a new career.
This section, however, is a little different. In this section, we’ll be offering resources that will help you deal with some of the “other stuff” that you will need to pay attention to when you’re transitioning out of academia. The concrete decisions you need to make and steps you need to take on the way to setting up a postacademic life for yourself and your family. Things like:
- What to do to find health insurance after you leave academia, if you won’t have it through a new job.
- How to deal with student loans and other debt after you leave.
- Where to look if you think you will need benefits such as food stamps, unemployment, or other programs that can help keep you on your feet while you set up your new life.
- How to decide where to live or where to job-hunt, now that you’re not constrained by the whims of the academic job market.
- Advice for getting a “just for now” job - to get the bills paid until you find something you love.
- How to retain access to research materials and other resources without an institutional affiliation.
These are all things that academic quitters will need to think about and investigate … but they are also things that you may not know how to deal with.
After all, many academics have spent many (if not all) of their post-college years in a university setting. We’re used to having health insurance readily available through the university (even if we have to purchase it with our own money), and we’re used to having those student loans just sort of hang out, waiting for our eventual graduation. We’re used to thinking of our future locales as “wherever the one university that will hire me will be located,” rather than “where I’d actually like to live.” And we’re used to trying to find “the one [tenure-track] job that I’ll hope to keep forever” rather than “a decent job that will help me pay the bills until I figure out what I want to do next.”
All of these former realities are going to disappear when you leave. Your health insurance won’t auto-renew anymore. You might get a notice from the student loan company that your loans are coming due. You can take a job without fearing that you’ll be stuck doing it forever and ever. And you can go live anywhere you want!
These can be scary things, but they are also totally manageable and (in a couple of cases) actually pretty exciting! I mean, think about it … if you’ve always wanted to move to the big city, now might be your chance! If your long-term goal is to run a goat farm in rural Nebraska? You don’t have to wait for an academic job to open up outside of Omaha anymore … you can just go!
So in this section, we’re here to help you figure out what you need to do to set up a postacademic adult life … and to get it all taken care of. Dealing with finances, and geography, and keeping your family safe and secure while you make this transition … we have advice for you about all of these things.
And if it seems too daunting, never fear … we all did it. You can too!
A Brief Intro to Networking for Post-Acs
Networking is one of those things that may feel impossible when moving out of academia. Oh sure, we've all rubbed shoulders with fellow Victorianists interested in the ethics of literary experience at MLA, but self-promotion and glad-handing are not really a part of our academic repertoire. It can feel a little too close to, ya know, begging. Or lying, if you're feeling completely defeated and inadequate.
But networking is crucial to post-academic life, and once you learn some tactics, it's not as bad as you think. One thing to remember is that while this is all foreign and new to you, people in the real world expect you to ask questions, add them on Linked In, probe about openings at their company, etc. We have some excellent guest posts about networking and linked in headed your way, but in the meantime, revisit some advice from Worst Professor Ever, who wrote a short series called "Networking for Misanthropes and Introverts." She writes:
She briefly covers informational interviewing, cold contacts, etc. She reminds us that teaching is just as social, charged, and draining as networking, but with a lot more payoff potential!
Be sure to read the comments for even more tidbits about networking for post-academics.Versatile PhD has oodles of info on informational interviewing, which is a great way to start learning about careers outside of academia and making connections. For example, I have been interested in faculty development as a possible career, so I requested an informational interview with the director of my university's Center for Teaching before I left. It was really helpful, and now she knows my name and face. All I had to do was think of the questions I had for her -- genuine questions! -- and ask them! This could also help you figure out what you don't want to do. If you have a friend or colleague who works in a position that you find interesting, drop them a line and ask if you can talk to them about what it's like, their insights, etc.So start networking on today! Sign up at Versatile PhD, and start commenting on other blogs! Earlier this fall, a post-ac blogger shared an opening at her workplace that was ideal for post-acers. This is how you get your foot in the door.
But networking is crucial to post-academic life, and once you learn some tactics, it's not as bad as you think. One thing to remember is that while this is all foreign and new to you, people in the real world expect you to ask questions, add them on Linked In, probe about openings at their company, etc. We have some excellent guest posts about networking and linked in headed your way, but in the meantime, revisit some advice from Worst Professor Ever, who wrote a short series called "Networking for Misanthropes and Introverts." She writes:
If you’re feeling awkward about the whole idea, the best way to get over it is to keep doing it. The learning curve is no worse than teaching, trust me. Play to your strengths, which are listening and remembering names and stuff. Check out these Forbes tips for conversational success. And these tips for not feeling sleazy. And consider that introvert leaders may yet take over the world with their mad but stealthy skillz that extroverts ‘just can’t access’.
She briefly covers informational interviewing, cold contacts, etc. She reminds us that teaching is just as social, charged, and draining as networking, but with a lot more payoff potential!
The bottom line is, you have to network if you want to transition. As I’ve told several people, HR is likely to discard your unorthodox job experience without a second look; you need an actual person to tell them not to. Think of networking as the groundwork for sending off an application, or better yet, a way to meet someone who runs a smaller business and might be willing to give you a shot in a way a large corporation won’t.
Success in any endeavor requires you to do things that aren’t particularly fun. And I’m still gonna say that, as tiring as I find active networking, meeting potentially interesting grownups beats the hell out of killing myself for students — because, let’s face it, teaching is possibly the worst, most exhausting job for introverts. As I learned the hard way.
Be sure to read the comments for even more tidbits about networking for post-academics.Versatile PhD has oodles of info on informational interviewing, which is a great way to start learning about careers outside of academia and making connections. For example, I have been interested in faculty development as a possible career, so I requested an informational interview with the director of my university's Center for Teaching before I left. It was really helpful, and now she knows my name and face. All I had to do was think of the questions I had for her -- genuine questions! -- and ask them! This could also help you figure out what you don't want to do. If you have a friend or colleague who works in a position that you find interesting, drop them a line and ask if you can talk to them about what it's like, their insights, etc.So start networking on today! Sign up at Versatile PhD, and start commenting on other blogs! Earlier this fall, a post-ac blogger shared an opening at her workplace that was ideal for post-acers. This is how you get your foot in the door.
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