Link Roundup: Adjuncting Issues

Here's a roundup of links to consider if you're an adjunct who's considering leaving, or if you're thinking about adjuncting as part of your post-academic plan. Adjuncting is easy to fall into, especially for those of us who find teaching an immensely rewarding life and would like it to be our career (after all, that's why a lot of us went to grad school). But it has obvious pitfalls and perils that can make it unsustainable or unappealing as a post-ac career. Here's some wisdom from around the web.

Rob Shenk via Compfight

Amanda Krauss @ WorstProfessorEver deconstructs some myths about teaching as a vocational calling, part 1 and part 2. Krauss writes:

I don’t believe teaching is a vocation. I believe it’s vocational, as in something you can train people to do. As in something you could treat as a means to make money, and actively sell as a lucrative career to talented individuals. And something that you’d damn well better train people to do well, because if you count only on people being born to do it and wiling to accept lousy pay for it, you’re going to get what you pay for.

Krauss continues by  bluntly questioning the notion that an individual teacher can truly make a difference in the current system of higher education in this post. She writes:

This is why I left. I decided that there was no way in hell that any individual teacher could make a whit of difference within this behemoth and nonfunctional system. I also deduced that teaching — real teaching — was a product no one wanted in this consumer-driven culture. No “customer” ever wants to be told they’re average or their project sucks and needs to be started all over again, especially by a real person instead of a computer. Making those computers do stuff, on the other hand…well, that looked like something that would continue to be in demand.

In "Down With the Academic Martyr," Caroline Roberts urges us to be more selfish, arguing " it is time for teachers to set boundaries and expect them to be followed. It’s one thing to do your best, but it’s quite another to let people take advantage of you."

Karen Kelsky @ TheProfessorIsIn compares adjuncting to Stockholm Syndrome:

Stop with the “alas”! You don’t need to tell me this is an ends justify the means argument. But seriously, throwing yourself personally on the sacrificial altar of student care does not change a fundamentally exploitative system. Your job is to protect yourself.

 

Be sure to check out the adjunct-focused sites on our "Resources" sidebar to the left. What we discuss here is just the tip of the iceberg.

Links: Careers for Post-Academics (including publishing, teaching, film and more)

Here's a smattering of resources out there in the internet that focus on career options for post-academics. This is probably the aspect of post-ac life that has the most resources available; thus, we aren't aiming to be exhaustive here, but highlight some common themes that come up and maybe direct you to some of the better resources.

As always, we can't recommend Versatile PhD highly enough. #Alt-Academy can also be valuable if you're thinking about working in academia in a non-faculty capacity (e.g. administration, librarianship, etc).

 

Quizzes, Assessments, and Career Courses

If you're still exploring lots of options, taking career assessments and courses can be useful. Myers-Briggs is a standard and you can take it here. Also check out our book recommendations for excellent manuals full of quizzes, surveys, and exercises.

Jo Van Every and Julie Clarenbach, post-academic career coaches, offer two career courses. One, called Myths & Mismatches, will help you suss out the misconceptions you may be carrying around about academic work versus "real world" work, and it's free! (See a review here.) They also offer a 6-week Conscious Career Choice course for a fee of $179 (US) that aims to help you figure out what you want to do before you start obsessing over resumes and cover letters.  Christine Hassler, a life coach, offers a more general career change course for $97 (US) called Navigating Your Career Path.

 

 

Blog Posts About Different Career Options

This is by no means exhaustive, but these are helpful commentaries on different career options for post-academics.

WoPro encourages you to ask yourself how far you want to go when looking for a new career:

When I decided I wanted out, I meant OUT. I meant that I no longer wanted anything to do with the nefarious schemes of institutionalized education. So I thought I’d talk here about the less obvious places to get away to. Of course, a leap further afield is scarier than a well-worn path. But we all know what that one poem said — you know, two roads something something traveled path something something. (Lesson one: if you want to “cross over” it’s important to understand the difference between normal-person conversation and snooty intellectual conversation. Unless you’re in an approved snooty environment, casually verbatim poetry  just makes you look like a jackass. Ditto for spouting equations.)

WoPro has a lot of great links for career-seekers on this post.

(Post)Gradland did a series of recaps from a conference at her graduate institution that focused on alternative academic careers. Here's one on publishing. This speaker had a lot of practical suggestions for skills you could work on developing while you wind down a semester in grad school (graphic design, institutes). This speaker focused on careers in the film industry, which is probably something that feels as pie-in-the-sky as tenure to most of us, but this speaker has great tips! Another speaker at this panel discussed teaching in private schools, which may be an attractive option if you love the classroom (we'll try to cover teaching at the high school level in more depth later).

Finally, here's an article from Library Journal that discusses academic and public librarianship. Although be advised that librarianship is an industry that also struggles with a flooded labor market. In The Library With a Lead Pipe is a great blog that focuses on many aspects of librarianship that might be a good resource if you're considering this career.

 

jessamyn west via Compfight

Stay tuned for more links and resources. In the meantime, check out other articles in this section!