I’m thrilled to announce that starting in the fall of 2020, I will be an assistant professor of political science at @ColoradoStateU .
This did not come easy, so you better believe that this will be accompanied by an emotional, and long, thread.
This did not come easy, so you better believe that this will be accompanied by an emotional, and long, thread.
If books come with Acknowledgments, so will this job announcement. Here it goes:
First, without @katierapson none of this would happen. Academia is so hard on relationships. There is so much uncertainty and rejection all the time, you have no clue where you will live and for how long. I’m sorry for putting you through this and thank you for all the support.
Huge shout out to my mom and my brother. On Aug 11, 2000, the three of us landed at O’Hare in Chicago. My mom cleaned homes. Both me and my brother earned PhDs. Now I’m going to be a professor. How crazy is that??? #Immigrantsmakeamericagreat
My number one fan, my grandpa, unfortunately passed away last February. Me getting an academic job is something that he worried about a lot.
He came, all the way from Poland, to see the classroom where I taught my own Media and Politics class in Vancouver in the Summer of 2017, and he wanted to see where I work at Penn. Nie martw się dziadzio, dostałem świetną pracę.
Thank you to my excellent committee at @UBCPoliSci for guiding me in producing a dissertation that does not suck (I hope), and helping me secure an amazing postdoc: my advisor Paul Quirk, @rgcjohnston3 , @fredcutler , and @s_soroka.
Wonderful colleagues at @UBCPoliSci made it some of the best years of my life: Daniel Drugge, @ibavli, Denver McNeney, Brent Sutton, @GraceALore (without whom I would not pass the comps), @MiriamMatej, Sule Yaylaci, @Edana_Beauvais, Go Murakami, @AgustinGoenaga, @gorokhovskaia.
A very special thank you to @EricMerkley . My co-author, friend, and fellow donut and chicken wing enthusiast. He has made my work so much better. He’s one of the best and most prolific researchers that I have ever met. You should hire him immediately. #HireEricNow
I was very lucky to have tremendous cohort of fellow post-docs at @APPCPenn: Kathryn Haglin, Dan Chapman, Hang Lu, @ophiryotam , @matt_motta , and @oznkur . In addition to instantly becoming friends, they have been helpful colleagues and co-authors.
I’m also thankful for everyone at @APPCPenn for making this place home, especially @KWinneg , Dan Romer, Dolores Albarracin, @jmping , and @brucewhardy to name a few. APPC is really an amazing place to work.
.@matt_motta deserves a special shoutout. I met Matt in person for the first time during our APPC orientation, and it felt like we have known each other for years. Matt is a great scholar and friend. Our views on tank tops differ, but we’re still good friends and co-authors.
.@oznkur has also been a great friend and one of the kindest people I have ever met. When the job market, and academia, was putting me down, Ozan always encouraged me to think positively. Ozan is a great scholar, and you should definitely hire him right now.
My academic journey started with Dr. Thaddeus Radzilowski and the Piast Institute. Dr. Radzilowski was a mentor, co-author, role model, and a friend. He passed away last year, but I know that he would be very proud of this moment.
My political science journey started with @trevor_thrall . It was his Media and Politics class that got me interested in the topic, and it was him who hired me as a research assistant. This is where I learned that an academic career is even an option.
He’s been there from the first time I applied to grad schools (an impressive 100% rejection rate - applied to 10 and got rejected from 10). Since then, we’ve become friends and co-authors. @trevor_thrall been in my corner for 13 years and I wouldn’t be here without him.
.@s_soroka has been my mentor since I started my MA at @McGillPoliSci. He’s the most generous advisor a graduate student can ever hope for, because, as he puts it, he’s not just teaching you things, he’s surrounding himself with future colleagues.
When I got to APPC, I told myself that I will try to take every opportunity to make the most of my time here. I never expected that to include working with @m_levendusky, whose work has motivated a lot of my dissertation.
The fact that I got to collab on a project with Matt and co-author a paper blows my mind. But he has also provided invaluable help with my job market materials, job talk, and academia in general. I will never be able to fully repay him for his generosity.
The biggest privilege of working at @APPCPenn has been the opportunity to work for, coauthor, and learn from Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Kathleen is an absolute legend, but she still made time to mentor me and provide guidance on the job market and beyond. I’m tremendously lucky.
I’m also indebted to Mark Pickup, @SFU_polisci , and @SSHRC_CRSH for my postdoc at SFU. Having the opportunity to work with Mark and learn from him, as well as engage and present my work at SFU has been a great opportunity.
I know that academic twitter can be tedious at times. There is a lot of meaningless status flexing and random fights (I don’t care if you use R and Latex). But academic twitter can also be pretty great and somewhere to find support and encouragement.
I’m thankful for all the virtual support from @julia_azari , @SalilBenegal , @BrendanNyhan , @n_stenhou , @stevenwwebster , @jlove1982 and others, as well as for support IRL from @abaldama, @nathanrl2 , @robertfcarlos, @jldhouston , @marctrussler , and @eunjikim210 .
Special shoutout to @sidney_b who was one of the nice academic twitter folks, then we met at a conference, and now we’re working on a project together. We met in person for a total of probably 90 minutes, yet she's been so supportive it blows my mind. It means a lot.
You might say, this is a bit much. Who cares. It’s just a job. It is not. Academia is impossible. I probably have similar odds getting a professional soccer contract or landing that role on Broadway.
To give you an idea of how “smooth” this process was for me: I applied to 26 tenure track jobs in the 17/18 cycle, 82 in the 18/19 cycle, and 49 in this cycle so far. I applied broadly, in political science and communication, in N America, Europe, and Australia.
Out of these 157 jobs, I received 3 invitations for phone interviews (2%) and 1 invitation for a campus visit (0.6%). I was fully prepared to begin looking at other things to do in the spring, such as beginning my career as an Instagram model and herbal tea merchant.
The point of this is to acknowledge that “I didn’t built this” on my own. I have been very lucky to benefit from the wisdom of other people and their guidance and support.
I am painfully aware that if I were not this lucky, I will probably not have a job, because the system does not work very well and many well-published, promising researchers routinely leave academia. I personally know too many people that fit that description.
This constant rejection has altered my ability to feel joy. I’m still a bit shell shocked that I actually have a job.
I’m thrilled to be joining @ColoradoStateU and amazing, friendly collegues like @KyleLSaunders , @matthewhitt , @ipeterharris and the twitterless others. END
I’m thrilled to be joining @ColoradoStateU and amazing, friendly collegues like @KyleLSaunders , @matthewhitt , @ipeterharris and the twitterless others. END
