Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Starting Academic Job Search Again

On the advice of people older and wiser than me I am going to again apply for lecturships in history for one more season. Then I may very well throw in the towel and go back to making coffee. I do not have alot of optimism that I am doing anything other than wasting paper, postage and the valuable time of those writing me letters of recommendation. It seems that by not getting a stupid TAship I have no hope of ever getting even an adjunct position. At anyrate I found six openings to apply for this fall for jobs starting next fall. But, I really think I need to find a career in which I can do things like research and write that does not require that I have gotten a magical TAship. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get any usuable advice on this matter. If I stayed at the Cafe I could have been a saucier by now.

4 comments:

Chris Conway said...

You should look for last minute appointments and jobs at community colleges. Some times they don't advertise nationally. Once you get in somewhere you can get the experience you need to be a contender at a larger institution. I can't stress enough that you should apply to every imaginable job, large or small. I really hope it works out for you!

Frank said...

Best of luck, JOP!

J. Otto Pohl said...

Thanks guys.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Eurosabra,

Thanks for the comment. One of the problems in Central Asian studies is that everybody from the now dead field of Soviet studies moved there. There are also some unique problems to my situation. Most notably that I have no teaching experience. I have a post that goes into detail about this titled "In response to Dr. Camicao." But, the no teaching experience seems to be an insurmountable obstacle.