AKJen

Hey all, just wanted to give an update. I ended up not applying for either position (post doc or writing). Earlier this year, my mom was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimers (which she's been showing signs of since I started grad school), so I'm taking a leave of absence next year to help get some things done at home. I don't really know how much time I'll have to write and this isn't an opportune time to take a leave, but no time would be. Thanks for your help again. I'll be back around in the next year, since I will be putting out some applications if I can.

Rutgers has some great faculty and exceptional anthropologists across the university. So does Cornell. Having gone to school in Philly, you can't discount (and shouldn't) discount the central location of Rutgers. From that location, it's only a short commute to conferences, events and even classes at a ton of major universities. Most of the Ivies (Columbia, Penn, Princeton) have active student exchange programs with Rutgers, so you can take a class with faculty (with a little extra paper work) at those prestigious universities and position yourself well for future admission and take some amazing seminars. Regardless of where you end up, you will almost certainly have to retake courses when you get into a Ph.D. program. That's pretty much how it works in the US, so I don't think Rutgers or Cornell will slow you down any.

First of all, sorry to hear about your application season. It's brutal out there! I've had a few friends in my program (and in others) that did the peace corps before heading to an anthro grad program. I think it can make you more competitive, but not necessarily. If you use that experience to demonstrate your familiarity with a region (language, people, possible research topics) and are able to frame that experience as adding to your ability to do independent research, than yes, it could be helpful for your application. Remember, you don't necessarily have to carry out the project in your application, but the more complete and supported a proposal, the better. On the other hand, you may go through your peace corps experience and decide to do something complete unrelated for your project. The peace corps will still be helpful as it shows you have professional and personal experience living in a field site, but you'll have to make a different case for how the work prepared you to do a project in a different area. Still doable, but all in how you frame it. An MA could help too, if it's research experience/conferences you're missing. I'd look at the costs as well though. If you can get tuition waivers and a TA, an MA might be worth it, but you'll get paid (not much) for the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps can also be good work experience, if you don't end up going into academia. So, I don't really have great advice for you, but good luck!

This particular post doc is not deferrable, but the director may be able to offer more in the future and has told me she wants to work with me in the future even if it's not this particular opportunity. So it's not a one-time opportunity, but it is particularly suited for my particular set of skills. It's in a very specialized field, though it has connections to STS, anthropology, public health and various ethnic studies departments. I don't mean to be cryptic, but it's a small field. I have the same concern about it being a postdoc and not a permanent position. My dissertation will need to become a book if I continue in academia, but I'm a bit ambivalent about a faculty position and, in recent years, presses are requiring quite a bit of revision from even very polished dissertations, as rising_star mentioned below. Your point about carving out time for my own writing is well-taken. This post doc is fairly divergent from my dissertation topic, but there are quite a few parallels. This is something I'll need to clarify. Thank you for your help! In the long term, this could be really good, since it offers me the chance to expand my geographic expertise. As an anthropologist who works in North America, having additional field experience abroad could widen the field in terms of jobs. On the other hand, it would also put me back into collaborative research institute, which could be beneficial if I decide to go back into public health research, though going back into a soft money, contingent position is not my ideal. My advisor is very, very hands off, but has indicated she'd be happy to support an application. I think I'll push her a little harder and reach out to other members of my committee. You are totally right about application not being a commitment. Thanks for your help! Very good questions. The postdoc is well funded (with benefits) but would require an international move; I don't think there will be much by way of moving expenses for any of the positions, but I tend to travel light. Most of the writing fellowships are within the graduate stipend range, but include some research allowances and office space. I don't know if I would be able to carve out my time for publications/prospectus/etc from my dissertation; this is something I'd need to clarify for sure! In terms of publication opportunities, there will be many, in quite a wide variety of formats. It's an STS project, but the director of the center has published in STS, anthropology, public health and policy venues and will expect her post docs to do the same. Academics in this country are expected to publish early and often. I have some publications, but they are all from before graduate school, though they are very relevant to this post doc; this will probably be the major deficit in my application. The post doc is renewable for one year, with a slight possibility of extending further (or becoming a more permanent position), though that is dependent upon the funding status of their center grant. So many things to think about, but I think all of you are right in that it's best to have more options rather than less. Thanks so much for prompting me to ask some hard questions. I'll let you know how it's going!

I'm getting close to finishing my fieldwork and I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I was recently forwarded an announcement for a two year post doc (with an option for a 3rd year) for which I am uniquely qualified; it is in a small field working on projects very similar to my former professional experience, but with more of an ethnographic/qualitative focus and in a different region of the world. I've talked to the director of the program and she was pretty enthusiastic about my possible application. This post doc would required me to submit about 9 months earlier than I'd originally planned, which is doable but going to be a stretch. I'm also considering a few writing fellowships. With the longer writing time, I'm running right about average in terms of length for my department and field. This is my dilemma: does a post-doc trump more time to write and polish a dissertation?

A post-doc can help, in that you have more time to develop your research and your application materials. Some of the better post docs are multi year and might allow you to start the process of turning your book into a dissertation (if you're cultural or linguistic) or apply for major research funding; either of those accomplishments can make you attractive to a job search committee. But there's also some departments that are looking for someone who have not taken two or more postdocs, because academia has weird stereotypes about those who take too long to find a permanent position. Though multiple postdocs have a better reputation than someone with multiple adjunct positions. A post doc can also help because it will increase your network. One of the most important skills to learn is how to effectively network. Networking doesn't come easily to most people but the more people you meet in your discipline and beyond, the more of a chance that someone will remember your name, which just might get your application off the tall pile and under serious consideration. Meet as many people as you can at annual meetings. Introduce yourself and ask questions to any guest speakers in your department. Look for summer school opportunities or internships in your early years or when you're writing up. Take advantage of your advisor's networks as well. That's one of the reasons having a well-known advisor, at least in their particular field, is so helpful. If they are on top of things, they should know how you are positioned for your career and be making introductions to important people in your field. This is why it's useful to have an advisor that has some interests in common with you, be that area, theoretical, or topic. Another thing you can do to prepare is think about the type of school you'd ultimately like to land. If you're primarily interested in teaching and advising, work on developing those skills and getting as much experience as you can (without interrupting your progress to degree). Having a well polished teaching statement and a really thoughtful cover letter that emphasizes your desire to teach for undergrad centered schools could give you an edge. If you want to end up at a R1 university, your research is the most important part of your package. It's often difficult to think beyond the dissertation when you're in the thick of it, but schools will want to know where you're going to go next and what your next research project will add to their department. Finally, don't be hesitant to look beyond anthro departments. There are opportunities in research centers, hospitals, overseas, etc., if you're willing to look and put in the work to make your application applicable. If you're interested in community colleges, sometimes having taught courses outside of anthro can be very attractive. Can you teach freshman composition or a geology course? At a smaller community college, that can be a big plus. I'm in my fifth year and will be looking for jobs next year, but I've got many friends on the market right now. I spend a lot of time thinking about my next step, but doing what I can to get the experience I need and do high quality research.

An NGO is a non-governmental organization. Many of them work in on development, economic, or health projects around the world. It's difficult to find jobs because there are just not enough tenure track positions open. This is across the board for almost all academic disciplines, except for a few in-demand categories. There are a lot of adjunct positions available, but those can be very low paying depending on the school and you may have to cobble together a schedule teaching courses at many schools with no job stability or benefits just to make a living wage. Many schools are not replacing retiring profs with new tenure track positions because adjuncts are cheaper and there is an overload of Ph.Ds willing to teach those courses. If you look at the academic jobs wikis for archaeology (which is just as addictive as grad cafe and just as nerve wracking), there is only 60 jobs openings in archaeology this year and most of those jobs are looking for archaeologists with certain area or theoretical specialties, so your research will narrow the field of jobs for you. If you consider that last year there were 542 Ph.D.s granted in anthropology (along with another 72 in just archaeology) according to NSF, there's just not enough jobs for graduates. You're not only completing against graduating students, but with all the people in years before you who are still on the market and have years of adjuncting and publications under their belt as well. If you're the right applicant for a position with the right committee members and right focus at the right time, you can have a lot of luck. But most jobs get 100 to 200 applications, so you need to start thinking now, ideally before you start, about how you can best position yourself for the job you want. Except there's no real way of knowing if your research will still be what's wanted by the time you finish 6 or 7 years later. The job market is bleak, yes, but there are things you can do to make you marketable, including having a plan B if you don't get a tenure track position at first.

UPenn is in the midst of decision making and results should be out soon. Some of the profs do interviews and some don't and some of the profs contact their new students and some don't, so the results might not all be at the same time.

I think it depends on the school. Since it was an external fellowship, my school didn't take out taxes in advance, even when I was teaching. This meant I needed to make sure to save about 15% each month to cover the tax bill. I don't know if California would be able to charge an additional tax on it, since it isn't related to employment, but I'd check with your specific institution to be sure. You probably won't get a refund, unless you've already paid a lot of income tax during the first part of this year when you weren't under fellowship.

Whether or not you can access that is up to the university. At mine, I'm covered by a school-wide fellowship, but since I have the NSF GRFP, they use the educational expense portion in place of the institutional fellowship. You'll have to negotiate; if it's a large R1, they probably have procedures in place for this.

If anyone is planning on Europe, consider buses. I spent seven weeks last summer hopping around Central and Eastern Europe and I found many times the cost of a train ticket to be two or three times the cost of a bus. Sometimes buses are even quicker! Going from Wroclaw to Prague would have taken almost six hours by train, but was only 5 by bus. Another tip for planning, the website http://www.rome2rio.com is awesome for planning. It shows you all the different travel options between locales and the approximate prices. It helped me figure out by far the least expensive option to get from Barcelona to Rome was flying. There are a lot of low cost carriers in Europe, so it really pays to look around! I love traveling solo. Not only can you pack each day with exactly what you'd like to see, but you can also take a slow, lazy day without feeling guilty you're slowing your travel companions down.

Sometimes Bones will drop a line or two about its interns being graduate students, but not very often. This week one of the characters took (and failed) her orals. I'm just about to take mine so I appreciated this moment of coincidence.

I'm not archy, but I'm in a four-field program and our core course in archaeology was theory heavy. Our prof was Robert Preucel, who is now at Brown. He worked with Ian Hodder and has done a lot of work on archaeological semiotics and community partnerships. I'm a big fan of Ian Hodder. Tim Ingold also does really interesting work, but he's in the UK.

There are plenty of places where finding funding isn't a matter of being confident in your research or your ability to find money. Some schools require students to do multiple years of coursework during which they aren't eligible for many grants to cover the cost of tuition, living, etc, even when students enter the program with a masters. Some schools don't allow students to take outside jobs while they're full-time students. Some schools don't have many RA or TA positions available for people in outside departments. Of course, in a lot of schools that require multiple years of coursework, no outside jobs, etc., they realize this and offer multi-year funding packages. And there are fellowships like NSF GRFP or the Ford Fellowship that might be able to cover those costs (but you have to get them first). I agree, getting grants and fellowships is very important to your future employability as an academic. Many times it takes several attempts to be successful at getting the grants; if you're a student that's underfunded or unfunded that can mean you have periods with no income. Not a great place to be when you're already dealing with the stressful nature of graduate school. So to the question of perfect fit, no funding vs. good fit and great funding, I'd be really tempted to go for the funding. But I'd spend some time bugging grad students in the great fit department to see how funding actually works. In some schools it is pretty easy to hit the ground running and round up funding. In others, not so much. Circumstances vary a lot, so it's not as easy a question to answer as it seems.

You might also look at individual professors. Columbia has Audra Simpson; UTA has Kim Tallbear; Scott Morgensen is at Queens College; Andrea Smith is at UCR, etc. Some of them are in anthro departments, some are in cultural studies departments, but don't discount a program because they don't have a specific focus. I took a course with Audra Simpson last year on governmentality, citizenship and indigenous political critique that was fantastic.