grad student life

Jobs and Cats (Or, How to Navigate the Academic Job Market)

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Cats are natural companions for writers, not only because they’re relatively independent and undemanding of one’s attention—though there is that—but also because they tend to strike us as kindred spirits. Observers. Introverts. Always practicing their craft—only instead of wordsmithing, a cat’s craft happens to be hunting, and instead of word counts and margin scribbles, the cat’s main concerns are sparring, claw maintenance, and play-hunting: chasing shadows, leaves, laser pointers, and any other facsimile of prey. “The cat does not offer services,” William S. Burroughs wrote. “The cat offers itself.”- from The Half-Wild Muse: On Writers and Their Cats by Tim Weed

It’s Tuesday night, and I’m in typing on a keyboard while a cat nudges its head next to my leg. When you watch a cat, there’s something to envy. Their feet under their stomachs, posed like a loaf of bread. All of their worries flow off of their smoothed coats. Right now, I think about how they didn’t need a degree to have their expenses covered. Or how success can be found by catching a wild bird. I would love for all of my problems to be solved by catching a bird. Instead, I’m an academic. And right now, I’m on the job market.

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Studying for Candidacy Exams During a Pandemic (Or, Why I Love the Show Community): Part 1 of 3

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I just finished my third year of my doctoral program at Ohio State. There’s so much to write about, like teaching online during a whole year of quarantining, studying for candidacy exams, and moving into the phase of dissertation writing and the academic job market search. I’ve also been meaning to write about my academic focus on my blog for a long time now. Medical Humanities is a really interesting study, but I’ve always felt like I can’t just “write” about it, as if I’m describing what I had for lunch. I want people to feel what it’s like to study this field. For that, I’ve decided to write about my experience with all of this in a three-part series of blog posts. I hope this series gives my readers a sense of how my program is going, and I’m happy to chat about it if you have any questions. This is Part 1 of 3

After finishing coursework last year, I moved into the candidacy exam phase of my program. I complied a list of over 150 books that reflect my major and minor fields. (Major: Medical Humanities; Minor: Post-1945 American Literature, with an emphasis on graphic narratives) This sounds treacherous to some, but for me, this was one part of my program I was really looking forward to. Ever since I became a full-time student (by “full-time student”, I don’t mean starting my program at OSU; I mean back to when I decided to quit my job to pursue a career in writing, and taking Intro to Literature classes at my community college), I’ve always felt like I was years behind my colleagues when it came to being familiar with the literary canon. It feels like not that long ago, I didn’t know who William Faulkner was, or even what the word “canon” meant. Every summer, I would spend hours on hours at libraries or parks, sitting at a bench, reading the classics and other books that I felt I should be familiar with. I actually really enjoyed it! It felt like I was enriching my knowledge, climbing to the top of the shoulders of giants I’m supposed to be standing on. Now, I get to gain the specialization I’ve always wanted through doing just that. I am now posed to apply my strengths while in my program.

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