Talk:European History Jobs 2008-09

Neurosis

 * See, 'Neurosis'
 * Here is a page for discussion, whinging, and neurotic obsessing over whether acknowledgement letters will arrive via email or post.


 * LORDY this waiting is tedious. Any word out there?
 * The medieval searches do seem to be lagging behind others in scheduling AHA interviews. Only Trinity, Kalamazoo, and Muskingum thus far? Or have people stopped updating this thing?
 * I KNOW. The suspense is killing me. And my liver. But I just had a look at last year's wiki, and many (most?) interviews weren't scheduled until the second week of December, or later. So maybe things will perk up next week...?


 * Also, someone who's better at this than me should post the Arizona State University West gig that went up a few weeks ago on h-net
 * Thank you! I thought I was the only one getting paranoid about the medieval jobs all being decided and me somehow having missed it.
 * There's also one for Florida Gulf Coast. I wonder if anyone applied for South Dakota?


 * So has anyone heard about what the committee for Michigan State wants?


 * Is there any reason why the Johns Hopkins job in Medieval/Early Modern history is not listed? Is it because it is a senior hire? It is is advertised on h-net.org.

The Mistake

 * Getting a Ph.D. in history was the biggest mistake of my life. I wish I had the last 8 years back.  A job in academia is not worth this BS.
 * I think the last eight years were a waste in any number of ways. I'm glad that I spent all that time juggling teaching and writing, since you'll never get a tt job without a bunch of teaching experience, right?  Or was it that you'll never get a tt job, period . . .?


 * Has it also occurred to someone else that the job market follows no perceptible logic? I read this wiki in bewilderment....anyway, thanks for listening ;)

Why the AHA?

 * Why bother with the AHA? Meeting in hotel rooms? How 'professional' is this? I can think of another 'profession' that does interviews in those rooms....


 * I'm bewildered. Last year I had six interviews at the AHA, and this year I have only one.  Believe me, I'm grateful to have the one--at least it justifies the expense of going.  Anyway, I don't understand how one gets less interviews with the phd in hand than when abd?  How did what little market value I had, plummet so quickly?
 * I don't necessarily think your value on the market dropped that much. The market itself is tighter this year    than it's been in a while. It sounds like three or four interviews is a great return despite the dozens of applications mailed.

They never write, but when they do...

 * Hey all, today I received three Christmas cards and four rejection letters. (12/19) How's that for holiday spirit! Hope you all are hanging in there too.
 * I love PFO's (Please F_ Off) - it's nice to get them at least, I'm finding more often that they don't get sent until really late. Whatever happened to be polite?

Published Tales of Angst and Woe

 * List your links, and stories....

Roach College, U.S.A.: What Ph.D. students really have to fear.
This article (What Ph.D. students really have to fear) was written before the economic downturn, but it is still in essence the gospel truth about life as an academic. Read it. My adviser and many other senior scholars used to tell me that I would get a job. If you went to a good graduate school and wrote a decent dissertation, you would get a job. The problem was, what kind of job? I knew Ivy League PhDs getting 4-4s. I knew snobby lifelong Northeasterners who swallowed their pride and moved to the Deep South. Believe me, I never thought I'd be teaching where I am, underpaid at an underfunded, overcrowded third-tier public university far from any major metropolis, in the flyover zone. And I have no idea how I am going to get out of here. With my teaching load and faculty responsibilities, on top of everyday family stuff, finishing book two has been tough, and it may take a third book to get any traction on the post-tenure job market, which is more competitive than the entry-level job market. But I got to be a professor. Hurray!


 * Wow. After reading that I don't know what to say.  I think the breaking point for me when I decided that academia probably wasn't for me (a decision that appears to be made for my anyhow based on my failure to secure any interviews) was when I went to a departmental job seminar where they told us what to expect on the market.  I was growing more and more uneasy as I learned the awful specifics of this ratrace, and then we got to the part discussing negotiation when we received an offer.  The recent job market success story lecturing us noted that if we asked really, really nicely and begged a little, schools might deign to give us a computer when we started work!  A whole, new, shiny computer!  I almost lost it right there: you mean to tell me I just worked for seven years, lived apart from my wife for long periods, and gave up untold amounts of money in the most roaring financial services economy in history to get a job where they might not give me a computer?!?!  You get a computer when you start working at Best Buy!  It was a little thing but it reinforced the idea that we are expendable, useless, overtrained, underpaid and totally powerless.  So glad the last recession made me decide to go to grad school to escape the awful job market.  I guess the only bright spot is that we aren't in real estate finance.


 * Yeah, going on the job market for the first time was terrible, but I did get a job: at the aforementioned "underfunded, overcrowded third-tier public university."
 * To be fair to my employer, there was a new computer in my office when I got to campus, and I get a new one every 5 years. My dean also bought the special software I use for my data analysis.  I think that not getting new or new-ish computer in your office is extremely rare.
 * As for the negotiations, I don't know what to say. When I wanted to negotiate, the (then) chair of the department said "take it or leave it, that's the offer."  I was too young and naive to push for more and to go over the chair's head to the dean or provost.  Since then, I have seen that you can negotiate for side items, such as a small research budget, a modest book-buying budget, an occasional course reduction, or an adjunct position for your spouse.  Because of the long-term ramifications (salary compression, jealousy from established professors, compounding percentage raises), deans do not like increasing the base salary offer.  But once you are hired, you have zero leverage for negotiation, unless you have an outside offer to dangle under the dean's nose.  So when they make that initial offer, that is your best chance to sweeten the deal.
 * Anyway, here I am at Middleofnowhere University, and I am likely to remain there until I have published three books.
 * "There is a very interesting PBS documentary film called "Decline by Degrees," which is about problems of higher education in the US. Ye, the miserable life of adjuncts or "professors" at community colleges is also covered. Very enlightening and extremely depressing to watch at the same time. Strongly recommend to anyone interested in the issue.

Other Reading

 * What We Owe Our Young: Honest Information about Placement

Blogs

 * I have started a blog Say No to PhD warning those who might be interested in a humanities Ph.D. not to do it. It is too late for those of us who are on the job market now, but we can do our best to stop others from making the same mistakes.
 * After reading your blog I must admit to having laughing fits punctuated by bitter sobbing.

The Interview (Lucky Bastards)

 * Will an interview committee hold the bald spots from neurotically pulling my hair out while waiting for that call, letter, or e-mail against me?


 * Just wear a beret. I hear they're fashionable these days. (In academia, that is.)


 * Should we count ourselves as rejected before the fact if others have scheduled interviews (AHA, whatever) and we haven't yet heard anything? Or is it just a case of committees taking forever to contact candidates?
 * Mostly. My rule of thumb is to wait a few days and then scratch that search off my board.  Committees usually contact over the course of 2-3 days or less.


 * If anyone is willing to share, I'd be interested to hear interviewees views on this year's AHA (should this be a new section?).
 * Well it could go here, or go under the 'WTF' AHA section above...