Tag: transition
-
Transition Q & A: Heather Steel
Heather Steel earned her MA in history from the University of New Brunswick and spent six years in the PhD program in history at York University. She is now a researcher in the non-profit sector. You left your history PhD program before finishing. Why? In the end, my dissertation and I were not a good…
-
Transition Q & A: Jamie Pratt
Jamie Pratt received his PhD in philosophy from York University, specializing in ethics. He is now the research officer in York’s Faculty of Fine Arts. A tenure-track job at a research institution is often seen as the goal of a post-PhD job search. What was your experience? What did you hope for in terms of…
-
Patience in the neutral zone
Early this month was the one-year anniversary of my dissertation defence: 3 February 2012. Thinking about how much time has passed since then can get me down. I’m still not settled into a job or even on a career! Although I’m generally feeling optimistic and am fairly certain good things will come my way, it…
-
Transition Q & A: Alexandra Guerson
Alexandra Guerson earned her PhD in history from the University of Toronto. She’s currently a part-time faculty member at New College, University of Toronto, and occasionally takes up sessional work at U of T’s history department and at York University. Find her online and follow her @aeguerson. A tenure-track job at a research institution is often…
-
Manifesto
There’s a big, and growing, problem with academic labour and the job market. What makes it worse is that there hasn’t been an attendant shift in attitudes within the academy about the purpose of a PhD. Although I’m most familiar with the situation in history and the troubles faced by the humanities in general, a…
-
Scholarship and life
Scholars are almost always academics. We assign the designation to professors and researchers with university posts who get paid to research and publish. The term “independent scholar” only proves this: The qualifier is necessary because “scholar” by itself implies an academic position. I think this is why I’ve been uneasy about my desire to continue…
-
A job interview
I had a job interview a couple weeks back. I wasn’t offered the position, but I still consider it a success. A celebration, even. Here’s what happened: Earlier this month, after talking with Natalie Zina Walschots, I started to be much more active on social media. That Friday, I mentioned Jessica Langer in a #FF…
-
The importance of blogging
Reading an interview with #altac blogger Liana Silver got me thinking about the importance of blogging in my life. I first started to blog in June 2006. Life was pretty good: I was nearing the end of my second year of my PhD, was finishing up a stint as president of our graduate history society, my comprehensive exams…
-
“I’m a loser”
A lot has changed since the fall. Back then, my dissertation defence was several months old and the final version was long handed in. But I felt I’d barely progressed. My post-PhD job prospects seemed poor, and I felt pretty low. When friends and acquaintances asked me what I was up to, I would tell them,…
-
Transitions, transitions
On Monday I conducted an interview with a guy I’ve decided to write about. It’ll be my first real stab at a non-blogging, non-work, non-academic writing project, and I’m excited to see where it will go. Shandy Brown is a great subject. We met in 2006 on a plane leaving Toronto for San Francisco, and…