Can an Academic Job be a "Next Job?"

So, a VAP has come up in my field. It is a one, maybe a two year gig with a 4/4 teaching load. There will be a TT line offered for this position in two years but the department head freely (and honestly) admits that whoever takes the VAP may have a leg up for that line but no promises.

I'm considering applying for it. No, not because I think it'll somehow magically turn into a TT line. I want the job because of where it is. It's in a place I've wanted to live in since I was a child. My significant other still has at least a year and half before he's done with his residency in Major City. So, this seems like a good time for an adventure. For the curious, said significant other forwarded the job ad to me, so he already knows about it and was a little hesitant to send it, knowing my view of academia these days.

Granted, this job would require moving across the country and away from family. Most of my friends these days are academics, so spatial separation there is inevitable. And it would mean at least another year in a long-distance relationship, but that too is looking more and more inevitable too.

But the academic culture doesn't appeal to me so why, in the name of all things holy and unholy, would I consider applying? Because I want to live there, at least for a bit. I want that adventure. If I happen to add anything to my CV during that time, what a bonus. Yeah, no exclamation point there - read it deadpan, with a sarcastic twist.

Given my ambivalence (leaning towards bitterness) towards academia, a 1-2 year gig actually sounds appealing. If one or both parties decide we'd be better off separated, I finish off the contract and no hard feelings. It would also give me a more time to figure out what I want to be if I grow up...or at least which direction I'm heading off in. And I would have a better sense if my bitterness is due entirely to academia in general or just to spending the last near-decade in a dysfunctional department with an advisor who has turned into a despot.

Notice, I did not mention research or publishing in there. If you're paying me for a 4/4 load, that's what you're getting. If you also want me publish too, you either need to pay me a serious salary or I will laugh in your face. I research the cost-of-living differential and I know what my bills and student loans will be. When negotiating, it's important to know your bottom line. And unlike some of my colleagues, I know there's a life outside of academia and I'm not above just saying "(Oh Helllll) No" to an unacceptable academic offer.

Don't worry about the school. They'll get at least 30 applicants. On the outside chance that they actually want to hire me and can't afford me, some other poor desperate schmuck will take them up on the lowball offer.

It's just a personal thing. I feel like I should at least apply. I can at least say I tried and academia officially did not want what I had to offer. On the upside, I'm getting more confident in the idea that there's something better out there...and I could still do my research. But that's a story for the next post.

This is gonna be interesting

A fellow student from my program is working with my advisor to get out the write-up from a project they worked on 6 years ago. I did some data analysis on part of it at that time for a class project. This student has warned me that my advisor may steal my work (the class term paper) and put his own name on it as first author.

I am a pretty decent writer. I am considered a subversive deviant. I am more technological literate than my advisor. Yes, I'm in the process of wiping out any trace of my work from every lab computer, back-up file, and external hard drive in all our labs. Yes, I would magnetize the CD with my paper on it if I could find it. Yes, I will raise hell if my work walks off without me.

This could get interesting. Stay tuned.

Law of Dissertating Inertia

It's been awhile since my last post. I figured that out by looking at the date on that post today. Yeah, I know - it's obvious. However, it's just after the holidays where I did absolutely nothing productive and it's taking some time to start thinking again. Don't judge me! The whole situation reminds me of the law of inertia.

You read that right. It's the law of inertia: a grad student in motion tends to stay in motion while one at rest tends to stay at rest, unless an external force is applied. Click here for a description of this for comic fans. Well, this grad student has been at rest for awhile. A long while. Alas, this must change.

As per the events of my last post, I've been looking into a career in R&D. I like the idea. I enjoy research and discovery. I also enjoy being employed and having free time. R&D appears to be better aligned with such ideals than academia is. See any of the blogs to the right for a multitude of views on work/life balance, the crappy academic job market, or lack of intellectual freedom. Though R&D seems to be a better job market than academia, I have a nontraditional Ph.D. (read not STEM) and will likely have to take a more guerilla job search approach. Since that can be time consuming, I'm rabidly trying to finish my dissertation draft before the semester starts.

On a fairly random tangent, I like the word "rabidly" for describing dissertating. Such an activity should automatically conjure up a sort of unhealthy, foaming-at-the-mouth image. It really is a pointless exercise. Even as I'm writing my diss, I know it is unlikely to ever to be read or to be worthy of another's time. And that's before my committee gets there teeth in it.


I firmly agree with Einstein that if you cannot explain something simply, you do not understand it well enough. As a result, I can explain my entire dissertation research in under 150 pages (I think - I haven't finished it yet). The last two dissertations that passed in my department were ~250 and ~300 pages respectively. I really don't want to fluff my dissertation to such a bloated state just to satisfy faculty egos. I'm not going into academia anyway. Only in academia could you get a final product that is both dense and fluffy. "Fluffy" is used here to mean light and lacking in substance while "dense" refers to something that is impenetrable, for those who need definitions of everything. Let it be transparent! Let it be substantial! Let it NOT be painful!

Anyway, that's what I'm doing when I'm not posting. I'm hoping to defend by March 16th, mostly because I'd like a really good reason to be really trashed on St. Patty's day. Since I'm not adverse to drinking any other day of the year, I feel like I should have a reason to do it on St. Patty's day. You know, it makes it "special" that way. So, I must finish this beast and allow the faculty to begin their shredding of it. I'm sure there will be at least two rounds of revisions before all is said and done.

Wish me luck in my endeavor. I wish you luck in yours, whether it is leaving academia, finding a job, or otherwise maintaining what's left of your sanity. Cheers to us all!

You, Robot

Let me begin this post with a recitation of the 3 Laws of Robotics, courtesy of Isaac Asimov:

1) A grad student may not injure a faculty member or, through inaction, allow a faculty member to come to harm.
2) A grad student must obey orders given to it by faculty members except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A grad student must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Ok, so maybe I paraphrased a bit. However, these are shockingly similar to the unspoken "laws" of grad school. I know this idea is not new. It is similar to notions of academia as a cult or a Borg subclass. I'm not writing about this institutionalized brainwashing. Although, to be fair, I think both of these analogies are flawed in that they imply a centralized authority, which does not exist in academia. There is no cult leader, no Borg queen running the show and forcing everyone to be drones to their cause. That's where I like this sci-fi analogy. Though ultimately a centralized bad robot shows up, most of the build-up is unintentional. Things just got out of hand. Seems like that's a more accurate representation of what actually happened. On a bizarre tangent, does anyone know of an evolutionary psychological analysis of how academia ended up in its current broken state?

I'm writing about how these laws have come into play in one grad student's life. I'll call him Matt. He currently needs to protect his own existence but it conflicts with the First and Second Law. Here's the most recent episode in Matt's turbulent Ph.D. career. He was working on a research project with another grad student and two faculty members from different departments. The research was finished and written up. One faculty member wants to get this article published. The other is rather infamous for simply being "unable" to read anything and give comments on it. This second faculty member has not read any drafts and is holding up sending this article to publication. Needless to say, these two faculty members have gone a few rounds. Matt's problem is that faculty #1 is giving him orders to finish getting this draft together, without any input from faculty #2. However, sending in this article as is requires taking faculty #2's name off article which could injure his reputation. Yes, I'm leaving out how faculty #2 has shot himself in the foot since there was nothing grad students could do, either through action or inaction, to prevent this.

So now, Matt is clearly in the crossfire between these two faculty members simply by obeying the Second Law. Granted, I've only been in grad school for 9 years, but I'm fairly certain that he needs to protect himself at this point and get the f&%^ out of the crosshairs here. But he can't. Such self-protection conflicts with both the First and Second Laws in this case. Given the amount of times this has happened to Matt, and the amount of times he's shot himself in the feet, I tend to think of him as grad student Swiss cheese. I think it's rather apropriate that he's the president of our grad student association.

Back to the analogy. Grad students are the NS5's. Yeah, I'm talking about the movie here which, at best, only bears a slight resemblence to Asimov's original stories - adjust and keep up. So, if we're the robots, who's VIKI - the evil over-bot? I'm going to go with academia itself. In the movie version, VIKI is hard-wired with the three laws but then, due to random segments of code (the ghost in the machine, see below), she evolves. She cannot evolve out of the three laws. They are all that guide her. As a result, she evolves without empathy and attempts world domination.

The creator of the robots, who seems to have a philosophy Ph.D. somewhere in his background, sees where this lack of empathy will lead. He tries to give warning. Perhaps this is where someone should pay attention. I don't know if it's the professoriate or lay people but someone really ought to be taking notice of these dystopic ideas. For this evolution without empathy can only lead to one thing: revolution. And it ain't humans'.

Perhaps that's what happened to academia - it evolved without empathy. Insert your comment about the corporatizing of higher ed here. I have no conclusion to this. I'm just blogging out loud. So, given the analogy offered, here's a monologue for you to ponder:

"There have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter moat of a soul?" -I, Robot the movie