How can I unbind my life?
July 28, 2013 10:47 PM Subscribe
I'm in a bind. Six years ago I made the mistake of entering grad school in a humanities field, in which pretty much the only career trajectory is to become an academic. I'm now pretty sure I wouldn't be happy in a standard academic job. However, I have few other marketable skills. There's the added complication that I'm a foreign student without a green card, so if I quit the program, or finish and fail to find a job, I'd have to leave the US and go back to my home country, which I don't want to do. I feel there must be possible courses of action which I'm not seeing, and would appreciate help finding them.
Some further relevant info:
- What I dislike about the prospect of an academic career is the pressure to produce publishable research. I'm not interested in doing research and find writing papers an absolute torture. The thought of having to do this for six or seven years in order to get tenure makes me seriously fear for my mental health. Also, my ideal job is one that doesn't follow you home -- once you knock off for the day, your time is your own. This isn't the case with academic positions that require a publication record, since this type of work tends to bubble out and eat all your spare time (in my experience, anyway).
- I like teaching my subject and might be happy in a job that was teaching-heavy and didn't require constant production of publications. However, such jobs are very thin on the ground in my field.
- The only professional ambition I've ever had was to be a novelist. This is obviously impractical as a plan, especially given the green card situation. If I had a green card, I would probably have quit grad school long ago and be working odd jobs to pay the bills while I wrote, but this isn't possible as things stand.
- Before grad school I worked part-time as a freelance translator for a while. This is pretty much my only marketable skill, but it doesn't get me very far since I don't think many employers are willing to sponsor immigrants for a green card for translation work. I haven't seriously looked into this because I didn't find translation work enjoyable.
- The obvious way to get a green card would be to get married, but there are no candidates on the horizon at the moment.
- My dissertation is about half finished and I could finish it with a few months of intensive effort, but I have little motivation to do this.
- I will probably have funding to stay in grad school for the coming year, but certainly not after that (and I wouldn't want to anyway).
- Returning to my home country is an absolute last resort, since I don't like it there and the economic and political situation is pretty bad.
I feel trapped, and am worried that come next spring when my funding runs out and my student visa expires I will be left without options. Any and all creative ideas will be welcomed.
Some further relevant info:
- What I dislike about the prospect of an academic career is the pressure to produce publishable research. I'm not interested in doing research and find writing papers an absolute torture. The thought of having to do this for six or seven years in order to get tenure makes me seriously fear for my mental health. Also, my ideal job is one that doesn't follow you home -- once you knock off for the day, your time is your own. This isn't the case with academic positions that require a publication record, since this type of work tends to bubble out and eat all your spare time (in my experience, anyway).
- I like teaching my subject and might be happy in a job that was teaching-heavy and didn't require constant production of publications. However, such jobs are very thin on the ground in my field.
- The only professional ambition I've ever had was to be a novelist. This is obviously impractical as a plan, especially given the green card situation. If I had a green card, I would probably have quit grad school long ago and be working odd jobs to pay the bills while I wrote, but this isn't possible as things stand.
- Before grad school I worked part-time as a freelance translator for a while. This is pretty much my only marketable skill, but it doesn't get me very far since I don't think many employers are willing to sponsor immigrants for a green card for translation work. I haven't seriously looked into this because I didn't find translation work enjoyable.
- The obvious way to get a green card would be to get married, but there are no candidates on the horizon at the moment.
- My dissertation is about half finished and I could finish it with a few months of intensive effort, but I have little motivation to do this.
- I will probably have funding to stay in grad school for the coming year, but certainly not after that (and I wouldn't want to anyway).
- Returning to my home country is an absolute last resort, since I don't like it there and the economic and political situation is pretty bad.
I feel trapped, and am worried that come next spring when my funding runs out and my student visa expires I will be left without options. Any and all creative ideas will be welcomed.
Can you tie your field of study, even distantly, to a field outside of academia? If so, perhaps you could work to turn yourself into a viable expert on (field outside of academia) with a unique point of view that's informed by (academic field of study).
For instance, if you were an anthropologist you could tie your studies to organizational management or HR.
posted by grudgebgon at 10:56 PM on July 28, 2013
For instance, if you were an anthropologist you could tie your studies to organizational management or HR.
posted by grudgebgon at 10:56 PM on July 28, 2013
As a foreign national, you can join the US military to be naturalized.
posted by Brent Parker at 11:00 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Brent Parker at 11:00 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
I don't want to be dismissive or condescending, but you will not have any *more* options if you blow off finishing your dissertation. You're so close! Six years in and your diss is half-finished, that's close! Truly (and again, this is potentially condescending, but your feelings are more common than maybe you know) the majority of people are so very very tired of grad school and their disses by the end.
Just because your US visa is running out doesn't mean you have to go home. Consider what options are open to a person knowledgable in your field in other countries overseas. (That also doesn't rule out going back to the US on an employer-sponsored visa, if you can expand your marketable skills while you work overseas.) It's also possible you could get a working holiday visa outside the US, work those odd jobs for a year, and write your novel somewhere. (Australia has such a program, although it's limited to people 18-30 years old.)
posted by gingerest at 11:10 PM on July 28, 2013 [5 favorites]
Just because your US visa is running out doesn't mean you have to go home. Consider what options are open to a person knowledgable in your field in other countries overseas. (That also doesn't rule out going back to the US on an employer-sponsored visa, if you can expand your marketable skills while you work overseas.) It's also possible you could get a working holiday visa outside the US, work those odd jobs for a year, and write your novel somewhere. (Australia has such a program, although it's limited to people 18-30 years old.)
posted by gingerest at 11:10 PM on July 28, 2013 [5 favorites]
What is the job market like for teaching jobs in your field? In my field (social science tho), R1types with a lot of enthusiasm for teaching and some experience can find teaching positions.
It seems to be a lot of work - 5+ courses per term, but...
Also lecturer positions at R1s work this way.
You need to finish the diss to have options.
posted by k8t at 12:16 AM on July 29, 2013
It seems to be a lot of work - 5+ courses per term, but...
Also lecturer positions at R1s work this way.
You need to finish the diss to have options.
posted by k8t at 12:16 AM on July 29, 2013
What language(s) do you speak? I know you don't like translating but if it's a language that's in demand your options expand considerably, even though most translation work is freelance. If you're at a well known school I'd also suggest private school teaching, but there you'll fare better if you do finish (they like to have PhDs on staff). And you will still have to take some work home with you.
Also, you need to start taking advantage of your institution's career center.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 12:17 AM on July 29, 2013 [2 favorites]
Also, you need to start taking advantage of your institution's career center.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 12:17 AM on July 29, 2013 [2 favorites]
You must finish the dissertation and the degree. After that, well, look around, you are totally not going to make an academic career happen if you don't like research or writing or a job you take home 24/7. Good for seeing it now. A lot of students do not.
posted by spitbull at 2:47 AM on July 29, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by spitbull at 2:47 AM on July 29, 2013 [2 favorites]
Among other things finishing the degree buys you a year for OPT.
posted by spitbull at 4:41 AM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by spitbull at 4:41 AM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
The Chronicle of Higher Education has resources for getting off the academic track. Sorry I can't link right now, but for one there's an entire forum dedicated to "Leaving Academe." They also have articles in the Advice section every so often. You have more skills that are relevant in the private sector than you think. Good luck!
posted by orange (sherbet) rabbit at 5:07 AM on July 29, 2013
posted by orange (sherbet) rabbit at 5:07 AM on July 29, 2013
Yep, what spitball said. Have you looked into what you need to do to stay in the US? I'm not a lawyer but I did just finish my PhD and have stayed on. OPT is the easiest way but it's only a year long extension. You can apply for a change of status but it takes so long to process, you should think about applying now before your visa ends (dropping out without another visa in place is a really bad idea). You may not practically have any way to stay on. In your shoes, I'd look into countries with slightly different requirements, e.g. Canada, Europe. Good luck.
posted by hydrobatidae at 6:05 AM on July 29, 2013
posted by hydrobatidae at 6:05 AM on July 29, 2013
Finish the dissertation and the degree, this buys you time. Time is your friend.
You may never work in your field, but having completed it says that you are the kind of person who can get a job done.
If push comes to shove, you can join the military. You might be able to go in as an officer and get a really interesting desk job. You may do intelligence using your native language and your humanities degree to help understand the unstabile political and economic situation in your homeland.
Head over to a recruiter now to see what your options might be. This is a GREAT path to citizenship. Much better than a green card marriage, plus the benefits are outstanding. (Healthcare, PX, Commissary, housing.)
Good luck, you're not in a bind, you are on the threshold of an adventure!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:30 AM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
You may never work in your field, but having completed it says that you are the kind of person who can get a job done.
If push comes to shove, you can join the military. You might be able to go in as an officer and get a really interesting desk job. You may do intelligence using your native language and your humanities degree to help understand the unstabile political and economic situation in your homeland.
Head over to a recruiter now to see what your options might be. This is a GREAT path to citizenship. Much better than a green card marriage, plus the benefits are outstanding. (Healthcare, PX, Commissary, housing.)
Good luck, you're not in a bind, you are on the threshold of an adventure!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:30 AM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
Are there any options for postdoc fellowships? This can also buy you 1-2 years of figuring out your situation. I have several friends (on visas) that did this after defending.
Just because you know you don't want to end up in academia doesn't mean other people need to know that. Find the lowest baseline job/research you can do to maintain a visa (any kind of visa) and support yourself. Yeah, it's not your dream life, but it buys you time to figure out how to make your dream life happen. If you do land a job in academia, you don't really even have to publish. Yeah, if you want tenure or any long-term options in that field, then you do, but you don't want those things, so you just need to do the bare minimum to keep your job/fellowship to maintain your visa for a year or two. Basically, what I'm saying is adopt the Office Space approach to this ("my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.").
Finish your dissertation, get your degree, find something you can tolerate for a year or two.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:21 AM on July 29, 2013
Just because you know you don't want to end up in academia doesn't mean other people need to know that. Find the lowest baseline job/research you can do to maintain a visa (any kind of visa) and support yourself. Yeah, it's not your dream life, but it buys you time to figure out how to make your dream life happen. If you do land a job in academia, you don't really even have to publish. Yeah, if you want tenure or any long-term options in that field, then you do, but you don't want those things, so you just need to do the bare minimum to keep your job/fellowship to maintain your visa for a year or two. Basically, what I'm saying is adopt the Office Space approach to this ("my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.").
Finish your dissertation, get your degree, find something you can tolerate for a year or two.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:21 AM on July 29, 2013
Response by poster: OK, I guess I should snap out of the silly fear that my advisor will read this and recognize me. My field is linguistics. (I know most people classify linguistics under the social sciences rather than the humanities, but I work on classical languages and have an MA in Classics so I'm much closer to the humanities part of the field.)
Just to clarify, I do intend to finish the Ph.D. (though it'll be a hard slog) -- I realize that having some options is better than having none, even if they aren't options I particularly want.
posted by zeri at 10:06 AM on July 29, 2013
Just to clarify, I do intend to finish the Ph.D. (though it'll be a hard slog) -- I realize that having some options is better than having none, even if they aren't options I particularly want.
posted by zeri at 10:06 AM on July 29, 2013
Start browsing twitter and searching google for stuff in your field tagged "alt-ac" for alternative academic careers. If you have programming skills those, plus your linguistics background, could get you a great job in digital humanities.
posted by MsMolly at 10:13 AM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by MsMolly at 10:13 AM on July 29, 2013 [1 favorite]
If you have any interest in a technical career, you could perhaps parlay a PhD in Linguistics in to a position doing some sort of Natural Language Processing or other Computational Linguistics. For example, I know Google has a group working on automatic translation, and I'm sure they do all kinds of analyses of texts and such for other projects, too. I would imagine they probably need some folks heavier on the linguistics side as well as the computational side.
posted by djspinmonkey at 4:06 PM on July 29, 2013
posted by djspinmonkey at 4:06 PM on July 29, 2013
Just because you know you don't want to end up in academia doesn't mean other people need to know that. Find the lowest baseline job/research you can do to maintain a visa (any kind of visa) and support yourself. Yeah, it's not your dream life, but it buys you time to figure out how to make your dream life happen. If you do land a job in academia, you don't really even have to publish. Yeah, if you want tenure or any long-term options in that field, then you do, but you don't want those things, so you just need to do the bare minimum to keep your job/fellowship to maintain your visa for a year or two. Basically, what I'm saying is adopt the Office Space approach to this ("my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.").
In the current academic climate this is not a good idea. Leaving aside the ethics of this, at some point you'll probably still need a reference. Doing this will mean you'll not get one. And even if you did lie convincingly enough to land a tenure track job once they realise you're not doing anything or just the bare minimum in terms of showing up to work the department will land you with the heaviest teaching and admin load they can. And every place that I have encountered has a means for firing people ahead of time if they think they're just doing nothing (I have heard of someone being fired after 3 months, but that was an exceptional case admittedly). Your life will be as miserable as everyone you work with can make it (and they can make it fairly miserable) because you'll be resented. It's not like it was even 20 years ago when you could get away with this strategy until your 3 year review or even later.
So finish out the PhD, take advantage of that time to tap into whatever resources your university offers in terms of career counselling - and especially CV writing, because you'll need to radically relearn how to write one even if you go for high school teaching. And see what alumni/alumnae networks they have - most institutions have people on file who are willing to meet with you and it's good to start building connections as soon as you can.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 2:40 AM on July 30, 2013
In the current academic climate this is not a good idea. Leaving aside the ethics of this, at some point you'll probably still need a reference. Doing this will mean you'll not get one. And even if you did lie convincingly enough to land a tenure track job once they realise you're not doing anything or just the bare minimum in terms of showing up to work the department will land you with the heaviest teaching and admin load they can. And every place that I have encountered has a means for firing people ahead of time if they think they're just doing nothing (I have heard of someone being fired after 3 months, but that was an exceptional case admittedly). Your life will be as miserable as everyone you work with can make it (and they can make it fairly miserable) because you'll be resented. It's not like it was even 20 years ago when you could get away with this strategy until your 3 year review or even later.
So finish out the PhD, take advantage of that time to tap into whatever resources your university offers in terms of career counselling - and especially CV writing, because you'll need to radically relearn how to write one even if you go for high school teaching. And see what alumni/alumnae networks they have - most institutions have people on file who are willing to meet with you and it's good to start building connections as soon as you can.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 2:40 AM on July 30, 2013
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posted by Brent Parker at 10:53 PM on July 28, 2013