Research Assistantship in the humanities

[stillthisappeal]

Has anyone ever worked as a research assistant for an English professor (or, more broadly, a professor in the humanities)? What did your work entail? Was it a worthwhile experience? Would you suggest it over teaching for someone who already has a fair amount of teaching experience?

[Sparky]

I was a humanities (not English, though) RA during my master's degree. I did a lot of footnote and bibliography formatting, and proofreading. I made several indices for a book the prof was editing (subject, primary source, non-English phrases, etc). I spent a lot of time with the copier. A lot. Think all the busywork tasks that you hate. I got paid to do them.

If you get paired with a prof who works in something near your field, and if the prof assigns you actual research tasks, it might be useful. Otherwise I would go for the teaching. Is your teaching experience at whatever level you plan to teach at post-degree?

[runonsentence]

I have, over the summer. (Otherwise known as, "My awesome, awesome mentor saved my ass from food stamps. Twice.")

I would recommend you feel out the potential PI and ask what kind of work s/he sees you doing. Some will delegate menial tasks, like Sparky's professor; my own mentor handed me a project, guided me with ideas and feedback, and had me run the show. I did my own research and blogged on my progress and about the literature I was reading (I created a research blog specifically for the RAship, separate from my personal research blog). The reading I did, while not necessarily a keen interest of mine originally, is nonetheless practical and marketable, and per some conversations I've had with others in the field and some editors, has given me some really promising publication opportunities.

Your duties will probably also depend on the rhetorical situation at hand; that is, to what purpose are you helping your professor toward? In my case, I was given an RAship last summer on writing program assessment because my mentor (the director of comp) had other grants to work on that summer and didn't have time to read through assessment literature (which, she successfully argued to the grant committee, was a vital area of research for her to investigate).

If you sound out the RA opportunity and it seems worthwhile, I'd say to definitely consider it. It'd be good to augment your CV with some diverse experience, IMO, and it could potentially lead to a new body of knowledge and/or some publication opps.

Edited August 3, 2011 by runonsentence

[stillthisappeal]

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm going to go for it because the professor's research is genuinely interesting to me and, based on the terms we discussed, it seems like it will create a more consistent (and therefore more easily managed) workload. Moreover, I'll get to teach one section of comp in the fall and spring, so I don't have to worry about losing my teaching chops.