Being proactive

[Alexander Lourenco]

Hi all!

First off, I'd like to introduce myself, as this is my first post here (besides the Meet & Greet): I am a graduate of Colgate University who has just been accepted to Trinity College Dublin's MPhil in Popular Literature. My life dream has always been to be a university professor and this is really the first time that I'm starting to see that dream actualized (one of my dreams has also always been to go to Europe for school, so- woo! Mission accomplished).

I've heard that the job arena is particularly dismal on both sides of the pond, though I want to teach in a European university (I am a dual American / Portuguese citizen, so no problems there). I suppose I wanted to ask if anyone had any advice for being proactive on this front; should I be attending networking things right away? Should I try to TA, or something? I'm kind of new at the whole process, and I don't want to be that pushy postgrad or anything. I'm just nervous and excited, and I don't want to mess up my chances to stand in front of a class of undergrads!

Of course, this may all be a moot point once I'm buried under mountains of graduate research

Thanks for reading, and thanks again for providing such a great forum!

[runonsentence]

This is a big question, but I'll take a stab at it. In a word: yes.

From what I understand from my tutors at my undergrad study abroad program in Oxford, if you want to teach in the U.S., you'd best help your career by getting your PhD in the states, where teaching assistantships are more common. (By a different logic, you should really only consider attending a PhD program later on down the road if you're able to get some kind of funding for it, whether it be a TAship, RAship, or fellowship. Paying for a PhD would be extremely unadvisable, especially if you're not going into a high-paying industry with a strong job market.)

If you're looking to better understand academia and what the job market is like, you might consider perusing a publication like The Chronicle of Higher Education or Inside Higher Ed. Granted, I don't know how much of the information in those periodicals applies to European universities, but those sites will give you an idea of what's currently going on in the academy, what the job market looks like, and have lots of advice columns and blogs.

Yes, you will need to network, and you'll need to better understand what it takes to get to the job market and make it in academia. When you start your master's degree, I suggest you work on presenting a paper at (at least) one conference, or at least attending one, in your first year. Also, attend any events/seminars on professionalization at your university (or sometimes conferences host these sorts of sessions as well).

Basically, get used to "plugging into" your field and the academy in general. I develop lists of professionalization goals for myself, and the list is always growing. Hopefully this gives you a few ideas for getting started.