Myth WeaverIf you can pass a background check, are reasonably physically fit, and want *lots* of time to read / study, might I suggest looking into a security guard gig? This was one of the many short term / part time gigs I did in my younger days. You get a night shift somewhere, absolutely nothing happens for hours on end. Lot of college guys, including myself, went this route.
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Well... Time to have a rant.
- Thread starter JCFarnham
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If you can pass a background check, are reasonably physically fit, and want *lots* of time to read / study, might I suggest looking into a security guard gig? This was one of the many short term / part time gigs I did in my younger days. You get a night shift somewhere, absolutely nothing happens for hours on end. Lot of college guys, including myself, went this route.
gavintonks
Maester
Do not be despondent, I had to walk the streets to get a job when I left college and my first job was a tyre salesmen before getting a job as a shoe designer.
My son had the same problem he worked for me for 2 years, then he got a job where the guys screwed him stupid but he persevered for 6 month and was offered something better when he was delivering, he has just recently landed a very prestigious position at Deloitte and everyone wants him - it is just staying the distance until you get the opening
Make a plan, I had a friend who wanted to work for a company so bad he went there everyday for 6 months and sat in th foyer until they gave him a job and then proved they had made the right decision
It is a tough world out there, It is even harder for my generation who are seen as too expensive and not in on the latest - so good luck and hang in there
My son had the same problem he worked for me for 2 years, then he got a job where the guys screwed him stupid but he persevered for 6 month and was offered something better when he was delivering, he has just recently landed a very prestigious position at Deloitte and everyone wants him - it is just staying the distance until you get the opening
Make a plan, I had a friend who wanted to work for a company so bad he went there everyday for 6 months and sat in th foyer until they gave him a job and then proved they had made the right decision
It is a tough world out there, It is even harder for my generation who are seen as too expensive and not in on the latest - so good luck and hang in there
Shockley
Maester
I am pursuing one of the more useless degrees - History.
Ideally, I want to teach history at a college or university somewhere and write in my free time. That's the dream at this point, though I think it's attainable. It's publish or die, you know, and I have enough confidence in myself that I could pump out a few textbooks and get a nice, forty thousand a year gig somewhere in Montana or North Dakota.
But that's not what I want, you know? I want to get my degree, be a professor at some prestigious university and travel the world. Do things. See India. Publish a novel. Become famous in my own way. That will be hard - that will be very hard.
At the end of the day though, that's difficult. Near impossible. But that's what makes it worthwhile.
Don't give up. Don't ever give up.
Ideally, I want to teach history at a college or university somewhere and write in my free time. That's the dream at this point, though I think it's attainable. It's publish or die, you know, and I have enough confidence in myself that I could pump out a few textbooks and get a nice, forty thousand a year gig somewhere in Montana or North Dakota.
But that's not what I want, you know? I want to get my degree, be a professor at some prestigious university and travel the world. Do things. See India. Publish a novel. Become famous in my own way. That will be hard - that will be very hard.
At the end of the day though, that's difficult. Near impossible. But that's what makes it worthwhile.
Don't give up. Don't ever give up.
Shockley, not to rain on your parade, but I have some experience in what you're doing. I thought I'd go to university for three years and get a degree in something I found interesting - ancient history and archaeology - and write in the mean time, and by the time I got my degree I'd also be published and my life would be set, and I had a back-up - get a forensic archaeology degree and join the police force. Well plan A definitely didn't work out, and plan B went down the toilet when, just as I was applying for a place on a course at a prestigious post graduate university, a friend of mine died in circumstances which I realised that, had I been in the police doing what I was aiming for, I'd have been investigating, and it made me realise I didn't have the stomach for it. So plan C was staying in academia, get a masters then do a PhD and become a professor. That didn't happen either. Turns out just applying to do a PhD takes a lot of work, and I didn't know what I wanted to do it on let alone where I wanted to do it. Plus it helps if you've got a paper published in the field you want to examine, which I don't, are fluent in Latin and Greek, which I'm not, can read articles in languages a lot of the literature is in (in this case German) which I can't and added bonus (less essential for the more theoretical topic I am now considering) some excavation experience, which I don't have.
Meanwhile, getting into teaching isn't easy either. My best friend has been trying for ages. The first time he applied for a teaching course he was told he didn't have enough classroom experience, despite having been a voluntary teaching assistant in a primary school once a week for 4 months. He kept at that and now, with a year and a half experience, they accepted him and he starts next month.
Primary is one thing, secondary subject teaching another. In the UK at least there's a glut of history teachers, and a shortage of science and maths teachers. If what you want to do is teach, swap course to something they want. If you want a career in history, I urge you to get a museum studies qualification, volunteer in museums whenever you've got a free couple of hours, and just not stop. There are two museums in the city I went to uni in. Repeated letters and a few phone calls and even in-person visits got me nothing in terms of voluntary shifts. They didn't want me. Over one summer I volunteered for a week (the only week I was at my parents house that summer) to help with the building of a Roman villa at Wroxeter, about which there was a channel 4 documentary series, and there's one shot where they're putting the frame in place where you can see me in shot. Mostly I made mud bricks, shaped rocks with hammer and chisel and used a hatchet to turn round tree trunks into roughly square beams. That experience counted for nothing in my attempts to get museum experience.
Careers in history are few and far between. Think about how many history professors there are at your college. Now think how many history students. And now thing how many students have graduated from your college since most of those teachers started their tenure. My sister's girlfriend's mum went to my uni and did the same degree I did thirty years ago and one of the faculty is still there. Meanwhile some 1600 students have passed through and got their degrees. And when I was doing my Masters degree, there was a postgrad office for all the AHA department's postgrad students, including the dozen or so PhDs. They never stopped complaining of how difficult it was to get a faculty position. One, with three published papers and a chapter in a book, spent hours every week applying for positions for six months before she got invited to interview. She got the job but even with a PhD and a strong publication record, there's a lot more supply than demand when it comes to lecturers in Roman archaeology.
So my advice to you is this:
1. Get yourself a plan B and probably a plan C
2. Find out precisely what you need to do to succeed and work hard at it.
Your biggest ally in getting an academic history job is publication experience. Research, write, ask for feedback, rewrite, submit to peeer reviewed journals and keep resubmitting and rewriting until you get it pubished.
Your second biggest ally is networking. Keep in touch with professors. If there's an article you've read which is closely related to what you're interested in studying, get in touch with the author and discuss it with them, if they're happy to do so and also alive still.
Good luck.
Meanwhile, getting into teaching isn't easy either. My best friend has been trying for ages. The first time he applied for a teaching course he was told he didn't have enough classroom experience, despite having been a voluntary teaching assistant in a primary school once a week for 4 months. He kept at that and now, with a year and a half experience, they accepted him and he starts next month.
Primary is one thing, secondary subject teaching another. In the UK at least there's a glut of history teachers, and a shortage of science and maths teachers. If what you want to do is teach, swap course to something they want. If you want a career in history, I urge you to get a museum studies qualification, volunteer in museums whenever you've got a free couple of hours, and just not stop. There are two museums in the city I went to uni in. Repeated letters and a few phone calls and even in-person visits got me nothing in terms of voluntary shifts. They didn't want me. Over one summer I volunteered for a week (the only week I was at my parents house that summer) to help with the building of a Roman villa at Wroxeter, about which there was a channel 4 documentary series, and there's one shot where they're putting the frame in place where you can see me in shot. Mostly I made mud bricks, shaped rocks with hammer and chisel and used a hatchet to turn round tree trunks into roughly square beams. That experience counted for nothing in my attempts to get museum experience.
Careers in history are few and far between. Think about how many history professors there are at your college. Now think how many history students. And now thing how many students have graduated from your college since most of those teachers started their tenure. My sister's girlfriend's mum went to my uni and did the same degree I did thirty years ago and one of the faculty is still there. Meanwhile some 1600 students have passed through and got their degrees. And when I was doing my Masters degree, there was a postgrad office for all the AHA department's postgrad students, including the dozen or so PhDs. They never stopped complaining of how difficult it was to get a faculty position. One, with three published papers and a chapter in a book, spent hours every week applying for positions for six months before she got invited to interview. She got the job but even with a PhD and a strong publication record, there's a lot more supply than demand when it comes to lecturers in Roman archaeology.
So my advice to you is this:
1. Get yourself a plan B and probably a plan C
2. Find out precisely what you need to do to succeed and work hard at it.
Your biggest ally in getting an academic history job is publication experience. Research, write, ask for feedback, rewrite, submit to peeer reviewed journals and keep resubmitting and rewriting until you get it pubished.
Your second biggest ally is networking. Keep in touch with professors. If there's an article you've read which is closely related to what you're interested in studying, get in touch with the author and discuss it with them, if they're happy to do so and also alive still.
Good luck.
Shockley
Maester
Not to derail the thread, but I'll respond.
I am more than willing to do a lot of work. I can write a paper no problem (I went to a charter school geared towards history, so I've been writing the equivalent of term papers since the sixth grade). I can read Latin, Greek and German (and Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, to boot), though I can only speak in German and my Greek is shoddy.
I was tutoring history for my school (with wages, time cards, etc.) from the eighth grade on. Three days a week, three hours a day. Not a problem.
I am lucky enough to have a local museum which I have a great relationship with - The North Texas Museum of History. Not only has my father (who is a historian in his own right) given them a good portion of their exhibits, I have helped them on a number of research projects. This will not be a difficult obstacle for me to surmount.
Naturally. Being the son of two professors, this is something I have drilled into my head daily.
I am not going into this half-cocked. I am not going into this without a plan. I didn't wake up one morning and say, 'Man, I should go to college because I have nothing else going on.' I've breathed history since I was very small (I remember getting a book on ancient Egypt when I was four, which might have been the start) and it's beyond passion and into obsession. When I was twelve I went to a charter that specialized in this, and I was accepted into university at fifteen. This is something I have been working towards forever, and it's going to take more than a glut of teachers or a down market to stop me.
I am more than willing to do a lot of work. I can write a paper no problem (I went to a charter school geared towards history, so I've been writing the equivalent of term papers since the sixth grade). I can read Latin, Greek and German (and Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, to boot), though I can only speak in German and my Greek is shoddy.
I was tutoring history for my school (with wages, time cards, etc.) from the eighth grade on. Three days a week, three hours a day. Not a problem.
I am lucky enough to have a local museum which I have a great relationship with - The North Texas Museum of History. Not only has my father (who is a historian in his own right) given them a good portion of their exhibits, I have helped them on a number of research projects. This will not be a difficult obstacle for me to surmount.
Naturally. Being the son of two professors, this is something I have drilled into my head daily.
I am not going into this half-cocked. I am not going into this without a plan. I didn't wake up one morning and say, 'Man, I should go to college because I have nothing else going on.' I've breathed history since I was very small (I remember getting a book on ancient Egypt when I was four, which might have been the start) and it's beyond passion and into obsession. When I was twelve I went to a charter that specialized in this, and I was accepted into university at fifteen. This is something I have been working towards forever, and it's going to take more than a glut of teachers or a down market to stop me.
Wow you're prepared. I wish I knew five years ago what I know now, but it looks like you've got it sussed. Best of luck.
Jess A
Archmage
You could try doing some short courses. Responsible Service of Alcohol and hospitality ones, for example, or other 3 month, 6 month courses. Good luck finding the cash and time to do them. But it's a thought.
I've been at University for a long time and am doing my third degree - I want to combine them. It's a risk and a long stint and I hope that it will be well worth it. I work part time in the family business. Job uncertainty is unpleasant and weighs on my mind, as it does most university students and graduates. I wish you the best of luck.
I've been at University for a long time and am doing my third degree - I want to combine them. It's a risk and a long stint and I hope that it will be well worth it. I work part time in the family business. Job uncertainty is unpleasant and weighs on my mind, as it does most university students and graduates. I wish you the best of luck.
