So.
If you have been told that:
– everybody only wants freshly minted PhDs for tenure-track positions;
– you have no hope of landing a tenure-track position of your dreams if you’ve been in Visiting positions or instructorships for several years;
– not finding a tenure-track job right after getting your PhD is the end of the world and definitely the end of your career;
– there are no good, well-paid professorial positions left;
– people who tell you “Just keep publishing and applying” are liars who are not telling you the harsh truth;
– human existence is a vale of tears, so prepare for the worse,
you have been misinformed.
I congratulate a dear friend of mine who did not believe these myths and who just got a phenomenal offer from a place of his dreams. With a great salary. And great working conditions. And in the geographic area where everybody except very weird folks want to live. I’m so happy for my friend that I’m in tears. He is one of those people who belong in academia with every fiber of their being.
There is one more friend left who needs to find a good tenure-track position, and my happiness will be complete.
The only productive, healthy approach to life is never to listen to anybody’s discouraging apocalyptic stories but just to work quietly towards getting what one wants. When N was unemployed, he kept visiting a professional forum for people in his field. Soon he realized, though, that the endless discussions of how everything was horrible and everybody was evil were depressing him in a way that even unemployment could not. So he stopped going.
If you are convinced you belong in academia, don’t look at statistics, don’t listen to anybody’s tragic stories, don’t analyze the general trends. Just concentrate on doing your thing and you will do great.
Clarissa's Blog 
This is interesting, but I will not wait very long before reorienting my career if it goes wrong.
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Of course, that’s always an individual decision. My friend, however, would not have been as happy anywhere as he is in academia. He is a textbook definition of an academic who lives and breathes for this stuff.
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My specificity is that I’m more interested in teaching. For me, research is a tool for teaching, not the converse.
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Do you have geographic preferences?
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This is also an other specificity.
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For many would-be academics your message is simply not true. Many fields graduate far more doctorates than there are available academic positions. In disciplines where other job opportunities are not so clearly defined this leads to heart-break. Even in the law, this is the case. Several leading law schools are now slashing admissions in order to correct the market imbalance. It is always wise to look at the job market before decisingf on one’s specialism. In the case of truly brilliant individuals the market overall may not much matter. But for the many who are able but not brilliant the market really really matters.
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You are right but I’m only writing for the truly brilliant. Others wouldn’t come to this blog. 🙂
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I’m convinced I don’t belong in it, although I have the tendency. The people I studied for my PhD thesis all had strong intellectual tendencies but did not belong in academia. Nietzsche became a professor at 22,but dropped out due to ill health. Bataille worked in la bibliothèque francais. Marechera went to Oxford but dropped out as an undergraduate. They all went on to have productive lives.
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I will print this post and frame it. It will be in my new office. I also want all of you readers to know how wonderful a friend and human being you are.
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Thank you, my dear friend! I’m having an insane day, so it’s good to know I’m still appreciated. 🙂
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I’m not in the midst of an academic job search, but this post was inspirational to me nonetheless, especially the last lines. I’ve recently started building a career as a freelancer (mostly in writing). I love what I’m doing and, for the first time that I can remember, feel a growing, genuine confidence in myself and that I can make this work for me long-term.
I’m going into this with eyes wide open, too; I have no delusions about instant riches or instant success. I know it will be long, patient, hard work with a lot of learning along the way (good thing I love learning). But I keep hearing discouragement all around me. Even as I make some successes for myself, and find new clients and branch out into new areas, I keep hearing a chorus of “it won’t last,” or “it’s impossible to find paying work,” and “you’ll live in poverty forever,” plus stories of other people my age who are more financially stable and in ‘prestigious’ jobs (I’m meant to measure myself against them and find myself lacking). So I really need to block out these voices and focus on what I need to do, what I love to do, and find practical solutions to obstacles along the way instead of giving in to crippling self-doubt.
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If you really enjoy it and feel it’s a calling and a lifestyle made for you, you are doomed to be successful. It is inevitable.
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