It is your career

It is not your adviser's, your mentor's, your significant other's, your father's, your mother's, your department chair's, your dean's, the head of your campus's tenure and promotion committee; its your career, and that is both a terrifying prospect, and a liberational truth. The job you get, what you publish, what you study, and what you teach have nothing to do with any of these people, regardless of what you think. It is your life, your career, and even those from the most collectivist cultures in the world must contend with this fact; your career most certainly can be a way of giving back to your community, but it is yours. You are not failing anyone if you have the type of career that YOU wish to have.

Hello UWT Students

I just found out that a class at my home institution, the University of Washington Tacoma, are reading this blog. Please feel free to respond to any posts, and ask any questions that you wish me to respond to. Also, feel free to say hi to me on campus!

Bang for the buck

At this point in the term, there are just more things to do than I have time (or energy) for.  At moments like this, when I feel so "full," so completely swamped, I try to see if there are things that I can do that give me most "bang for my buck."

Yes, there is the list that tells me what must be done- I have to do the things that cannot wait (for example, I have a conference abstract due tomorrow, yikes!). But, what can I do that will pay the most future dividends, give me the most satisfaction and/or value for my career? Thinking about these type of tasks when I feel swamped help me keep a forward focus when I cannot seem to get out from under the mountain of tasks.

Remembering to read

Remembering to read; sometimes I just forget. I know, it makes no sense. After all, that is what academicians do no? We read and write, and these inform our teaching, which in turn again inform our research. It is the cycle of discovery, of inquiry, of the academic life. Yet, sometimes I just forget how central reading is to this equation. Not just reading for classes, or for a particular article, but to stimulate and push my thinking. Today, I am going to finish Pico Iyer's, The Man Within My Head. What are you going to read?

Humility verses vision

I am often struck how sometimes publishing an article comes down to striking a fine balance between humility verses my own vision. Editors and reviewers ask for one set of changes; sometimes I don't see them as improving my work. I know that I need to be humble enough to take in their feedback, yet at times be willing to walk away if my own vision for an article would be compromised by revisions (read- submit to a new journal right away).

I need to make certain that I don't see my words as too precious; there are many ways to approach language and scholarly work. Yet, at times, bending will not serve my work well, and I know it. There is not magic formula for how to do this, other than a good deal of self reflection, or getting feedback from a trusted colleague or mentor.

Get er' done!

One of my favorite expressions from my three years of living in the South: Get er' done! To me, "get her done" is about movement, momentum and completion. It is about knowing which of the multitute of tasks that we all have just need to be finished, not debated, contemplated, or crafted with an eye to perfection. The truth is, we all cannot bring our "A" games to all the tasks in our life; there has to be a place for just getting through some tasks.

So, in that spirit, here is a challenge: Take a look at your to do list (yes, you need one or two, if not more, two do lists), and knock out a few tasks you that need to be done. Find ones that do not need the best of you, but just need to be completed. Identify them, and "get er' done!"

Generating verses completion

For scholars trying to be productive, one of the most important issues to attend to is the balance between generating the new, and completing the old. There is no magic formula regarding how much attention to pay to one or the other, yet some attention should be paid to both.  

Those who start new things every day and pay no attention to finishing have lots of wonderful ideas but nothing to show for it. Those who pay no attention to new idea formulation tend to have large blocks of fallow time after an article is submitted. Both can be depressing.

My advice, assess your tendency and consciously work toward a balance between both tasks. Push yourself in the direction that runs counter to your tendency (if indeed, you find yourself not well balanced in this regard).