Category: Academia
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Depression and Graduate School
Is depression in graduate school common? Yes. I’ve recounted my struggles with depression while in graduate school in an essay, Depression and Graduate School. If you’re dealing with chronic unhappiness, consider seeking out professional help. If you’re a graduate student there are likely free or low cost resources on campus. If you’re having suicidal thoughts…
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The Office Space Myth
During the first weekend of the Humanities Without Walls pre-doctoral workshop, I caught the last half of Office Space on television. The fear of becoming a corporate drone is one many academics likely identify with. But the choice is not between Initech and academia. (Even if it were a choice between only those two options,…
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It’s a Process
Somewhat recently, I had a professor tell me to think of the (academic) job market as a three to five year process. I continued smiling but immediately thought about how terrible the (academic) job market is. In part, because it actually is a multi-year process. You dip your toe in as an ABD and apply…
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It’s what you do that matters
Earlier in the week during the Humanities Without Walls workshop, we spent a whole day learning how to “pitch” ourselves. This kind of self-promotion often makes academics uneasy as “selling” yourself can feel awfully close to selling out. The fact is (as many people pointed out) academics constantly pitch themselves and their work in application…
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Brian Without Walls
For the next three weeks, I’m participating in the Humanities Without Walls Pre-Doctoral Workshop on alternative academic careers. We just completed day two and I wanted to blog a few of my initial thoughts: I’ve noticed that the “without walls” metaphor is a great one for this workshop. Not only are we discussing doing the…
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Forever Student Syndrome
Graduate student life has many upsides. You largely make your own schedule. You can do most of your work from any location. And you still get student discounts at the movies. But you do not want to be a graduate student forever. The life of the mind is an alluring idea, but at some point…
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Cost of #AHA2015
I’ll be up front about the fact that I stole the idea for a survey on the costs of the 2015 AHA annual meeting as well as the questions from Rebecca Schuman’s survey for the 2015 MLA Conference. Unfortunately, my influence on social media and in the AHA are quite small, so I got a…
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What the AHA Needs Now
History needs a Brian Croxall. I’m not actually referring to Brian himself, but the fact that History needs someone who truly understands the life in which most graduate students and recent PhDs find themselves. He’s “a former adjunct who now works off the tenure track” that was also just elected to an at large seat…
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What I Wish I Had Known
The Ten Commandments of Graduate School over at the Tenured Radical got me thinking I should actually post my beginning of the school year thoughts. This Friday our department will be welcoming the new class of students at a Grad Student Retreat. As a bit of an ice-breaker returning students attending will talk about “Things…
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The Ivoriest Tower
The AHA published another defense of their misguided statement on embargoing dissertations, this one written by former President William Cronon. This new post underscores the real heart of the criticism and controversy over the AHA’s statement. Cronon defends the text of the statement and the embargo policy, but the real outrage isn’t related to the…
Brian Sarnacki 