Korean Interrogatives:

wholesome student life things that we should collectively start romancizing

waking up and being genuinely thrilled to go to class because today is THAT CLASS you love so much you’d like it to never end

coffee breaks with friends, chatting and joking about this particularly hard essay and the prof’s mannerism

coffee breaks on your own, as you absent-mindedly watch the people around you, while thinking about what you’re working on

finding this book you’ve been dying to read for so long, and borrowing it from the library

the feeling of excitement that goes through you whenever you remember The Book is in your backpack

understanding everything during demanding classes and being genuinely interested in the subject

buying a New Special Pen and taking colorful notes that look super pretty

not being able to shut up about your school projects (no your friends dont really care about the intricate details of what you’re working on, they don’t even have the same major as you, but they’re happy to hear you rant with such a burning passion)

actually doing the extra reading and having your curiosity so piqued by what you’re reading that you go on and on and suddenly its 1am and what happened

printing the project you’ve spent so much time and energy on and feeling the paper’s warmth

actually submitting that project without feeling awful about it because you know you did your best and aren’t responsible for what happens next

when you finally finish this Super Hard And Important Essay at like 3am, open the window and feel the cold night air on your burning cheeks and everything is dark and quiet and you can see the moon and you’re at peace with everything for a few minutes

when this professor you admire says you did a great job and/or that you’re talented!!!!

realizing two concepts that seemed so far away from each other and that you discovered in wildly different contexts are actually interlinked, then Realizing™ things and linking concepts/works/articles to each other at the speed of light & being super excited about it

being so deeply immersed in your work that you didn’t realize two hours have passed

finding the Perfect Spot at the library

that Pure Joy moment when you FINALLY understand that super obscure sentence/text

when you feel anxious because you’re not done with your homework & the deadline is super tight & your friend tells you they aren’t done yet either

same but with an even more intense relief feeling when you realize you both haven’t even started yet

when the professor starts a new reasoning and you can predict what the next idea/the final conclusion will be

when the professor mention your favorite novel/author/fictional character in class and you feel like your internal screech of joy could shatter glass

the Academic Salt™ that has you like 👀👀

when the professor tears apart an author or scholar you hate and you’re like YES I WANT BLOOD GIVE ME BLOOD

when you learn that Cool New Fact that makes you reconsider your whole life

leaving the library after a long productive day and feeling like nothing is real but experiencing everything more intensely

leaving the library at night after a long study session and everybody has left already and its just you and the long neon-lit corridors then stepping outside and smelling the crisp night wind

feel free to add your own!!!

if you learned/are learning korean because of your favorite kpop group, or because you love kdramas, that does NOT make you cringy or a koreaboo. that’s actually really cool of you to do! and there is just literally no wrong reason to learn a new language, period.

How I prepped for the academic job market

I am by no means an expert on academic jobs just because I now (miraculously?) have one. But I have been told that I am organized, and, yes, that is because being an anxious person sometimes means having a system for everything. So before I totally bury all memories of the academic job market, I thought I would put together a timeline of some of the things I did to get ready to search for academic jobs…

My to-do list started very informally in the first year of my PhD program. I know that sounds over-the-top-early but the job market takes a lot of work. Checking things off one at a time helped me to feel in control. Here’s how I prepared for the academic job market as a PhD student:

Year 1

Do research that excites you: Enthusiasm for my research ended up being my momentum through a lot of the hard stuff that came later. Try to set yourself up to do the research that you want to do right away. This might include some trial-and-error and trying out different topics until you find the one.

Read The Professor is In: My MA advisor insisted I read this the summer before I started the PhD and, as always, she was totally right. When I told other grad students I had read a book about how tough the job market is they either said “I don’t need to read that yet” or “I don’t want to know how bad it is.” Ummmm…denial is not a good strategy. Knowing what you’re getting into is a good strategy. Even though the information about prepping job market materials was not yet relevant, having a framework for what would be evaluated helped me to define my grad school goals.

Year 2

Write papers that help you figure out your research area: I was pretty bad at this in my MA (I wrote papers about everythingggg). It’s ok to spend some time exploring topics, but once I had a topic area, I tried to use grad seminar papers to narrow in on that topic. This involved writing some papers that ended up being duds, and some that ended up being important parts of my dissertation. This leads to…

Ask about publishing: In seminars, I tried to have meetings with professors where I told them I wanted an academic job and needed experience publishing. They were usually willing to help develop seminar papers that had (somewhat?) original arguments in them, which is necessary for publishing. I was also not afraid to ask for lots of publishing help–how does it work? where should I submit this? can I use a cover letter you have written as a template? Publishing is confusing and took me a while to get used to.

Network smarter, not harder: This was the year I realized that going to giant conferences and hoping to meet people who did similar things was just not working. I reassessed and submitted to several smaller conferences that had the explicit goal of having senior faculty mentor grad students. It was amazing! First, these conferences were genuinely helpful, second, they were genuinely…genuine. I didn’t feel that I had to do any super fake networking anymore because I was really there to have conversations that developed my research.

Year 3

Read job postings: If your discipline has a listserv, subscribe, if not, check out the InsideHigherEd job postings. Note any trends in hiring. I don’t think you can totally pivot toward every job (duh) but you can think about how to make your application more friendly to what everyone seems to want. In my case, people who teach organizational communication were often also being asked to teach several other classes, so I made sure to ask to teach one of those so it would be on my record before the job market.

Submit, submit, submit: This is the year I got the most journal submissions under review. Some got accepted, some got (mega) rejected. Most needed several rounds of hardcore revisions that took 12-14 months. Submitting in year 3 gave me time to do those revisions so that I could use the articles as writing samples on applications.

Year 4

Prep materials: I drew on as many resources as possible to prep my job market materials–career services helped with my CV, our graduate teaching program on campus helped me writing my teaching and diversity statements, I asked recent graduates for example cover letters, my advisor read and edited cover letters, my DAD read and edited cover letters (what can I say he loves helping with grammar). It takes a village. Use the village. Oh, now is also a good time to reread TPII book for tips on writing decent materials.

Get organized: I had a spreadsheet where I put all of the relevant job information, especially deadlines, keywords, and information about each department.

Ask your letter writers: I did this in August. I also made them all a “job application digest”–just a word document with all of the jobs I submitted to and some notes about what I had said in my cover letter, so they could tailor rec letters.

Throw yourself at your dissertation: Every interview asked how I was planning to finish the dissertation. Making real progress made this question much easier. I definitely lost myself to the job market for a solid month in November. Then, I realized that my dissertation was the only thing I had control over. So I got back to work.

And here are some other resources that I also enjoyed reading:

Thoughts on diversity statements: What the heck even are they?, plus thoughts on the hidden curriculum of college and designing inclusive teaching on campus (Ps don’t just use these to write a diversity statement use them to actually do work in your classroom and campus environment so that what you write on your diversity statement is genuine).

A breakdown on cover letters

Another great post on the job hunt

Campus visit small talk

This post originally appeared on my WordPress

Hi Studyblr/Gradblr Friends!

What are you all using to create portfolios to showcase your work? Any recommendations? 

Pinky promise to shine your light brighter in 2019 ✨ Happy New Year!

🎧: Promise by #JIMIN

don’t make other people’s decisions for them. apply for the job you don’t think you’ll get. let them decide if you have the skills they’re looking for. tell that person you like them even though you think they’re out of your league. let them decide if they like you. stop trying to predict and control everything. bring what you have to the table. let the rest go.

apprendre une nouvelle langue | to learn a new language arrêter de fumer | to stop smoking arrêter de se ronger les ongles | to stop biting your nails boire moins d’alcool | to drink less alcohol moins dépenser | to spend less dormir plus | to sleep more faire plus de sport | to work out more lire plus | to read more manger mieux | to eat better obtenir un meilleur emploi | to find a better job passer moins de temps sur Internet | to spend less time on the Internet passer plus de temps en famille | to spend more time with family perdre du poids | to lose weight profiter de la vie | to enjoy life rire plus souvent | to laugh more often se coucher plus tôt | to go to bed earlier se faire de nouveaux amis | to make new friends se remettre en forme | to get back in shape trouver l’amour | to find love voyager plus | to travel more

in this house we do grandma activities