Job search costs

A sobering account of what it costs to spend a year on the market, in exacting detail.

Via Academic Cog.

update

i've been such a horrible boot-camper. here, though, are a few updates:

during the last week of July, after 7 freakin drafts of my prospectus, my committee finally approved my diss r-s project.
as a result, in August i received formal notification of my upgraded status to Candidacy (ABD, baby!).
then today i FINALLY received word of my IRB approval from my sponsoring institution (Temple).

even though i didn't have official approval, there was some "data" collecting that i was able to do. however, as of tomorrow, the study will officially begin with vigor. and for those of you who have probably forgotten what i'm even up to, it's an ethnography of the literacy practices of student-athletes. in other words, for the next 8.5 months i'm gonna be a fieldnote-takin fool! pretty sweet, huh.

on the side i've also been working on a draft of an essay for an edited collection. as of late this work may be described most aptly as: half-assed. though i hope this isn't the case, it could be that this lil side-project dissolves into nothingness...especially if the due date creeps up on me...

Hello out there.

Hi all. I'm just checking in. Haven't heard from too many folk lately and was wondering what all y'all were up to. As Meagan noted (and many more probably know), the job list is O-U-T out. I'm on the market this year, so I'm spending too much time on cover letters and c.v.s and not enough time on my dissertation. So be it. The dissertation will get done on time and this is a bit more pressing.

I applied to three jobs today (just the send us your letter and c.v. sort of application) and will probably apply to a few more tomorrow. But I need to get a few more things in order before I send my applications out to the send-us-everything sort of schools. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time.

I'm preparing myself for the possibility of not getting a job this time around -- it certainly happens -- and I'm mostly okay with it. I know what I would do next year to improve my chances, so it would be fine. Not ideal for me, but fine. But, here's hoping that doesn't happen.

Luck to all of you on the market this year!

A big decision

I've talked before about my efforts to get stuff together for the job market. (If you're not a comp/rhet person, then you may not know that the grand list of job openings was published on Friday.) After looking at that list, and taking a hard look at my progress on the diss and my other activities, I've decided not to go on the market this year.

I've been keeping my options open since this summer, getting the application materials together just in case I saw jobs that I felt I absolutely must apply for. But in reality, I need to get more work done on my dissertation before I can talk definitively about what I do in the project and what I have found.

Now that I've decided to take another year, I'm excited about what I can do in that time. Instead of cobbling together a makeshift dissertation in the next 7 months or so, I can take more time and do this well-- and submit an item or two for publication while I'm at it.

In the meantime, I am still writing. I will also be applying for fellowships. Rest assured that I am not resting on my laurels-- indeed, I am not even sure where my laurels are. But I'm planning on the RNF at CCCC in New Orleans-- maybe I'll find them there.


Cross posted at Intent/Effect.

The Job Market Loometh

For those of us going on the market this year, I imagine the upcoming job list looms large. It certainly does for me. All other work seems to have been put on hold. Instead of working on my next dissertation chapter, I've been revising my c.v., writing cover letters, writing my teaching philosophy, and putting together my portfolio. I've also made sure to set up interfolio and start talking to my references about writing letters. It's pretty much all-consuming.

I'm on top of it, but just barely. My writing sample needs LOTS of work and my cover letters and philosophy will probably need at least one more revision. I'd like to get working on my rhetorical listening chapter -- and writing my presentation for the feminisms and rhetorics conference in October -- but I'm pretty much stuck in market mode.

Anybody else in the same boat? Or any suggestions from those who have successfully navigated these waters?