Writing for InsideHigherEd.com, David Rivers makes an obvious point that is too often not at all obvious to aspiring, or even practising, academics: that academe is not necessarily the best professional fit for those with graduate training, and that the sort of academic setting that suits some will not suit others at all. The tightness of the academic job market, which fosters a scarcity-driven determination to accept any job, any job at all, combined with the not-so-subtle stigma that some disciplines attach to anyone who shows an interest in non-academic jobs, contributes to an ostrichism that is ultimately self-defeating, Rivers argues. Noting that many, if not most, academics never really reflect seriously on what they are doing in academe until they are assembling their tenure files, Rivers associates a generalized absence of vocational clarity among academics with widespread, if lowgrade, professional malaise:

From conversations with colleagues, friends and even job applicants, I believe many are not content with their life in academia. When many academics give an honest assessment of life in their shoes, the description often lacks enthusiasm, excitement or any trace of inspiration to an eager ear hoping for guidance.

What I think lies at the heart of the problem is the failure to address one question: What type of academic does each person want to be? I know I never examined the question when first applying for jobs, and as a result I pursued the "dream job" at research institutions that I wasn't suited for. Do others start down the path of becoming a faculty member without knowing that it is the right one for them, without feeling the "call" to teach, to be engaged in meaningful scholarship, to shape the minds of young adults? Unfortunately, yes, and I'd like to offer a few words that might get you thinking about how to be sure, or at least surer.

Although Rivers opens his piece by acknowledging how the scarcity of academic jobs distorts the terms upon which many people conduct their job searches, he fails to address two crucial things. The first is adjunct work, which any reader of the now-defunct Invisible Adjunct site will know is the dead-end, non-viable alternative to the tenure track where a great many talented, highly trained people wind up. The second is non-academic work, which ought to be taken more seriously by Ph.D.-granting programs, especially in the humanities, and which offers an enormous variety of opportunity to people who know how to do research, to write well, to teach, to problem-solve, and to work independently. Rivers is right that graduate students and people who are thinking about going to grad school should spend some time thinking about whether the academic life is really right for them. But he undercuts his own message when he devotes the bulk of his essay to a narrow exploration of how those who do decide they want to be in academe should pick and choose among (often nonexistent) jobs. The picture he paints of choice is not a realistic one; the picture he does not paint of what those who decide to leave academe might do instead is one that ought to be painted.

I'm interested in hearing from readers--academics, non-academics, former academics--about their own career paths. What professional route have you followed? What have you learned and what advice would you give?

"ostrichism"? You mean, academics who have their head in the sand when it comes to the realities of the job market?

Malapropism or neologism? Either way, it's kind of lovely, Erin!

I worked on a PhD in English lit (18th century concentration) while teaching expository writing. Fortunately I was in New York City and already had a background in publishing, so when I decided to give up grad school (after the coursework & qualifying exams, before the diss), I had options. Many of my colleagues in college publishing have advanced degrees and have taught at the secondary school or college level. But when I left grad school there was a definite chill, and when my advisor asked me three or four years later to participate on an alternate-careers panel, the current grad students who did attend were snotty as hell. (i.e. "Why do I have to start as an editorial assistant? I have a MASTER'S DEGREE!" grrrr)

In my current position -- which I love -- I work every day with English and comp/rhet professors and adjuncts across the country. Would I change places with them? Nope. Am I happy with my current job? Extremely; it's more teaching-focused than 18th-century-lit focused, of course, but then again I'm reading now for pleasure, not politics.

Ph.D. in biology, area of specialization, ecology.

I guess I'm an oddball because I'm in academe and can honestly say I like my job more than my non-academic friends seem to like theirs. I mean, there are plenty of frustrations (dealing with administrators who have not been inside a classroom in 25 years, the creeping business-speak and business-model, students who expect that warming a seat with their bottom is enough to get them an A and the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD!!! once they graduate). But there are also a lot of wonderful things:

time-flexibility. I NEVER get called by my boss and told that I will be working on the weekend. If I work on the weekend, that's my choice. If I want to take off early some day when my classes and office hours are done at 2 pm, no one ever says anything

some of the students (many of the students) are wonderful. I've gotten evaluation comments in the past that say things like "Thank you, I learned so much" and "I never liked science before I took this class." It's a good feeling when someone asks a question in class - I've had people ask things I never even thought about, and I can say honestly, "wow, that's a really good question." The enthusiasm some of the students have for what they are doing is what keeps me going and what keeps me interested. (I had a research student this summer who was just such a joy to have - he was excited about everything he was doing, even when it meant wading waist-deep through water that might or might not contain leeches).

It's fun to teach. I find it fun. I have a lot of anecdotes and a lot of subject-appropriate humor I can use in class. It's a great feeling in a lecture on basic chemistry to tell the joke about the atom that lost an electron ("Are you sure?" "Yes, I'm POSITIVE") and have the students laugh (or groan).

I like my colleagues. I think that makes a huge difference. In my department, we don't really have any "ego cases" and everyone has their own "turf" - there isn't too much duplication of specialties so there's really not professional jealousy going on. And we're a collegial bunch. We go out to lunch together and stuff. Not all departments are like that.

I will admit there are frustrating days - when I fail to connect with the students, when there's some New Directive from above that we have to spend time dealing with, getting journal articles rejected or grants not funded. But by and large, the good days outweigh the frustrating ones.

I was very lucky in that my first "real" job out of grad school was the one I am at (and tenured in) now. I think part of it was that the school and I were just a good fit, and also I had an unusual combination of specialties that the department was particularly looking for. (One of my colleagues told me, after I got tenure: "I probably shouldn't tell you this but you were the only person who applied for your position who was totally qualified for it." Made me feel good.)

I found that after completing a masters degree, life had changed somewhat (family, kids, et al), and a PhD undertaking was going to be excessively hard on my family. I did another masters degree in library science and have been working as a librarian since. In my current position, I am a voting member of the faculty senate, a faculty advisor to students, and am able to do some teaching to boot - all as a librarian. I will still probably pursue a PhD, but maybe I won't have to be eating Ramen noodles along the way with scary job prospects at the end.

PhD in meteorology, working in an on-campus research institute (I carry the rank of associate prof - but we are all non-tenured). Whereas most of my colleagues outside of our institute teach a goodly number of classes per semester, I teach one/semester and have a 12-month contract (renewed annually) as opposed to a 9-month one. We also mostly focus on graduate education and seniors so my teaching style is more peer-to-peer, or professional-to-pracitcally-a-professional-so-I’m-gonna-treat-you-like-a-peer-anyway-(got-that?). I’ve only taught one general ed class since leaving grad school.

The "downside" is that I'm soft money (meaning that we all bring in most of our paycheck with external research), and therefore, we must maintain a high level of performance in research just to survive. To insure risk-based incentives, we exist outside of the local COHE negotiating body which makes us a little more vulnerable to top-down actions than mainstream faculty. Because of our research activity, everyone outside our unit thinks we are always swimming in dough (and manipulate our flywheel, base funding and F/A returns accordingly, all the while praising us for getting so much out of so little). Unlike Ricki, we DO have to pull work on the weekend and nights when we smell opportunity like blood in the water or have a deadline. And to be honest, I tend to sneer at people on campus who are 9-to-5ers, who moan when our students defend in the summer and they have to come in, and then want a higher percentage of indirect cost return than we get, when we generate a significant share of the campus total (thankfully, my better half is a mainstream faculty member elsewhere on campus, but is also a fellow workaholic and is productive above an beyond the trad-faculty norm in her own right).

Despite my b!tchin’, our competitiveness (and the price we pay) makes us the research Alphas's on campus and are in a leadership position when it comes to research. We are also one of the most visible units both in and outside of the state (required to bring in the outside $). Best of all, we {have to} form a very collaborative team (compared to what I hear form other people on our campus and other campuses) in which we all link to part of our private research empires (my counterparts at other schools’ traditional departments don’t always do that). It also keeps a number of us outside of the shelter of the tenured teenager bubble that plagues academia. So given all the “minuses,” I have to recognize that the more volatile nature of our jobs is what makes the plusses possible.

On the whole I like it a lot, and would otherwise be working for NOAA, NASA, BOR or USGS. Others wanting to keep in the university system and favor the security of 9-month secure salaries at the “cost” of high teaching loads may not.

Ph.D. in mathematics; I've worked in small, teaching-oriented liberal arts colleges since I finished in 1997. I have changed jobs once, but it was from one liberal arts college to another liberal arts college.

I have learned something that is probably painfully obvious -- that not all colleges in the same Carnegie classification are alike. Indeed, the variance within the same overall class of colleges can be immense. For instance, you can have two small, teaching-oriented liberal arts colleges with nearly exactly the same student demographics and yet the two schools can be as different as night and day. My first job was such a bad situation, for a number of reasons mainly focused on the lack of commitment to academics on the campus, that it was literally driving me crazy; for the sake of my mental health and that of my wife, I undertook a risky job search halfway through my pre-tenure period. I landed a job at my present college, where all the stats (SAT, endowment, etc.) are the same on paper as the previous college but the institutional commitment to an academic climate is completely different, and lo and behold I am somewhat sane again.

So it's not enough just to differentiate between research universities and teaching-oriented colleges; there are levels of difference that these two broad classifications don't detect, and if you target a job search just to one of these two types of schools, be prepared to do serious investigative work to see if you'll really be happy at the school.

If I had really tried to look hard for signs of a vital intellectual climate on my first campus, I would have never taken the job in the first place and would have been much happier elsewhere -- but I just assumed that because it was a teaching-oriented liberal arts college, that it was committed to high academic standards. Sadly, that's not the case always.

I have found the field of technical instruction and course development to be rewarding. Pay is good, students are mature and motivated, atmosphere pleasant, hours flexible, and software companies tend to be located in nice places.

Not too hard to get into the field, and humanities are welcome.

My goodness, I see commenters who have been through some of what I have been through. I became a high school teacher, a job I enjoyed save for the politics (can you say parents with no clue and unsupportive administrators?). I went for my masters in English, and I liked the possibility of teaching at the college level, so went on for the PhD. While I working on that PhD, I got an assistantship to the library. I was doing teaching of library classes, some reference. I was hooked. The job prospects seemed a bit better, but more importantly, I could do so many things I enjoyed: helping others, teaching, some of the research I was interested in, along with working with books and new technology. The practical nature was appealing, but what did it for me was that one librarian who for some reason thought "I would make a good librarian." I left the doctorate program (after coursework and comps, before diss), and transferred to library school. My teaching experience (I also taught as an adjunct for a while) and the other masters made me very marketable in addition to my time in that library. I thought it would bother me, the chill from others and all. I have never looked back and have not been happier. While I am believer in following your bliss, you also need to be realistic. Getting a tenured job in English was likely not going to happen in this job market. As for pursuing the rest of the PhD, probably not. I am doing fine.

Follow your bliss, but be realistic as well. And unlike the article by Rivers, realize odds are if you are in humanities, you will likely linger as an adjunct. I saw many talented classmates end up working as adjuncts in our department after they finished the degree due to not being able to find that one "perfect" job. Be open to other possibilities and seize them when they come. As for the chill of others, don't worry, you will be nice and warm in your new job, and likely happier. Anyhow, that is my experience in a nutshell. Best.

Phd Candidate in Education. I was never an educator. I worked for 15 years as a journalist. I covered fires and murders, city council and real estate development. Ran a magazine, and got into writing about education.

I loved my job, but after a while I realized that journalists are always outsiders, never actually solving problems just pointing them out. And that became a little unsatisfying. This came at a time when I began to think that education was pretty lame. I went to ed school to learn about what was causing the problem.

In the five years I've been here, I've learned a ton about how to improve schools, and not what you'd think. There are some really smart people working on basic research in teaching--HOW to teach, what practices and procedures work, what skills should be bundled, how best to leverage student miscues and understand them. It's like basic research in medicine--how to do a bypass better, or how to control high blood pressure.

I've become a statistics gal, and run fancy HLM models, and collect data and build theory. It is a pleasure and thrill to do research, and I like it a lot.

I don't think I would have enjoyed this one bit if I were 20, or even 30. But after spending all that time as a reporter and editor, this work now makes a lot of sense. I look forward to being either a) a prof at a research I university, or b) a wonk in a research think tank.

Thanks for the post and all the comments. It was good for me to read all this and I learned a lot.

ph.d. mathematics, indiana u, 1992.

four years on the tenure track at

a small liberal arts college (now posing

as a "university"), perma-temping (adjunct)

since then. it beats actual *work*

but i'm not really making a living:

& this is without kids or any suchlike expenses.

i sure wouldn't recommend this

as a way of life for anybody else

but am somewhat tired of hearing about

how easy it is to find more appropriate work.

if barely getting by as an adjunct

beats actally working, then it sure as @#$%!!

beats *looking* for work.

what advice would i give?

never tell anybody anything

and always keep your mouth shut.