(no subject)

[bedlamsbard]

The longer I’m in academia, the more I’m aware of the whole “you never get a day off, you don’t get a real weekend, it’s almost impossible to separate being ‘off’ and being ‘on’” thing. And I do have a more-or-less hard stop time in the evenings (this time of the term it gets more flexible than I would like), but damn, I just really wish I could have two days a week to turn my school brain off.

Every semester I say that I’m going to finally prioritize actually having a break every week and push my stop time up to a more reasonable hour (it’s currently 10 pm, which I pushed up from midnight last year with some serious effort), but between how overwhelmed I’ve been this semester (essentially five classes, which is really not tenable on a graduate level) and the way I work it just was not possible.

Next semester, I hope. I’ve only got two classes (and one’s a directed reading) and a giant paper, down from five classes and screaming (three actual classes, my Intro to College Teaching workshop + portfolio, and the class I’m TAing), so in any sane universe that will be much easier to handle. But also, just, damn. This has not been a great semester, and it’s about to go even worse since I now have to write the final papers I kept putting off because I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with them due to the regular amount of work I had to do on a weekly basis.

Comments

[toujours_nigel]

The longer I’m in academia, the more I’m aware of the whole “you never get a day off, you don’t get a real weekend, it’s almost impossible to separate being ‘off’ and being ‘on’” thing.

This is the thing I'm most looking forward to changing after I submit, at least for a while.

[bedlamsbard]

It's rough. I tend to work in these tiny little amounts over long periods of time, which adds up but is also pretty dependent on not taking days off. And then obviously I didn't do that this semester. Sigh, academia. How much more do you have to go?

[toujours_nigel]

I am not that good at time-management, so I tend to spend a couple-three days shoving through what should have been done all week. :(

Last year, gotta finish by August 19.

[bedlamsbard]

Time management is my nemesis. I got better at it when I was having my wrist issues a few years ago, but this semester has just been so overwhelming that it all fell apart, sigh.

Last year is very exciting! *pom poms*

[toujours_nigel]

Last year is terrifying. *g*

I couldn't possibly fic the way you do and manage academic work at all, I end up doing one or the other.

[bedlamsbard]

You can do it!

I'm mildly shocked I can (more or less) pull it off, tbh. Though the one time I could not do so (for various reasons) it basically killed my emotional stability for a while, and then afterwards I wrote like 100K in a very, very short period of time.

[schneefink]

Ugh, that sounds really hard to deal with. Good luck finding time to take a break next semester.

[bedlamsbard]

Thanks! A lot of it I brought on myself this semester despite knowing better, but that doesn't really help the feeling. <3

[dhampyresa]

Hope next semester goes better for you.

[bedlamsbard]

So do I! Thank you!

[harmony_lover]

I'm so sorry. As a full-time prof., I know this pain so well. It is so hard to separate the off and on, and to make yourself stop, and it doesn't really get any better. *sigh* (Unless, of course, you end up working at an R1, which at this point is like finding a mirage in the desert.)

[bedlamsbard]

It's rough. I'd hope it gets better for professors, but... *hands* We had a professor come visit for a talk, from a small lib arts college, and she is one of two faculty members in her department and thus teaches something like five classes a semester, which? is having tenure really worth that? is it really? but I digress.

[harmony_lover]

Sounds familiar. I teach four classes a term, am routinely on four committees, and still go to conferences and publish (which is insane, btw. I don't recommend it, unless you absolutely have to). But higher ed is becoming more and more work-heavy, and less and less about actual intellectual work, which by its very nature takes time and mental space. I am not sure what will happen - I keep hoping that we will see a shift back toward supporting education in general and higher ed in particular, but that's not likely to happen with our current administration.

I wish you all the best of luck with your final papers, though! It sounds like you have done a tremendous job keeping up with an insane workload, and you should be proud of that! Remember to keep taking care of yourself when you write your finals - eat and drink, even if you don't get enough sleep. (I'm terribly guilty of foregoing food and drink when I get absorbed, so I always try to remind others.) Hang in there!

[bedlamsbard]

*nods* It's something that's been the topic of a lot of conversations lately -- my department is doing several new hires at the moment (and the rumor is they were ordered to push one of them through by the administration), and one of the members of my caucus is on the job market for the first time, so at the moment I'm seeing both sides of that process. (I am very firmly determined not to think about it until I'm on the job market, which won't be for another three or four years at the earliest. By then anything could happen.)

Thank you! Sleeping actually isn't a problem, though food can be -- and this time of year I'm less willing to go out, since I walk everywhere, alas. As long as I get one of the two...

[harmony_lover]

I'm glad you aren't on the market yet! I do hope it will be better in another three or four years (and also after another election!) My hope is that it gets better for all of us - professors and grad students. We're all in this profession together, and we depend on each other in so many ways.

I'm glad you are at least getting enough sleep! :) Good luck with the end of your term, and hang in there. :)

[bedlamsbard]

At least at my university, there's been an increasing awareness of how bad it is, though I think my department is struggling with it somewhat. There's been a movement towards highlight alt-ac opportunities, at least. (My particular program is in an interesting position of not yet having graduated a PhD (it's only a six-year-old program), so we have no idea how this degree is going to hold up competitively. So no pressure to the ancient who's currently on the market, the first person from ancient history who's going to graduate.)

*weak cheer* Thank you!

[harmony_lover]

That's really good, that your department and your university are highlighting alt-ac opportunities. I don't think that's really penetrated a lot of schools yet, and it should! There are more businesses, NGOs, etc., that are hiring academically trained people for their skill sets, and that's so important.

I wish you luck both in the remainder of your program and in the job hunt! I'm happy to talk and be an ear anytime, if you would like to talk to someone who has been through the process. I finished my PhD in 2010, so I am not all that far removed from either a PhD program or the job market. :)

[bedlamsbard]

The department is not necessarily doing it well, as evidenced by the recent occasion upon which they brought in a group of alumni who had...all gotten tenure-track jobs and published books...in response to student requests for more alt-ac professional guidance, but the are trying, so points for effort?

Thank you! I'm at the point in the semester where I'm mostly just attempting to (a) finish my papers/projects/grading and (b) not keel over dead in the process, so at this point I'm sustained mostly by stress and tea.