Director of the Undergrad Research Center—Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences @ UCLA. Dog Lady. My book Avidly Reads Poetry is now out from NYU Press! She/her.
May 14, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
I regularly have conversations with PhDs thinking about going into admin and staff jobs at colleges & universities so I am going to do a little thread about things that come up in these conversations!
first, about me: I am an assistant director of the Undergraduate Research Center for the Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences at UCLA. I have a PhD in English from UCLA & worked in contingent positions at UCLA + a New England SLAC for four years before switching to admin
Feb 12, 2022 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
A big part of my job is mentoring undergraduate students in research programs in the humanities, arts, and social sciences and so I have conversations with students who are thinking about getting PhDs every single week of my life. Here is what I tell them.
PhD programs can be amazing. Spend years of your life researching something that excites you intellectually can be wonderful. They can also be miserable, deeply anxiety-provoking under the best circumstances, and even with full funding, they often do not pay enough.
Jun 20, 2020 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
Because it is *that time* of year for many academics, I'm going to do a thread about my experiences applying for non-academic jobs and academic (but non-faculty) jobs. I hope that this will be useful, though let's be honest I was not doing this in a global pandemic so YMMV.
A bit about me: I completed my PhD in English at UCLA in 2015, lectured at UCLA for a year (part time, but got health insurance), and then got a VAP job at a fancy SLAC. I was on a series of 1 year contracts for 3 years, was well-paid for a VAP, but couldn't renew my contract.
Mar 2, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Some news: I found out last week that my last, best chance for a tenure-track job this year has evaporated. I cannot renew my contract at my current institution, and I’ve decided not to apply to visiting positions. This is quite likely my last year as a professor.
After spending 4 years in contingent positions on 1-year contracts, and 5 years on the academic job market altogether—some years as a finalist for TT positions, some years without interviews—I am exhausted in every way that you might imagine.
