Category: moving

careers · flexible academic · grad school · moving

Guest Post: On feeling lonely and homesick

erinewunker

I recently left my steady job in university administration, my lovely flat and my favourite people behind to move across Europe to become the impoverished full-time PhD candidate I had dreamed of becoming ever since I began my doctoral studies. As long as I can remember, I’ve felt content with being by myself. I used to love the weekends alone at home, travelling on my own and spending some quality time at the library with none other than moi. Loneliness wasn’t a concept that made any sense to me.

The last time I can recall that I felt properly overwhelmed by a feeling of homesickness was probably when I was eleven years old and begging my mum to take me back home with her instead of dropping me off at summer camp. And there I was sixteen years on. In a room barely furnished smelling of cat pee, a city I had never been to, and worst of all (and this would send anyone over the edge), the Wi-Fi wasn’t working properly.

During these first few days, I felt as if I was floating through space with no sense of time or direction. I saw my entire future laid out in front of me: I’d never have friends again, I’d spend all of my days alone, I’d be constantly freaked out, never finish my thesis and eventually move back home where I’d remain unhappily ever after because of the opportunities I missed out on. It also made scared of the time post PhD – the what-the-hell-have-I-done-I-think-I’m-having-a-heart-attack kind of scared.

This move was supposed to make my life easier and not create a completely new set of paralysing problems. It made me seriously question whether this was a lifestyle I could sustain in the long run and I pictured myself having to go through this process over and over again when all I wanted was to pull the duvet over my head and never face the world again.

Very dramatic, I know. Fast forward: it’s now a few months into my relocation and I don’t spend all of my time alone. While I still struggle occasionally, I feel that I’m going to be just fine.

Here’s a few things that have helped me, and continue to help me:

It’s ok

It’s ok to feel whatever you feel. It’s ok to feel overwhelmed, helpless, sad, frustrated, freaked out, scared, worried, angry and out of place. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. Accept that your subconscious is complicated and while you think you’re ready, she might need extra time to adjust to the new environment. Be kind to yourself, have a nice meal, take a bubble bath, binge watch Netflix, buy lots of nail polish (guilty!), re-read your favourite book, call your friends and family – whatever floats your boat.

Be relatively organised

If you’re anything like me, you like to plan ahead and organise your life. While this is generally a good idea, because it might give you a sense of agency and security (it did for me), you might also run the risk of feeling completely overwhelmed by the eternity that is your future. Step by step. I tried to come up with a rough plan for the year (dates for chapter submissions, conferences and trips home) but apart from that I’m taking it week by week.

Be active

Force yourself to go outside, to do and see things. Explore your new surroundings, check out art galleries, museums and cafés. Do some exercise; endorphins are not to be underestimated.

Also show an active interest in your colleagues at work. You’re new (which sucks at times), so it’s very much up to to you to take initiative to form new alliances and remind people that you exist. Everyone is busy, so don’t let an apparent lack of interest in your person discourage you from approaching fellow students/staff members. I can’t stress enough how important real life contacts are.

Be realistic

You’re not going to be able to re-create your own life immediately and neither should you feel you have to. Pace yourself and accept that it might take a little while to find people you like hanging out with. In the meantime, cherish these precious first weeks of novelty and find a way to turn them into a generative and productive force for your own work – it might just be the fresh perspective you’ve been waiting for!

Be the light for someone else

I cannot help but think that this is the most important of all of my points. Do your best to move on from your initial feeling of complete and utter instability but don’t forget what it felt like. Let it humble you and make you more understanding of and kind to others who find themselves in similar situations. If you see someone who is new and struggling, offer your help, have a cup of coffee together and you in turn will also be one step closer to building a new social network.

You’ve got this!

Veronika Schuchter is a Visiting Scholar at Nottingham Trent University (UK) where her doctoral research on contemporary women’s writing is supported by the Austrian Ministry of Science. When she’s not busy being a feminist killjoy, she enjoys painting her nails, writing postcards and jumping into puddles.

academic work · after the LTA · classrooms · guest post · moving

Guest Post: Academic Alternatives

erinewunker4 Comments
It’s a well-known fact that after defending one’s PhD, a person is in want of direction. Few of us have the strategic training to line up a tenure-track job while ABD, were there an adequate supply tenure track jobs. I defended in January 2008. The time after my defence was exhilarating. I felt like a crack addict who tasted the world anew. But with all drugs, the euphoria passed and I plummeted into the dark dungeon of the academic job-market, exacerbated by the post-economic-collapse of the 2008 mortgage crisis. The attrition of tenure-track jobs was a lethal combination with the absence of conversation and advising about alternatives to academia, well documented by Hook and Eye, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and others concerned by the corporatization of the university. 
Out of fear of disappointing my advisors and myself for failing to obtain a position at an “acceptable” research institution, I took an Assistant Professorship at the American University of Dubai in 2010. To my great surprise it transformed and invigorated my desire to teach and to pursue my scholarship. With housing and a tax-free salary, it was also financially sound. An overseas academic job was for me, and friends, a circuitous but fruitful path. Though I taught four courses a semester, and often two during a summer term, I found time to write and think and travel. In the three years I lived in Dubai, I published four peer-reviewed articles and a book review, and traveled to nearly fifteen countries in addition to paid visits home every summer.  
There are many, many problems with working and living in the Middle East, including the exploitation of the labour class, the for-profit university model, and the rampant racism and sexism. It would be easy to dismiss Dubai and the American University in Dubai for all manners of social justice and environmental crimes, and one day I might write in more detail about these, but on the ground I was also able to encounter incredible people and their narratives, to witness and to learn about colonial legacies, and to challenge my Western-centric political assumptions about the Middle East, globalization, postcoloniality, capitalism, literature and religion. Many of us talk about learning from students in our pedagogical statements, but this was not really true for me until I witnessed the many social, cultural, and political negotiations my students undertook everyday: Emirati students were full of joy and pride for their country’s rise, but unwilling to attend to the enslavement of construction workers; brilliant Indian and Pakistani students whose families helped Dubai grow were pained by exclusionary policies which prevented their families from obtaining Emirati citizenship; Nigerian and Kenyan students sought to understand their countries’ neocolonial legacies and corruption, while embracing Western culture; bright Iranian women worked assiduously to prove themselves to their families, but feared feminism; Kazakh students espoused conservative Muslim beliefs, although they enjoyed hard liquor, fast cars, and sexual promiscuity; Egyptian students brimmed with excitement during the revolution Arab Spring but understood little about their country’s history. They all, admirably, spoke three or four languages, respected their parents, and held professors in high esteem. As a quirky, unmarried, enthusiastic, socially-attuned, and reasonably young woman, I felt that I also offered a model for a differing subjectivity that alerted students to richer possibilities than what cultural and patriarchal norms establish, almost universally. (These same issues also surface in classrooms in New York, which shows the extensive convergences between “East” and “West.”) 
Not all of us can go overseas or desire to live in blinding heat and under a liberal Sharia law, but for those who love teaching and the possibilities of the world, there is much to advise about seeking academic work in Asia, the Middle East, or Eastern Europe at schools accredited or affiliated with North American institutions. 
My Dubai experience of teaching a diverse student body surely helped me to obtain a tenure-track position at Hostos Community College in 2013. Hostos belongs to the City University of New York consortium of 24 colleges and has a special history of serving the underserved Hispanic and Black communities of the South Bronx. Its faculty are devoted, long-serving, and passionate teachers and scholars. My colleagues are amazing. They support and pursue teaching innovation, encourage rigorous scholarship, provide mentoring about the tenure process, and nurture junior scholars. My scholarly presentations and publications are received with enthusiasm, not with competitive jealousy. The tenure process is clearly outlined by the union and the college, rather than obscured and ambiguated. Collaboration is encouraged and lauded. Because it is part of CUNY, I would venture that Hostos functions like some small postsecondary institutions in terms of the culture of scholarship and opportunities for pedagogical and research development. There is an awards officer who works closely with us to produce successful grant applications, and both the Provost and the Dean of Academic Affairs wholeheartedly advocate time and funding for conferencing and research.
There is something incredibly human about Hostos. Space is limited, supplies are modest, work is abundant, and energy is seemingly unlimited. The teaching load is, as it was in Dubai, four courses a semester, half composition and half literature classes. I have fewer students than adjuncts who teach two or three courses at larger institutions. My students might work full time, live out of a shelter, have childcare responsibilities, experience gang violence on a daily basis, be victims of domestic abuse, and battle racial and ethnic brutality everyday. I sense that some have been nearly hollowed out by social abjection. Never have I been more convinced of the necessity of power of education. I have learned that students are the same everywhere, that they try, fail, try again, if there is the right engagement from their professors. I don’t yet know if I am succeeding. I do know that I am thankful for this work, for this job, and for my colleagues. 
It takes some imaginative work to carve out your own path after the defence, and that path should be broader than the dream of a position at an R1 (first-level, research) institution. There is a snobbishness about teaching positions, whether at a technical school, a community college, a writing center, a liberal arts college, or a non-research institution; it implies that one has not made the cut or is less “intellectual”. It is also an unstated rejection of the labour of academia, which we would rather contract out to adjuncts. This attitude is particularly baffling in light of my alma mater, which structures the PhD package so that most candidates teach first-year classes from the start. Many of us benefitted intellectually and pedagogically from these classroom experiences, and yet it was always understood that we should aim “higher” than a teaching position. On the contrary, teaching positions have enabled me to do the work that I love: teach. I don’t glamorize it or marry my life to it. I experience my rewards when students arrive at a breakthrough or offer small thanks. I worry about the ones who sift through urban war-zones and private minefields to get an education. At the end of the day, I try to leave the weight of my students’ troubles at the office. Other friends who have landed permanent work at liberal arts or non-research colleges (Vancouver Island University, Quest University, NAIT) enjoy a similar experience as I: we do the work we trained to do.

Many states and provinces have college consortiums (Texas, Georgia, California, Illinois, New York) and online application systems that will list positions from their various colleges. University Affairs has international job listings for those interested in overseas positions. Look for schools called “American University” or “Canadian University”. NYU has several global campuses, including one in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. Writing Programs and Centers at these institutions yield interesting positions. Don’t be afraid of venturing into a two-or-three-year contract. There is no guarantee, but it will be an adventure.

Hostos Community College
after the LTA · DIY · moving

Avoiding the Empathy Trap 2: Frank Talk About Moving

erinewunker3 Comments

Today, I’m packing up my office. Soon, we’ll have to start packing up our home. My partner and I have calculated that if we combine our individual moves since finishing high school this will be move number fifty-one for us. FIFTY-ONE. I have spent the last forty-five minutes culling books from my collection, because this time I am moving without a moving allowance (though luckily my partner has one with his new position). I have taken all the art off my office walls and piled it up on a filing cabinet. I can’t even begin to tackle the paper that has accumulated over the last twelve months. Despite my best efforts at organization and downsizing it can’t be denied: I have a lot of work-related stuff. And it has to go in boxes. All of it. Again.

Packing makes me angry. Moving makes me tired. What does any of this have to do with avoiding the empathy trap? Plenty. If you are an early career scholar, or a contract academic faculty member the imperative–both to pay the bills and to keep a foot in the door of academia–you probably have to move for work. You definitely have to think about moving and weigh whether or not you will move.

Let’s not mince words: moving is hard work. It takes physical energy (are there boxes? Can we actually lift this thing? How do we tell the anxious dog it will be ok? Where the hell is the modem return place?) Moving also takes emotional energy, and that’s the part people tend to forget when addressing work-related moves. There is a real desire to pass over the hard parts of moving and focus on new beginnings. And new beginnings are great, but newness doesn’t always go hand in hand with ease and excitement and a clear path into what’s next. Academics–especially early career academics– aren’t the only ones who move, but as Lee Skallerup Bessette writes, perpetual movement is the modern academic condition. That, friends, is worth pausing to think about for a moment.

One of the many things that I have written about over the years is moving. Four years ago, fresh off my move from Alberta to Nova Scotia, I wrote this post about the implicit imperative for graduate students to move for each degree. I realize now that when I wrote it I was writing from a position of a kind of myopia. I moved for all three of my degrees, and I did so because I wanted to move. I was able to move between countries, provinces, and landscapes with relative ease. Yes, it meant building new communities each time, yes, it meant haunting the liquor store for packing boxes over and over again. Ultimately, though, it was my choice and my privilege to move. I wasn’t tied to a place, I am an only child, my parents were willing and able to visit me wherever. Was I privileged? Sure. Has moving a zillion times taught me some things? Yes. I know I can make a life wherever I go. I know I can pack a house in three days flat. I know how to forge routines until they feel like home. But the imperative to move, move, move has cost me too. I wasn’t tied — rooted — to a place. I wager it has cost a lot of us, and I suspect it costs communities and universities a lot more that the institutions realize.

Over the last few years I have become more and more grounded in a particular place, a particular region of Canada. I have also met more and more people for whom place is sacred. I mean really, truly sacred. Moving from a place means severing daily ties to family (both blood and chosen), community, and the land. It means having to leave your home. It means having to leave your home.

Take a minute and think about the implications of that statement. Be careful not to misread it.

The imperative of moving for work is not a new one. I won’t forget the first time I flew from Alberta to Atlantic Canada. It was a red eye flight and it stopped in Halifax before heading on to St. John’s. It was full of people who were going home on furlough after working in Fort MacMurray on the rigs or on the Tar Sands. The woman next to me asked where I was from and when I hedged she asked why I was going to Nova Scotia. “For work,” I said. I won’t forget what she said next: you’re lucky, she said. We’re all working out west so that we can come home. There are a million different versions and experiences of people having to move for work. There are many ways in which moving can be good, can be positive, can be exciting, and, more simply, can be a way of paying the bills. But in academia–and especially in my disciplines that are in the Humanities–I wonder how well we are doing in thinking through what it means to reproduce a move-for-subsistence model.

So what’s the take-away in this second post on avoiding the empty trap? It is this: on the quotidian level let’s acknowledge that the nomadic imperative in academia means different things at different stages of the career. Moving as a guest lecturer or visiting professor does not mean the same thing as moving for a sustainable paycheque. Is it hard to change a system? Sure. But it won’t happen if we don’t talk about full range of issues.

Now, who wants to come over and help me pack?

grad school · making friends · moving

On Moving

Lily Cho15 Comments

As you know, blogging is new for me. Last week while I was rushing to finish a mind-blowingly long application I sent out a request for post ideas. A new acquaintance of mine suggested discussing moving. Or, more accurately, he suggested discussing the mostly-unspoken pressure to move around to complete various degrees.

Moving is a topic near to my heart… Since beginning my undergraduate degree in 1997 I have moved 18 times. I’ve lived in North Carolina, British Columbia (island and interior and, for a short time, on a school bus), Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and now Nova Scotia. I’ve gone to three different universities to obtain my three degrees, took one small year off (hence the BC living), and have happened to move house almost every year for various reasons. Given that I and many of my dear friends and acquaintances are also still on the job market moving is very much on my mind.

But as I mentioned my friend who initially suggested this post had a slightly different angle in mind. He’d been thinking specifically about the pressure to move to a different university to complete your degree. That’s something which was really easy for me to do, and less so for him given family obligations. But he’s got me thinking: is moving to do your degree necessary?

I always thought so, though in retrospect I’m not certain why. I began my academic career in the United States. I was already accustomed to moving, my parents changed career when I was 10 leading us from Ottawa to rural North Carolina twice a year. So perhaps the itch/ability/inevitability to move was ingrained. But, those of you located in the U.S. of A. will know that it isn’t necessary to move this much if you choose to enter academia: the Masters degree is streamed into the PhD process which means that (like the student who received and ‘A’ on her Emerson paper) students begin the PhD process at age 21 or so (making huge obvious assumptions about going straight through one’s degree with no deviations or interruptions called life). Another good friend of mine did this: we began our BA at the same time, she’s finished her PhD now, and she’s lived in the same place for more than 4 years.

In Canada there does seem to be more pressure to move around to do one’s degree. As I say, that’s been easy for me in the past because I’ve almost always been making decisions for myself alone. But I can think of several friends–of various genders–who have agonized about continuing on because it has generally required leaving or uprooting family and partner.

I’m not sure what I think about this imperative–real or implied–to move for various degrees. Certainly that’s due in part to the fact it hasn’t been an overly agonizing detail for me (although that’s changing now). I appreciate the three very different geographic spaces in which I took my degrees: North Carolina and Montreal and Alberta have surprising similarities in addition to the myriad of obvious differences. I have become extremely adept at starting over. But is it necessary to move?

Your turn readers: what do you think about the pressure (implied or overt) to move for various degrees?