“It was liberating to realize that through our doctoral studies we are gaining experiences and skills that will help us pursue exciting careers in the nonacademic world,” says proseminar fellow Malkah Bressler. “It felt even better to learn how to translate our experiences into terms that will make us competitive job applicants.”
Manoah Finston writes about what differentiates doctoral students from industry-aligned master’s students on the job market, and suggests some recommendations for how university career-counseling centers and home departments might better approach these students’ distinct needs.
Tara Coleman suggests that if we forge our own alt-ac paths by creating opportunities rather than waiting for them, we might actually end up doing the thing we really want to do.
Connected Academics proseminar fellow Catherine Burton posits that strategic optimism about the experience of graduate school will bring both personal and professional rewards.
“My fellow scholars in the MLA’s Connected Academics proseminar,” says Beth Seltzer, “tackle a mind-boggling range of responsibilities. They edit academic journals, serve as assistant deans and departmental administrators, lead graduate student associations, and volunteer with local youth-art programs. And they get all this done while they’re writing their dissertations and producing strong academic scholarship. I am sure that—through their work in various fields—they will make the world a better place.”
Connected Academics proseminar fellow Kesi Augustine offers some advice to introverted academics (and those suffering from imposter syndrome).
In this post, Connected Academics proseminar fellow Manoah Finston argues that we should avoid the binary norms suggested by the terms “alt-” and “post-” ac and opt for “big-ac”—which he describes as “using my academic training anywhere, and everywhere, I can”—instead.
Connected Academics Proseminar Fellow Benjamin VanWagoner suggests that academics begin to think of their networks as functional, rather than simply relational.
“What this program means for me,” says Sarah Ruth Jacobs, is that I will no longer settle for adjunct wages… I hope that the conversations we have will reverberate outside our group and that we will ultimately encourage others not to settle for working conditions that offer little respect or compensation.”
Maria Seger, another of our Connected Academics proseminar fellows, continues the discussion of networking and suggests that students think of it as a symbiotic process—a mutually beneficial exchange of information— rather than an exercise in nepotism.